Commons Sitting of 18 April 1842

MINUTES.
BILLS. Public.—1°. Excise Duties; Compounds; Roasted Malt; Property Tax. Private.—1° Mieville's Divorce. 2° Kington Roads; Camberwell and Feckham Lighting. Reported.—Weston-super-Mare Improvement and Market; Southwark Improvement (No. 2).
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Lord Dalmeny, Mr. Craig, Mr. Sharman Crawford, Mr. Wakley, Sir Thomas Troubridge, Mr. Thomas Duncombe, Mr. Colville, Mr. Mac-kinnon, Mr. Hutt, Sir John Hanmer, Mr. Barnard, Lord John Russell, and other hon. Members, from Ross, Athlone, Edinburgh, Rochdale, St. Austell, Leeds, Windsor, Stroud, Rochdale, Gateshead, Northallerton, Littlebo-

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rough, Stirling, Norfolk, South Shields, and other places, against the Income-tax.—By Sir R. Inglis, from Prescott, and Twyning, against any further Grant to Maynooth College.—By Lord Francis Egerton, and Sir Thomas Freemantle, from Bolton, and Rye, in favour of the Government Financial Measure.—By Mr. C. Berkeley, from Guardians of the Poor in Thornbury, and Chipping Sodbury, that Railway Companies may be compelled to Contribute to the Maintenance of the Poor in those Parishes through which they pass By Mr. Wakley, and other hon. Members, from Shoemakers in Nottingham, Winchester, Reading, Eton, Portsmouth, and other places, against the proposed Alteration in the Import Duty on Foreign Boots and Shoes By Mr. D. Jackson, and Sir R. Bateson, from Rincurran, Killowen, and other places, against the National Education System (Ireland). —By Sir Robert Bateson, from several places in the county of Antrim, for an Alteration of the Law of Marriages (Ireland).—By Mr. Beckett, from Attorneys at Leeds, and Derby, for Repeal of the Duty on their Certificates.—By Mr. Hardy, and Lord Francis Egerton, from Bolton, and Oakham, against the New Poor-law Amendment Act.—By Mr, Blackstone, from Baydon, Wallingford, and the Western Division of Norfolk, against the Importation of Foreign Cattle.—From St. Mary*s, Lambeth, for the Redemption of the Tolls on Waterloo, and the other Metropolitan Bridges.—From Pembroke, against the Removal of the Mail Packet Stations from Milford and Waterford.—From Ratepayers of Strabane, complaining of the acts of the Poor-law Commissioners.—From the Catholic Inhabitants of Armagh, complaining of the proceedings of the Law Officers of the Crown at the North East Circuit of the late Assizes.— From J. J. Stockdale, for substituting Solemn Declarations for Oaths.—From W. Carson, praying that an Inquiry may be made into his plan for Heating and Ventilating the New Houses of Parliament.—From Edinburgh, and Chippenham, for, and from Batheaston, against the Repeal of the Corn-laws.—From Aberdeen, for a Fixed Duty on Corn.—From R. E. Varely, for Compensation to Corn Inspectors.—From Aberdeen, against Reduction of Duty on Foreign Corks, and against the Exportation of Labourers from British India.—From W. Robinson, praying that a Tax may be levied on all Property in Great Britain and Ireland for the Discharge of the National Debt,

DRAINAGE.
Mr. F. Maulewished to put a question to the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of Slate for the Home Department with respect to the Drainage Bill. The right hon. Baronet must be aware that there were two bills under the consideration of the committee up stairs. He was anxious to know from the right hon. Baronet when he would be able to introduce the Drainage Bill into that House.
Sir J. Grahamcould not, at present, name any particular day, but he begged to assure the right hon. Gentleman that the bill was in a forward state of preparation.

EXPORT-DUTY ON COALS.
Mr. Ricewished to know, whether coals taken on board foreign ships for the ship's use merely, or be placed in depot on foreign stations for the use of steamers, would be subjected to the duty intended to be imposed upon the exportation of coals?
Sir Robert Peelcould not at present give an answer to the question. The subject was under consideration.

THE TARIFF.
Mr. Huttwished to ascertain from the right hon. Baronet, the First Lord of the Treasury, in what order he proposed to bring under the consideration of the House the different measures adverted to in his financial statement. The right hon. Baronet had stated the other evening, that after the Income-tax Bill had been read a second time, he would bring the tariff under consideration. His question was this:—Did the Government intend to take the tariff in precisely the same tabular order in which it stood in the printed paper? or was it intended to consider, first of all, those questions in the tariff which related to the supplies of the year, and afterwards questions of a purely commercial nature?
Sir Robert Peelsaid, that the statement he had made was, that he wished to be certain that the Income-tax Bill would be adopted by the House before he proceeded with the consideration of the tariff. It was of great importance that the House should decide upon the question of the Income-tax, as, if it sanctioned the principle, there would be many details to be settled as to the mode of collection. He hoped, however, that the discussion in committee would not be very protracted, but he could not bring forward the tariff until he felt pretty well assured that the Income-tax would pass. When that should be the case, he would be perfectly willing to proceed with the tariff. He was as well aware as any hon. Member could be of the importance of taking the tariff into early consideration; and he trusted that the House would consider that measure as a whole whenever it should be submitted to their consideration. He saw no reason why the tariff should not be submitted to the consideration of the committee in exactly the form in what had been laid upon the Table of the House.

INCOME-TAX—FIRST READING.
Sir Robert Peelthen brought in the Income-tax Bill.
On the question that it be read a first time,
Lord John Russellsaid, the House would remember that there had been no division in the House upon the question of the approbation of the Income-tax. The

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resolution had passed in the Committee of Ways and Means without a division. Afterwards when the report was brought up, he proposed to the House not a simple negative to the proposal for an Income-tax, but a resolution containing what he thought was the plan that ought to be pursued. The question, therefore, upon which the House had then decided, and upon which many hon. Members did not concur with him, was whether the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman should be accepted, or whether some other alternative should be approved of instead. After that division, it being a late hour of the night, and the House, being fatigued by the discussion upon the general question, he thought with the right hon. Gentleman, that it would be the more convenient course not then to take a division upon the question of agreement with the resolution. He therefore came now simply to that question only, without having any alternative to propose, but viewing the case only as an ordinary one of moving to bring in a bill against which he entertained a decided and insuperable objection. Having already troubled the House at length upon the question, he would not again go over the general arguments against the proposal, but he must say, that at the conclusion of the debate last week, those arguments remained entirely untouched by the right hon. Gentleman and his supporters. The general argument which he had intended to establish, and in which several of his hon. Friends had followed him, was, that this tax ought not to be imposed except at a time of extreme necessity—that a case of extreme necessity had not arisen, and that there were no circumstances in the general state of the country which justified the measure, and that financially speaking, there were other and less objectionable measures that might be adopted. The other evening, he had found, that the general course of the argument which he had adopted, had not only been shared by those hon. Members with whom he had, in general, the happiness to act, but that it had been forcibly stated some years ago by the right hon. Gentleman himself against the very same measure which the right hon. Gentleman, as the organ of the Government, proposed now to bring in. He had not, on the last occasion, been aware of the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman had stated his argument
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before, but if he had been, his own arguments could not have better tallied with that of the right hon. Gentleman. If the House would allow him, he would read to them what the right hon. Gentleman had said in 1833. In speaking of the conduct of Lord Althorp, (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) the right hon. Gentleman was reported to have said—
" He thought likewise that the noble Lord had done well in not proposing an income or a property-tax. Nothing but a case of extreme necessity could justify Parliament in subjecting the people of this country, in a time of peace, to the inquisitorial process which must be resorted to in order to render that impost productive; and to have recourse to such a machinery for the purpose of raising 2 or 3 per cent, would be most unwise."
So it would appear, that with a sort of prophetic foresight of what was to happen in 1842, the right hon. Gentleman, in 1833, had fixed upon his present proposition, and declared it to be most unwise. Therefore he did not think it could be justly ascribed to that disposition, which it was alleged existed on his part, to find fault with everything that was proposed by the Government, that he had ventured to make some opposition to a proposition which was now represented to be so harmless, as an Income-tax. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say—
" Such a tax was a great resource in time of necessity, and therefore he was unwilling, by establishing the offensive inquisition with which it must be accompanied, to create such an odium against it as might render it almost impracticable to resort to it in time of extreme necessity."
That was also an objection he had ventured repeatedly to make. He had not, ventured, perhaps, to express it in such strong terms, but he had ventured to say, that the infliction of this tax upon the country, at a time when there was no necessity for it, would give the country such a distaste against that tax— that it would become so unpopular, that it would be a barrier in the way of any Government which, in time of urgent necessity or peril, might find it necessary to establish it. One of the arguments used in reference to this tax, and upon the effect of which the right hon. Gentleman relied for its popularity, was, that it only affected persons possessed of income above 150 l. a-year; and the right hon. Gentleman relied upon this argument, in order to put down the petitions of those who felt themselves ag-

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grieved by the tax being placed upon them. He thought, that that course was unjustifiable, because the persons directly affected by this tax, although they might have more than 150 l. a year, were persons who ought to be as much the objects of consideration to that House as any class whatsoever. There were clergymen, physicians —men of various professions—who struggled with almost as much difficulty as a labouring man, in order to maintain their families in that state of decent respectability which became men of education, who were accustomed to the comforts of life. He had stated, moreover, that although the proposed tax might, perhaps, be said only to affect persons of income directly, yet that it did indirectly affect the labouring classes, who would lose employment thereby. On that point, the right hon. Gentleman had said,
" With respect to a tax upon property, as distinguished from a tax upon income, he very much doubted whether it would promote the interests of the labouring classes, because it would diminish the funds at present appropriated to the encouragement of industry, and the promotion of labour, and it would ultimately be found, that the tax did not affect the* person who paid it, so much as the labourer, by diminishing his means of employment."
That was the wise and considerate sentiment expressed by the right hon. Baronet in 1833; and were they now told by the right hon. Gentleman, as a member of the Government, that an Income-tax was advantageous—that it would fall only upon the rich, and not upon the labouring poor. The House might depend upon it that, so far as regarded the effect of the tax upon the labouring poor employed in trades and manufactures, the opinions expressed by the right hon. Gentleman in 1833 were wise and sound. There was another question with respect to this tax, of which little notice had been taken in the course of the debate, but which was considered of importance in 1833, when Lord Althorp and the right hon. Gentleman spoke upon the subject. It was that portion of the tax which related to Ireland. He was glad that Ireland was to be exempt from the operation of the tax; he deemed it an inquisitorial, oppressive, and unjust tax, and rejoiced that any portion of the United Kingdom was to be free from it, and if other parts were to be exempted also he should rejoice yet more. But he knew not how it could be argued — and that was one part of the plan which he never could understand to
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be justifiable—that it was not desirable to have an Income-tax in Ireland, but that it was desirable to have taxes upon stamps and articles of consumption. They had pursued a reverse course in these cases to the course they were adopting on the present occasion. If the proposed principles of taxation were good and right, apply them to Ireland as well as to England. If, on the other hand, the course pursued towards Ireland was right, as he believed it was, why not adopt it as towards England and Scotland? It had been said that machinery for the collection of the tax was wanting in Ireland. But the right hon. Gentleman proposed to lay a tax upon the landed property of absentees, and there must be some machinery in order to find out what that landed property was, and the income arising from it. It was said that the machinery under the Poor-law Act was to be applied to that purpose: if that held good with respect to absentees, it was quite clear that the same machinery might be applied to the other purpose. He could not, therefore, discover that that was the chief reason for not applying the tax to Ireland. But what had the right hon. Gentleman said in 1833, with respect to the application of the tax to Ireland? Lord Althorp having said, that he did not see how he could exempt Ireland from the pressure, the right hon. Baronet observed:
"The application of the tax to Ireland would be attended with extreme difficulty. He really believed that this circumstance formed the main obstacle to the establishment of the tax. It hardly could be contended that, if a property-tax were established, Ireland should be exempted from its operation. He wished to see Ireland as much favoured as possible consistently with justice; but to impose a property-tax upon England and Scotland, and to exempt Ireland from its operation, would, in his opinion, however unpopular that opinion might be, be exceedingly unjust."
He was satisfied with that declaration of the right hon. Gentleman. He could understand the argument that the tax might be inexpedient and oppressive in 1833, but that in 1842 circumstances might be such, that what was inexpedient then might be expedient now; but how that which was unjust in 1833 could be just in 1842 was, he owned, past the limits of his comprehension. He found that the other parts of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, from which he was then quoting, treated of other subjects; but if there were any passages in which, after having said the

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tax was unjust, the right hon. Gentleman had proved it to be just, it was, of course, in his power to quote them. He was quite aware of the right hon. Gentleman's ingenuity—of the ability with which, according to the statement of one of his Colleagues, he could dress up a statement for that House; but it would be difficult for even his ability to prove that just which he had shown to be unjust. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman appeared to contain the pith and substance of all the arguments they had heard during the late debate, and it was satisfactory to him to find that, without being aware of it, the objections he had offered to the proposed tax were founded upon grounds precisely similar to those that had been assumed by the right hon. Gentleman in 1833. The book from which he had quoted was a book called Hansard's Debates٭—a book certainly very familiar to hon. Gentlemen on the other side; but he was told, that in another report of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, namely, that in the Mirror of Parliament, epithets still stronger were ascribed to the right hon. Gentleman. There the right hon. Gentleman was made to use the term "disgusting inquisition." Now, supposing the tax to be of that nature, how was the second part of the proposition made out—that the circumstances in which the Government was placed were so extraordinary, and the peril so great, as to induce Parliament to agree to the imposition of the tax? He had indeed heard many attempts made by Members of the Cabinet to paint in darker colours the situation and prospects of the country, and to represent her inability to meet her enemies in less favourable terms than he could have wished to hear. Those expressions had indeed awakened the indignation of his right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, but he thought they had signally failed of success. In a review of the state of the country, let them not omit from their consideration those parts of the empire which they were accustomed to regard in relation to its domestic and foreign position. Take the whole United Kingdom. England and Scotland were tranquil; Ireland was tranquil; the law which at present prevailed in that country was no exception at law, different from that of the rest of the kingdom. Ireland was under no insurrection act, no coercion act; and
* See Vol, xvii., third series, p. 344,
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he trusted the noble Secretary for Ireland would feel proud of the tranquillity which prevailed there. Something had been said with respect to Canada. What had been the state of Canada for a number of years? For some time that colony had had a popular assembly. They represented certain grievances, which were remedied; but fresh demands were made, which rendered it necessary for the Legislature to insist upon what was probably an infraction of a constitutional principle, and an insurrection was consequent upon that act. The events, then, from 1832 to 1837, were unsatisfactory and dangerous in regard to Canada; but now an assembly or Parliament was constituted there, the great majority of which were well affected to the Crown and the interests of the British empire. Therefore, with respect to Canada, there was no danger which called for an extraordinary measure. With regard to our foreign relations with the principal powers of Europe, he could see no immediate danger. An hon. and learned Gentleman had certainly pointed out the means by which the fortunes of this country might be affected, and the circumstances which might lead to war, and he had not failed to observe the eagerness with which that statement was seized by the other side. Everything that looked like a prospect of war was caught up as an argument in favour of the Income-tax. But when, he would ask, had a Minister of this country ever imposed an Income-tax for a future contingent and prospective danger—a danger which he earnestly trusted would never fall upon this land? With respect to the melancholy reverses which we had experienced in India, and the calamities which had befallen our troops there, it had been said, and truly, that as a matter of finance they were to consider how far those misfortunes would be a drain upon this country; and, considered in that light, it had been shown by an hon. Gentleman, who had addressed the House particularly on that branch of the subject, that the present state of India did not require the imposition of a tax allowed to be oppressive, inquisitorial, and unequal. Much had been said about our relations with China, and one of the members of the Cabinet had spoken in terms which might have been used if the Emperor of China had been the Emperor Napoleon, and the fleet of junks at Canton had been the flotilla at Boulogne, If

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the dangers of 1804 and 1805 had been encompassing us, no Minister could have painted them in stronger colours than those used by the right hon. Gentleman in reference to the war with China. He had no such apprehensions with regard to that war as those expressed by the right hon. Gentleman. It was a war thus distinguished from other wars, that the whole expense was confined to the expense of the expedition itself. If we had been at war with one of the great powers of Europe, or with the United States, it would have been thought necessary to strengthen our colonial possessions, and so to order matters, that neither by sea nor land should the enemy gain advantage over us there. In the present case there was no such necessity. Nobody expected the Emperor of China to capture Jamaica, or to attack Gibraltar. It had been said there was no prospect of peace, but he thought the reverse. If it was meant that we could not compel the Emperor of China to sign a treaty of peace with this country, acknowledging our Sovereign as an equal monarch, there might be some ground for the assertion; but there was an alternative. But, supposing that not to be the case—supposing that it were not possible without incurring a much greater expense than would be advisable, to bring the Supreme Court of China to the terms which England would dictate, even then it would be in the power of this country to hold possession of some part of the Chinese territory—of the island of Hong Kong, or of Chusan, or of some other convenient point from which we might carry on our trade more securely than we had done of late years, and without the danger of having our Superintend-ant insulted or our trade suspended at the caprice of the Chinese. Therefore, with regard to China, he owned he could not see any such danger or ground of apprehension as seemed to influence the minds of the members of her Majesty's Government. That was his opinion of the general state of our relations with China. But supposing that he were mistaken—supposing that this country were annually compelled to pay a sum of 500.000 l. to defray the expense of an expedition against China for some years to come, even that, in his estimation, would be no excuse for the imposition of an Income-tax. The second part of the question, upon which he apprehended they would have frequent opportunities of speaking hereafter, and
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upon which, therefore, he should not enlarge upon the present occasion, was the which related to the tariff. He had no objection to the principle upon which the proposed alterations in the tariff were founded, for he was one of those who advised her Majesty, after stating to Parliament the necessity of considering some means of improving the revenue, to say in the speech delivered by the commissioners, on the opening of Parliament in the August of last year:—
" Her Majesty is anxious that this object should be effected in the manner least burdensome to her people, and it has appeared to her Majesty, after full deliberation, that you may, at this juncture, properly direct your attention to the revision of duties affecting the productions of foreign countries. It will be for you to consider whether some of these duties are not so trifling in amount as to be unproductive to the revenue, while they are vexatious to commerce. You may further examine whether the principle of protection, upon which others of these duties are founded, be not carried to an extent injurious alike to the income of the State, and the interests of the people. Her Majesty is desirous that you should consider the laws which regulate the trade in corn. It will be for you to determine whether these laws do not aggravate the natural fluctuations of supply, whether they do not embarrass trade, derange currency, and, by their operation, diminish the comfort and increase the privations of the great body of the community."
Having given that advice when he was a Minister of the Crown, he could not now object to the principles upon which the present changes in the tariff were proposed; but he begged to say, with regard to those changes that he thought it would have been far easier to have carried them through Parliament, and that they would have produced much less of the panic which was now understood to prevail in many parts of the country, if the right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel) had last year stated that these were the principles upon which he proposed to undertake the Government. Differing as the right hon. Baronet did from the late Ministry upon many points of policy, and declaring as he did that they were unworthy of the confidence of the House of Commons and of the country, it would still have been competent to him to have stated clearly and explicitly that with regard to the principles upon which our commercial tariff was at present founded, he thought there were many articles upon which the existing duly might be reduced to a mere nominal amount, and that there were other ar-

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ticles in respect to which the principle of protection was carried to an excessive and prejudicial extent. Had the right hon. Baronet done this, the people of the country, and especially the farmers of the country, who liked plain dealing upon subjects of this kind, would have understood what the right hon. Baronet meant to do; and seeing that both the great parties in the country, and the leaders generally on both sides of the House, were agreed upon these great principles, they would have had time and have taken means to consider whether they would not concur in those principles as proposed either by the one party or the other. But, even now, when the right hon. Baronet adopted these principles, it appeared to him that the right hon. Baronet had a hesitation in saying that which was the only proper thing to be said upon the subject. He had always said that the carrying of those principles into execution might at the first moment occasion inconvenience, might occasion injury, might occasion loss to many interests directly involved in the existing system; but that that injury and that loss would be repaid, and more than repaid, by the future and general prosperity of the country. But the right hon. Baronet did not say this. He was continually saying, with regard to corn and to articles of agricultural production, that the alteration in the tariff was to do two things. Whenever he spoke to the country generally he pointed to the revised tariff, and said, "This will diminish the cost of living—this will lessen the cost of articles of subsistence, and thereby the general welfare of the labouring and middle classes will be improved"—but when the right hon. Baronet spoke to the producers of these articles—when he addressed himself to the farmers, and to persons interested in agriculture, he said— "Prices will not be diminished—no material alteration will take place—your produce will be of the same value in the market." It was needless to remark that the right hon. Baronet in making these adverse statements was placing himself in an untenable position. As a matter of arithmetic it was plain and palpable, that this, which was to cost less to the consumer, could not be sold at the same price by the producer. The right hon. Baronet could not by possibility achieve the two things of which he spoke. He might accomplish the one, or he might accomplish the other. But the accomplishment of the
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two being impossible, would it not be much more frank and fair, much more like plain and honest dealing, if the right hon. Baronet, instead of shuffling between the two great interests of the country, were to tell them boldly and candidly what he really contemplated as the result of his proposition? If the right hon. Baronet adopted sound principles, let him be prepared to avow them. Let him not shrink from the truth—let him not be ashamed to own that he was acting upon sound principles of trade and commerce; upon principles which all the most enlightened writers upon these subjects had generally agreed, and which he (Sir Robert Peel) would not blush to own nor fear to defend, if they were called in question. For his part, when these questions came under discussion, he should act according to the principles he had always professed. He might probably think that with respect to certain articles the right hon. Baronet proposed to take off the protection rather too suddenly; with respect to others, he might think that the principle of reduction was not carried far enough; but generally, and as a whole, the principle which pervaded the proposed tariff was such as met with his approbation and would receive his support. He would mention one instance, in which he confessed he thought some explanation would be necessary. Hitherto there had been a heavy duty upon the importation of foreign copper; but the smelting of foreign copper in this country was not forbidden. The consequence was, that very considerable quantities of foreign copper ore had been brought here for the purpose of smelting, and the persons engaged in smelting it had afterwards sold that copper at a much lower price than British copper in foreign countries. A few years ago, when there was great activity in the dock-yards of this country and of France, he remembered perfectly well, that copper went from England to France 15 percent, cheaper than it could be obtained in the dockyards of thi3 country. That was a part of the absurdity of the old law. The right hon. Baronet proposed, and very properly proposed, to change that law. But if the right hon. Baronet proposed to alter the restriction which had hitherto affected the importation of foreign copper, the right hon. Baronet must abandon the argument that he had urged, with respect to the importation of foreign sugar; because, in the proposed change with respect

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to copper, the right hon. Baronet was favouring the mines of Cuba. Mines worked by slaves. The right hon. Baronet would be giving an advantage not hitherto enjoyed to the producers of copper ore in a colony where the mines were worked by slaves, slaves subjected to the hardest and most oppressive kind of labour. How could the right hon. Baronet reconcile these inconsistencies in his proposition. If the principle upon which he proposed to act in respect to foreign copper were right, then why did he not stand to it in respect to foreign sugar. The two cases were exactly analogous; then why apply two different principles to them. With respect to the tariff, then, all that he would now say was, that whilst he approved generally of the principles upon which it was founded, he hoped that in some respects the right hon. Baronet would reconsider it, and that in others he would extend and enlarge it. He had stated at the commencement of his speech, that he had now no proposition to offer to the House. The question with respect to corn and some other articles had already been decided in that branch of the Legislature, Upon those topics, therefore, he should now be silent, but he conceived that in any view of the subject, the Income-tax was at this moment unnecessary; and that, if not based on the ground of great public necessity, it would be attended with all the disadvantages which were so ably pointed out in the year 1833 by the present Prime Minister of the Crown. In his opinion, it would tend to weaken the resources of the country in time of real emergency: it would teach the people, at a time when the impost was not imperatively necessary, to find out all the objections to which it was justly liable, and would lead them to resist or evade it in the hour of absolute emergency, when no other resource might be left to the Government. He could conceive that in a time of great peril, even though the people might see their way to an evasion of the tax, yet that they would be governed by too much of public spirit and of patriotism to avail themselves of it, and would consent to pay to the very last farthing that they were justly chargeable. But what was the testimony of the right hon. Baronet himself to the feeling of the country with respect to the Income-tax at the present moment? The right hon. Baronet said, that although he thought it generally approved of, yet that every class wished to be exempted from it, or to lay
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some ground of favour in respect to it. In his estimation there could not be a stronger proof that this was not the moment to propose such a tax. Take fifty of the persons who declared themselves to be generally in favour of an Income-tax, and he (Lord John Russell) would venture to say that forty-nine out of the fifty would differ as to the mode in which it should be carried into execution. No stronger proof could be offered to show that this was not the time for such a tax. Let the hour of absolute necessity arise, and the country would submit to the imposition without raising so many grounds of exemption or modification. He was fully persuaded that there were other sources from which the present wants of the Exchequer might be supplied. Looking at the taxes which had been reduced since the year 1830, he ' was persuaded that there were ample means of replenishing the Exchequer without having recourse to this unjust and inquisitorial tax. With that feeling upon the subject he should conclude by moving as an amendment that the bill be read a first time that day six months.
Sir Robert Peel: The noble Lord had felt it incumbent upon him in the discharge of his public duty to take the very unusual course of resisting the first reading of the bill which he had brought in, in conformity with the resolution of the House. The chief part of the argument upon which the noble Lord justified that unusual course of proceeding had been rather general—a sort of argumentum ad hominem, addressed personally to him; and in which the noble Lord very fairly and candidly said that, having had some difficulty in discovering any valid and sufficiently satisfactory arguments against this bill, he had done him the honour of referring to a speech made by him in the year 1833, in which he found the arguments against a property-tax much stronger and much better put forward than any that he had yet heard. He confessed that, up to this period, he had thought that all the arguments advanced against the present proposed Income-tax were exceedingly weak and inefficient, and he did not think, when the circumstances under which the speech of 1833 was made were considered, that the noble Lord had much strengthened his case by referring to what he then said. When an authority was quoted, it was always of great importance to refer to the period and to the circumstances under which that authority spoke. When he

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stated his strong objection to the imposition of an Income-tax in 1833—objections, the force of which he felt at the present moment—what, at that time, was the financial position of the country? According to the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, there was then a net surplus of 1,500,000 l. Lord Althorp proposed a considerable remission of taxes upon articles of consumption, amounting to a loss of revenue to the extent of about 1,000,000 l. The immediate loss to the revenue would be greater; but Lord Althorp calculated upon an increase of consumption which would make up a part of the deficiency, and that the total loss that he would sustain by the proposed reduction of taxes would still leave him a net surplus of about 516,000 l. That was the financial position of the country when he was called upon to deliver an opinion upon a projected tax upon property and income. Proposals were made to reduce the malt-tax, the house-tax, and the window-tax; and it was proposed to impose a property-tax by way of commutation for the house-tax and the window-tax. He decidedly objected to the imposition of a property-tax to effect that commutation. And even now, if the Exchequer were in possession of a surplus of 500,000 l., and a proposition were made to reduce the malt-tax, the house-tax, and the window-tax, and to substitute in lieu of them a property-tax, he should offer to such a proposition the most strenuous opposition. He stated in 1833, that the house-tax and the window-tax partook of the nature of a property-tax, and that, having at that time a surplus of 500,000 l., he would not consent to the imposition of a direct property-tax —which he admitted to be open to many objections—with the view of relieving the country from a corresponding amount of charge upon houses and windows. What was the course which he took in 1833? Lord Althorp had lost the malt-tax. Lord Althorp asked what course he thought ought to be pursued. He replied,
"You may rely upon my support in the maintenance of the public credit; and if you come down to rescind the vote by which you have lost half the malt-tax, you may depend upon my support in utter oblivion of all political considerations."
He felt it to be his duty, under any circumstances, to maintain the public credit. He accordingly voted with Lord Althorp in rescinding the resolution of the House with respect to the malt-tax, and assisted
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him to the utmost of his power in upholding the public credit. And he begged to tell the noble Lord, that it was mainly in consequence of the assurance so derived from him that Lord Althorp took the strong and decided measure of calling upon the House to rescind the vote it had previously given upon the subject of the malt-tax. What was the vote in reference to a property-tax that Lord Althorp at that time asked him to join him upon? It was proposed to take off part of the malt-tax and part of the house-tax and window-tax. Lord Althorp met that proposition by another proposition. If the malt-tax, the house-tax, and the window-tax were reduced, this was the way in which Lord Althorp proposed to make up the deficiency that would be occasioned in the revenue— all this, be it observed, was in a time of profound peace, and when the only ground for the proposition was one of financial emergency—this was the way in which Lord Althorp proposed to proceed:—
" That the deficiency of the revenue which would be occasioned by a reduction of the tax on malt to 10 s. a quarter, and by the repeal of the taxes on houses and windows, could only be supplied by the substitution of a general tax on property, and would occasion an extensive change in our whole financial system, which would at present be in expedient. "
Four days after Lord Althorp moved that amendment he gave his vote in favour of Lord Althorp's proposition. When the noble Lord referred to his opinion, with respect to Ireland, he had done him an injustice in quoting only a part instead of the whole of the opinion he had expressed. He was willing to admit that Ireland had no claim to an exemption from a property tax to which England and Scotland were subject; but his reason for exempting it now was, because there was no machinery in Ireland, by which such a tax could be collected. He proposed, however, to raise a corresponding sum by an additional amount of taxation upon stamps and spirits. From those sources, the latter of which partook in some degree of the nature of a property tax, he calculated upon obtaining an equivalent for a general property tax in Ireland. When the noble Lord charged him with having changed his opinions upon the subject of the property tax, perhaps it would have been more fair if he had read the opinions which he expressed on the occasion. His words were these:—
" He repeated, that the repeal of the half

655
of the malt duty carried with it the repeal of the whole; and if the whole duty were repealed, and the house and window-tax were repealed, they would not be able to satisfy the public creditor; for it was a perfect delusion to suppose that the deficiency could be made up by increased consumption and by a reduction of expenditure. The only alternative, then, was a property-tax, to which he was decidedly opposed. He would not pledge himself beyond the present occasion; but he would say that, in the present circumstances of the country, and at the present period of the Session, either a property or an Income-tax would be a great calamity." *
Those were the opinions which he expressed in 1833, admitting the inquisitorial character of the tax, and objecting to it, by way of commutation for other taxes, at a time when there was a clear surplus of 1,500,000 l. in the Exchequer. But he asked whether the condition and circumstances of the country were not now so different as to justify him in taking a different view? The noble Lord said, that the Income-tax was one that would excite discontent, and even disgust in the country, as soon as it should come into actual operation. He admitted that it was not likely to be popular. But if he were to encounter so much of disgust, dissatisfaction, and unpopularity—if he were to be met by all the difficulties and obstructions which the noble Lord had pointed out, and some of which, perhaps, he could himself foresee —what reason could he have in proposing a measure which would bring these consequences upon his head, except a firm belief that it was absolutely necessary to maintain the public credit, and a conviction that that credit could not in any way be. so well maintained, or in a way so little oppressive to the country generally as by a property-tax. The noble Lord said, that there was no such pressing necessity which warranted the imposition of a property-tax. Why, at the end of the present year the deficiency upon the last six years would not be less than 10,000,000 l.; and upon the current year, ending April, 1843, the deficiency, exclusive of any expenditure that might be rendered necessary by the course of events in India, the deficiency would be at least 3,000,000 l. In addition to that, he calculated upon a loss of 1,200,000 l. from the reductions proposed upon the tariff, so that the gross deficit for which he should have to provide would not be less than 4,200,000 l. After all that had been stated in the course of the
* Hansard Vol, xvii. third series, p. 815,
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long and protracted debates upon the subject, he owned he could not see how he was to raise such an amount of revenue as would enable him to meet that large deficiency, without having recourse to such a tax upon income as that which he now proposed. Considering that they might confidently expect that the revival of trade and additional consumption would enable them to relieve the country from this tax, he thought they would much less disturb the industry of the country and the application of capital, by imposing a tax on property, than by trying to revive the taxes on such articles as salt, malt, and leather, which would have to be paid by all those whose condition they were so anxious to improve. He was firmly of opinion that he was consulting the interest and security of those who owned property, by the imposition of a property-tax, far more than he would have done had he subjected the great masses of the working classes to indirect taxation. Considering the manner in which property had accumulated, and considering the emergency in which the country was placed, he felt, that he was perfectly justified in the proposal which he had made to raise a deficit of 4,200,000 l. from the incomes of the landed aristocracy, and from the profits—for where no profits were made there would be no taxation— of those engaged in trades and professions, and he felt firmly convinced that his proposal was not only consistent with justice, but also with the interests of those by whom property was possessed. He believed, that among the consumers there was a feeling of satisfaction with his proposals, and a conviction that by the alterations proposed in the tariff they would be compensated for the inconvenience to which the tax would subject them. Notwithstanding the opinion which he formerly expressed, and which he still retained —that, with a surplus of 1,500,000 l., an Income-tax would be most unjust; and not denying its inequality or its inquisitorial character—still, from the result of the debates, and from the communications which he had received from various parts of the country, he was confirmed in the strong opinion which he had previously entertained when he opened the question to the House—that his proposal at the present emergency was both called for and just. He had not, in discussing the question, travelled beyond the limits which the noble Lord had prescribed. He had confined himself to answering the speech

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of the noble Lord, particularly that part of it having a personal reference. He thought it inconvenient to enter upon any discussion at the present moment in respect to the tariff. He thought he should be able to show, when the proper time came, that they might confidently rely on a reduction of price on the articles of subsistence, and that that reduction could be made consistently with the promotion of the interests of the producer as well as of the consumer. He would, however, take the present opportunity of stating, that he should propose two modifications in the measure, for the purpose of remedying the objections made in the course of the debate. One was, in reference to the position of tenants in Scotland, which had been stated, and truly stated, to be differing from the position of tenants in England. The tenant in Scotland was not subject to any payment on account of tithes, nor was he subject to any of those payments which in England usually fell on the occupying tenant, but which in Scotland were borne by the landlord; and this was the reason why, in the act of 1806, a distinction was made—apparently, but not in reality—in favour of the occupying tenant in Scotland. He wished to place the tenant in Scotland on the same footing, or as nearly as it was possible on the same footing, in this respect, as the tenant in England. If the English tenant occupies land tithe-free, he will be entitled to a deduction of one-eighth from the amount of assessment. That was clearly a deduction to which the tenant in Scotland was entitled. Again, supposing the landlord of the English tenant paid the usual charges, and this he almost universally did, the tenant in that case would be entitled to a remission. When he came to compute the amount of these deductions, he found that substantial justice would be done by charging the Scottish tenant on about one-third, instead of one-half of his rent, making him liable for 2½d. instead of 3d. in the pound. He believed that this would place the tenantry in the two countries on nearly the same footing. He thought it better to do this than to call on the tenant in Scotland to make a return of the amount of his exemptions. In regard to the other modification which he had made, he was aware that one great objection to the tax was its inquisitorial nature. It was said, and said with great force, that it was unfair to subject the trader, or any other person liable to con-
658
tribution under schedule D, to the inquisition established by the act of 1806; and it was further said, and no doubt justly enough, that the case of a trader or of a professional man differed from that of the landed proprietor or of the person possessing funded property, whose incomes were generally very well known. The arrangement which he proposed to make respecting the property in schedule D was to leave the act of 1806, in reference to this point, as he found it—namely, to permit those who preferred it to go before a local commissioner, appointed by parties independent of the Government; but in case any one objected to go before the local authority, and this might happen where the commissioner was a competitor in trade or a rival in manufactures, or where the disclosure of a person's income before a particular commissioner might be prejudicial or vexatious—if, then, any person objected going before the local commissioner, it was proposed to give the party the option of either doing so or of sending a return of his income to a sworn officer, the inspector of stamps. He proposed also that surcharges should be brought before that officer, with an appeal to a special commissioner, and that any person should have the option of disclosing his affairs to a special com-missioner appointed by Government, with the same power as the other commissioners. He had attempted to reconcile as far as possible these two objects, the impartial and just imposition of the tax, and the prevention of evasion and fraud; he sought to apply a remedy to those special evils, which were alleged to arise from an inquisitorial examination of the concerns of the trader or professional man. He hoped that he had removed at least some part of the objection by the remedy which he had proposed. His belief was, notwithstanding the predictions of the noble Lord the Member for London respecting the disgust with which the tax would be hereafter viewed, and the unpopularity which would visit those who had proposed it, —notwithstanding this prediction, he must say, that there were indications throughout the country generally of a strong prevalent impression that the maintenance of public credit required the adoption by Parliament of some vigorous and decisive course—his belief was, that among those parties who possessed property—and he spoke of property em-

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barked in trade or manufactures, as well as property of a more permanent character —among such persons he believed there was a strong prevailing opinion, that if they were to raise 4,200,000 l. for the purpose of maintaining the public credit, it was perfectly consistent with justice, as well as policy, to impose the burden on property, rather than to curtail the comforts and enjoyments of those who constituted the great mass of the working classes. He would not enter any further into the discussion of this subject. He did not know whether the noble Lord opposite would feel it his duty to take the sense of the House on the present occasion or on the second reading. If, considering the peculiar circumstances of the discussion, the season of the year, and the immense importance to the trade and manufactures of the country, that the sense of Parliament should be ascertained and the question settled—if the House, considering all these things, should think it advisable to make a temporary relaxation of those rules which confined their discussions on this subject to two days in the week, he would willingly propose to devote more than two days to the consideration of the Income-tax and the tariff.
Mr. Villierssaid, that the right hon. Baronet had in one respect, he thought, made one of the most important speeches which he had delivered since he announced his financial scheme, for it had done what his former speeches had left undone, in giving the country some insight into what were his general views and intentions with respect to the peculiar tax which he was about to impose on the country. His scheme had been so ingeniously contrived, and his speeches so cleverly composed, that up to this moment he had succeeded in leaving many, and particularly those who were opposed to him in doubt, as to the course they should pursue. There were many, and he was among the number, who were far from satisfied with the justice and operation of our present system of taxation; who thought it was oppressive to the poor and partial to the rich, and who were strongly in favour of transferring from poverty to property the burdens of the State. There were many who saw nothing to approve in the particular purpose of this tax and the occasion selected for its imposition, but who yet thought that it was the recognition of a sound principle as regarded taxation, and that it would be wise
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to endure its inconvenience, with the view ultimately to its general application; always assuming, however, that this was the view taken by the right hon. Baronet; and that, alive to the evils of which they complained, as to many of the taxes, Was not wanting in will to apply the remedy. The speech they had just heard, however, will dissipate this illusion at once, and enlighten the country as to the right hon. Gentleman's views of the object of a property-tax—for, called upon tonight to vindicate his consistency for opposing a property-tax in the year 1833, the right hon. Baronet candidly tells us that the ground of his opposition then was one that he would maintain now; that a property-tax in lieu of those indirect taxes which existed now, of which the people complained, was one which the right hon. Baronet would join any party in opposing. No man should be found more firm in opposing any substitute for the duties on malt, on soap, or any of those indirect taxes which now existed; and the right hon. Baronet had distinctly said, that all which he proposed the Income-tax for now, was as one means of maintaining the public credit, as a means of getting more revenue, and with no intention of ever proposing it as a substitute for any other tax, and much less for any indirect tax then pressing upon the people. This, then, was candid and intelligible, though calculated a little, he thought, to influence that impression to which the right hon. Baronet had alluded as prevailing in the country in favour of his plan, but which he (Mr. Villiers) thought had been produced by the vague, uncertain, and inconsistent things which had hitherto been said upon this subject of taxing property, and which pervaded every speech the House had heard from the right hon. Baronet, in which he seems to mark out the rich as the proper objects of taxation, and expresses sympathy for the necessities of the poor. It would be clear, however, hereafter, that this is a tax now imposed not in lieu of any other, not in any spirit of benefitting the poor, but in aggravation of every other, and because other means are not resorted to for getting the money; and it ought to settle those doubts now floating about on this side, as to whether evil should not be supported that good might come; for, certainly, now, the right hon. Baronet had confirmed the view which he had entertained

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from the beginning, that the financial difficulty which it was intended to remove resulted from the commercial and financial system maintained so long and opposed so long in this country, and that this tax was really to meet for its necessary consequences. It was that peculiar system which placed the people of this country under the twofold contribution of paying taxes to the State and taxes to particular classes, which had caused our present condition; and as one of that party, who had long since deprecated the principle and predicted the effects of that system, he would only consent to relieve the difficulty by removing its cause. The fact was, that that peculiar system of finance which made the revenue dependent upon the general condition of the people was now breaking down, and its failure was caused by monopoly in their food and restraints upon their trade; the former, in exhausting men's means by enhancing the cost of subsistence, and the latter by narrowing the field for employing their labour. The revenue now began to feel its effects, and the struggle was really between the means of maintaining public credit and maintaining monopoly. The real question the House had to examine was, whether we would uphold public credit by abolishing monopoly or by imposing fresh taxes; and he was glad to think that this year, at least, those who took that view of the influence of monopoly upon revenue were spared the trouble of proving what they had so often said, for as a fact it may this year be numbered with those many admissions on which the noble Lord, the Member for North Lancashire, had declared there had been such unanimity. Last year he was tauntingly asked what the Corn-laws had to do with the budget, and when he replied that they were not only a heavy tax imposed upon the community for a class, but inasmuch as the article corn was essential to life, it was the first tax that people had to pay, and it depended upon the amount of it what was left for the State, it was treated as a vision of the free-trade party, and one of course to be neglected; this year, however, we hear of the influence of the cost of living upon the value of an income, and the connection between harvests, which means the cheap-ness and dearness of food, and the revenue derived from customs, and excise, and notwithstanding all the vulgar tirades they had heard against commerce and manufac-
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tures, they now heard of solicitude expressed for the languor of commerce, and the importance admitted of easing the springs of industry. It was well that it should be so. It was time the old note should be changed; but the thing that the House had now to see was, that these admitted truths should be acted upon and applied. He for one had yet to suspect that they were not very earnestly entertained, or they would not, he thought, have seen such a Corn-bill as had been passed—nor have had such a tax as that on income proposed, nor would so small an instalment of what was due to the people have been offered as in the proposed tariff. And, indeed, he thought it incumbent upon those who had proposed this tax explicitly to declare to what they ascribed the declining tendency of our revenue, what they thought of its cause, and its character, for upon that turned the prospect the country had of its duration, and also of the proportion of the burden not being increased. For it was not because it was a direct tax that he opposed it; that was not the objection that he had, or that his constituents had to it, many of whom thought, and justly, as he considered, that property was a good test or evidence of a man's ability to contribute to the State, and he had received a memorial from those politically opposed to him to this effect, approving of the principle of the tax quà property-tax, though greatly objecting to the rude and reckless manner in which it was proposed to be applied— assessing, as it was intended, all income without reference to its origin, or its liability. But it was not because property was directly assessed that he or they objected to it; on the contrary, they were ready for the application of that principle when an equivalent advantage was to be gained by it, or necessity required it. But it was not enough to say, in the present state of our finances, that the deficiency occurred under the late Government, and that the supporters of the late Government could not, there-fore, object to supply the deficiency in the way proposed. That was not the view that satisfied those who stood aloof from both parties. They believed all the harm that Whigs said of Tories, or that Tories said of Whigs, when those charges had reference to matters of which they had no other cognizance; the people were, he believed, nearly satisfied as to what class have so long had the manage-

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ment of their affairs. They had enquired in whose hands the Government had been placed, that had brought them to their present state. And, if he mistook not, her Majesty's commissioners, on the hand-loom weavers, a short time since, satisfied that question in their report upon the condition of that unfortunate portion of our fellow-subjects, and whose state they were led to connect with the operation of our commercial laws, and they seemed to have been led into a reflection upon the character of the Legislature in consequence, and they reminded those who ruled this country that the Government of this country dwelt in a small minority of the community, who occupied entirely one branch of the Legislature, and who greatly preponderated in the other, and whose interests were entirely identified with one description of property, and cautioned them on the importance of their acts being above the suspicion of partiality, as such a Government could only rest upon public opinion, which would not sanction legislation observed and known to produce the misery and sufferings of the masses of the people. This, then, was announced on authority to be the real Government of this country, and the people being neither Whig nor Tory, were disposed to think, that the monopolies springing out of what they termed class legislation, had so far exhausted the means, and restricted the energies of the people, as to be answerable for the decline of this great industrial nation. The people, too, would soon learn, that the tax now proposed to be imposed on income was only a mode of escaping one of its temporary, but necessary consequences of the system. The people were not so dull and not so easily deluded as hon. Members opposite thought, when they supposed that they believed that this tax was favourable to them, because it apparently fell upon those above them. He had heard the opinions of many of them on the subject, and they said, "We shall take no part in the matter, but we are not deceived by the notion, that so far as we are dependent on the capital possessed by those above us, but if that is taxed or diminished, we must feel it in the diminished demand for our labour, but with regard to a means of extending our political power we are not blind to the effects of making the middle classes discontented. They believed, thoroughly, that the resources of this country have been wasted
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by those monopolies, and those arguments which are used in favour of part of this scheme, when the importance of reducing the cost of living is dwelt upon, leaves them no doubt of what has hitherto been lost to this country by that means. This, then, being the 'case, if permanent improvement is intended, why has the root of the evil not been avowed and struck at? What hope was there of ever discontinuing this tax, or making the others productive without that being done? And why has a tax been resorted to, which of all others, if the deficiency springs from the poverty of the people, must aggravate the evil. And at least, why have you not looked round to see if those who profit by those monopolies, contribute their due and fair proportions to the State. That source should at least have been exhausted before you resort to a tax that all must admit is oppressive to men in trade, and unequal to those who live by personal exertion. And is there not yet a fund untouched in these unequal taxes? It was but a few weeks since that I enumerated myself nearly one million that had been taken off the landed classes, and out of pure favour to them. Has any body denied that they were exemptions favourable to that interest, and that if the House were to re-impose them under the present increased value of real property, they might probably yield more than that million now? Has any satisfactory reason been assigned for that duty which is imposed upon the descent to personal property, not attaching to the succession of freehold property. Some subtlety was employed, he knew, the other night, to make it appear that some landed property was assessed for this purpose, but could any man doubt that a very large sum might be annually derived from this source; and can any man doubt that it is foregone merely to favour the landed proprietors. But the right hon. Baronet said to-night, that in spite of all that had been said, we had a deficiency to make up, and that there was no certain way within his knowledge, but that of taxing the income of the people. But the right hon. Baronet precluded himself from making that statement by an admission that he made himself, though not called upon the other night—the right hon. Baronet said what of course is true, and is well known, that there might immediately be collected a very considerable revenue on foreign sugar, now almost prohibited by lowering

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the duty on it; this hitherto had been met by the taunt that this was one of the theories of the political economists, of getting revenue by reducing duty. The right hon. Baronet knows, and now admits, however, that it is the fact, and that to-morrow, if he chose, the coffers of the Treasury might be replenished, if he would suffer the people to consume foreign sugar. He would like to place the necessity and the policy of an Income-tax, as explained this evening before the country, and let the sensible and humane people of this country judge fairly upon this issue, whether the expectation of preventing slavery in a foreign country, by not consuming their produce, was sufficiently well grounded to warrant the policy of precluding the people of this country from the advantage of a cheap necessary, and for imposing a fresh and heavy burden upon this community. He had seen a comment upon this policy in a foreign paper, which he really thought just, and they called it the laughable hypocrisy of the English; and under all circumstances he thought the description just, for few people believed it would succeed, and most people believed it was insincere. Why, if there was any sincerity in this talk about slavery, the real sacrifice to make was not to send goods to a slave producing country; for it was to buy goods that sugar was produced. It was to get those goods that men were retained in slavery, and it was notorious that these slave-holding communities was now becoming some of our best markets; and that if they were to refuse our goods, or to raise these duties unfairly against us, we should be more disposed to go to war with them on that account, than commend them for adopting this means for preventing slavery. He, however, was not indifferent to the opinions of many benevolent men, who were of opinion that dealing with slave countries was a means of encouraging slavery, but he knew many, who no less benevolent, no less zealous or serviceable in that cause, were of opinion that this partial restraint on the trader with such countries was calculated rather to do harm than good. For instance, let them see how this policy might work for the continuance of slavery. What did you practically tell the West-India proprietary? Why, that as long as slavery continued in other countries their monopoly was safe. Why, then they had a strong interest in maintaining slavery; and
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they had something else, they had very great influence over the British Government, they always have had, and it continues; how then can any Government better secure the adherence of these partisans than by not remonstrating effectively with these slave states as they now are professing to intend to do? The West-India influence may and will depend probably upon their not doing it. Again, it was said with great justice, he believed, that if those countries saw, that sugar would be produced by free-labour more cheaply than by slave-labour, and that our markets were supplied by those countries, which they might be, in which there were no slaves, it would be more likely to influence those countries who, it is said, are now wavering about slavery, than by any impotent threat or feeble remonstrance on our part to withdraw our custom, more important to ourselves than to them. Was it not notorious that the sugar grown in those parts of the world where labour is free, is brought to the European markets as cheaply and as good as that from Brazil? There is the sugar from Manilla, from Java, from Siam, from Cochin China, all produced by free-labour, all supplied to different countries at one-half, or less than one-half of the price of our plantation sugar. You say that we are bound by treaties with Brazil, not to let in the sugar from those countries on better terms than it is introduced from Brazil. But that is the reason for opening our ports to all. The only country where there is a chance perhaps of getting any terms for slaves is in Brazil. I know in that country there are districts, or provinces, where the proprietors question the importance to themselves of maintaining slavery, attended as it is with expense and insecurity. But they are a minority in the legislature of that country, and if you succeed in making them abolish slavery, you cannot let in their sugar unless you get the people of Cuba to do the same, of which, as you know, there is not the remotest chance; they profit too much by it from the manner in which the slave-trade is carried on; and I believe that by treaty you are bound not to show favour to trade with Brazil more than you do to Cuba. What a fancy, then, is it if it is an honest speculation at all, that by refusing to allow their produce to come out of the warehouses of this country, (for it is a fact that you allow it to come into the country and export it refined, and receive payments

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for other manufactures by means of other slave produce sent here or to other countries on your account), that you can abolish slavery in those countries, and what vast sacrifice you are making for this purpose, at all times, and in particular at this moment, when you are about to visit the trading classes with this odious assessment, sooner than get revenue without the addition but by the remission of the duty on this article. He really should wish the question to be rested upon this issue; for it is an obvious, easy, advantageous manner of supplying the revenue. For the purpose of maintaining the credit of the country immediately there were, he believed the ready means in the equalization of the stamp duties, and other duties which were now imposed with the view to favour the landed class, and by the reduction of differential duties on tropical pro. duce, for what he said of sugar applied to all differential duties, which implied that the same article was brought to this country at different prices from the countries where it was produced, the very object of which was to preclude the community from consuming the cheaper article, but which if they were allowed to do they would consume more extensively, and the duty being collected upon the whole amount, would add to the revenue, while it lowered the cost to the consumer. Looking, then, at the right hon. Baronet's whole scheme then, he objected to the Income-tax, part of it as mischievous, uncalled for, and not imposed with the admission of or with the view to remove the real cause of the deficiency, and therefore likely to be continued beyond the time now intended. He did not, however, underrate the importance of those changes in our wretched commercial system which were proposed by the right hon. Baronet. He liked the disturbance of the system, and expected that it would lead to a far wider and more beneficial change than was yet proposed, He, for one, must say, he should like to see more changes made in the spirit in which the timber duties were altered; that was, he was satisfied, a very beneficial change, and one he thought, that was underrated at present in the country. He did not speak altogether in ignorance on the subject, for he had once called the attention of the House to this matter, and upon that occasion he had made a very full inquiry into the case, and he was really surprised to find the extent of the evil produced by the timber duties, and the vast importance to an old, cleared, densely-
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peopled manufacturing country like this, of a cheap and abundant supply of wood. Next to food, he really believed that there was not one thing that the circumstances of this country rendered us so necessarily dependent upon other countries for, and that it was such an object to have in abundance. He might be wrong, but he doubted if there would be so great a sacrifice of revenue as people imagined from the change, for the same quantity of timber which used to come from Canada, and which came (though bad) on account of the differential duty, will now come from the Baltic, and pay 25 s. instead of 10 s. There would be then an increase of duty of 150 per cent, upon that portion of the timber; and he might mention another circumstance that he thought would secure to the consumer the full advantage of the remission of the duty, which some said they would not have, in consequence of the price rising in the Baltic countries. He thought this rise would not occur if those countries had again to apprehend the competition with Canada, which, with the duty entirely re-remitted there would be, and he thought, therefore, that would be an increased supply from the Baltic without addition to the price. In saying this, however, with regard to the advantage of the remission of the duties on timber, he said nothing in favour of an Income-tax proposed under the present circumstances. He was speaking of the change in a commercial point of view, and he should say generally, that if a temporary deficiency of revenue is occasioned by making some beneficial change in our commercial dealings with other countries, with the prospect of recovering the loss both by improved commerce and in revenue, he said that was a case in which a loan by issue of Exchequer-bills or otherwise, to meet that deficiency would be justifiable, provision being made upon the success of the experiment for the repayment of such loan. He did not think loans justifiable in time of war, where the money was certain to be never recovered, and the debt was rendered permanent. But when changes were made in this spirit, and with the purpose of the reduction now proposed in the timber duties, the country would justify and approve a loan. This, however, was really the only case that he knew of where any great sacrifice of revenue was expected in this tariff for a commercial purpose or with the view to benefit the consumer; the tariff

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is said to be the boon in return for the tax, yet most of the alterations in the tariff were, as the right hon. Baronet had told the House to-night, changes from prohibition duties to those that could be collected; and, in fact, the tariff, so far from making a sacrifice, was really an application of that principle which recognises the revenue to be dependent on the easy access of the consumer to the articles that are taxed, and which is the only sound principle to apply as long as we continue the present system of indirect taxation, and while taxes fail on the articles that the general consumer demands, and this was the fault that he had to find with the scheme of the right hon. Baronet, that he did not carry this principle out, and that by this tax he would even diminish the ability of the people to consume those articles on which the revenue depended. If the revenue sinks because the people are poor, the object should have been to have increased their means, not to have added to their burdens. They would now no longer deny the connection between the cost of living and the ability to consume; it had not been recognised certainly in the Corn-bill, but it was their argument in support of the tariff, which made, however, the anomaly more striking of a scheme which purports to relieve the consumer, and add to the revenue, and yet does nothing to reduce the price of that which he must first pay for and consume, before he can touch any other article, and where the connection between the price of corn and the amount of revenue was established beyond a doubt, and while they were seeking to supply a deficiency, to do nothing to cheapen that article, the cheapness of which seems to determine the state of the revenue! He believed that he could demonstrate that by an extract from official returns. The hon. Member then read the following document:—
A Comparison between Price of Wheat and Produce of Revenue, in 1835, 1836, and 1837; contrasted with 1838, 1839, and 1840:—

I.WHEAT AVERAGE.
In 1835–7 the average of the three years was

47 s.

10 d.

1838–40 the average of the three years was

67

2

The price of wheat, therefore, rose 40 per cent. during the last three years.

II. TOTAL REVENUE.
The gross revenue of the United Kingdom amounted, in the aggregate,—

In 1835–7 to

£159,851,000

1838–40 to

159,240,000

Decrease

£611,000

The population increased at least 4 per cent. between these three-year periods. Had the revenue increased in like ratio, it would have been, in the last three years, 166,205,000 l., or 6,965,000 l. more than it was, being at the rate of 2,321,000 l per annum virtually lower than in the former period.

III. CUSTOMS AND EXCISE.
The gross revenue for Customs and Excise in the United Kingdom was,—

In 1835–7

£117,333,000

1838–40

116,996,000

Decrease

£337,000

The total Excise duties decreased, in the same period, from 47,117,000 l. to 46,610,000 l. Had the Excise and Customs revenue increased with the population, it would have produced 122,025,000 l., or 4,692,000 l. more, by which amount it virtually fell in the latter period.

IV. MALT, BRITISH SPIRIT, TEA AND SUGAR DUTIES.
These are the four articles which produce the largest revenue. They produced,—

In 1835–7

£51,830,000

1838–40

49,289,000

Decrease

£2,541,000

That showed a decrease of nearly 5 per cent.! Had these duties increased with the population, they would have produced 53,903,000 l., or 4,614,000 l. more than they did, being a virtual falling-off of 1,538,000 l. per annum. From this, then, he deduced the fact that concurrently with the rise in the price of wheat, there had been a virtual falling-off in the revenue to the amount of 2,321,000 l., nearly the same amount as that of the actual deficiency which had occasioned the Income-tax. This falling-off of revenue had taken place, notwithstanding an increase of duty paid on the importation of foreign corn to the amount of 1,477,000 l. during the last three over the former three years; and above one-half the falling-off had taken place on articles most used by the industrious classes. He would show this by another paper. The hon. Member read the following Tables of the Separate Items quoted above in Gross:—

I. GROSS REVENUE OF UNITED KINGDOM (ORDINARY).
1835

£52,589,000

1836

54,973,000

1837

52,287,000

1838

£52,979,000

1839

53,345,000

1840

52,916,000

GROSS EXCISE AND CUSTOMS REVENUE.
Excise.

Customs and Excise.

1835

£15,229,351

£38,378,000

1836

16,587,992

40,747,000

1837

15,300,406

38,208,000

1838

15,493,310

38,714,000

1839

15,488,248

38,996,000

1840

15,628,818

39,286,000

MALT, BRITISH SPIRITS, TEA AND SUGAR.
1835

£16,844,000

1836

18,366,000

1837

16,620,000

1838

£16,658,000

1839

17,341,000

1840

16,290,000

Here, then, it was established that the revenue of this country was necessarily connected with the cheapness and abundance of corn—and what was the remedy? —to secure a constant, regular, abundant supply, with the view to plenty and cheapness—thus to improve the ability of the consumer, to consume the articles on which you expect your tax? Do the Ministers come forward with a full and ample admission that the law which has made food dear and scarce, and has given monopoly in other articles of general use, was at the bottom of our commercial embarrassment and financial difficulties, and that preparation must be made for a total change of a system so fraught with evil, and though some inconvenience might be expected at first, yet that a permanent advantage being in view, reason and good sense called for the endurance of the evil for a while? No such thing. They brought forward a Corn-bill, not professing to relieve distress, not admitting the evil it had produced, asserting the advantage of such a law, and denying the injustice of our present system of indirect taxation, pledging themselves to its continuance, and proposing to diminish every man's means of expenditure by a certain proportion that taken from his income, with the view, as they say, of maintaining public credit, call upon people to support it, because it is a tax upon property, which is a just tax. Why this does not raise any question of a property-tax, such as many men would wish to see, and that many here would support to-night—a property-tax, in lieu of taxes pressing upon industry, upon the poor and on the productive capital of the country, and that fairly
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placed the burdens of the Slate on those best able to bear them. The present was a plan for providing for one of the consequences of a constant cause of evil, thereby endeavouring to relieve those who profited by the system of their only difficulty in its continuance, and which, while it continued, made the necessity as constant for the continuance, if not augmentation of this tax now imposed, in addition to every other. The people of this country are now increasing; no provision is made for the increase of the food which they must consume; each year their difficulty to consume other articles will increase, and by the imposition of this tax, the other taxes will become less productive. The people wanted more food, more trade, and fewer taxes, and what has been done for them? You have preserved a Corn-bill, which will make food scarce; you have done nothing to extend trade with the two best customers which England now possesses, namely, the United States, and Brazil. You refuse to take the slave produce of one, and you will only take the slave produce of the other, and thus you leave this country seeking fresh markets for her industry, her people unemployed, without any improvement of her foreign trade; and you impose a tax on income, which must embarrass the trade at home. He said this to show that there was no reason for any man to expect any immediate advantage from this change, which, at present, he could look at as little more than a fanciful disturbance of an old system, and a very capricious application of a better principle; if he did not despair of any advantage from the change, it chiefly arose from the hope that the right hon. Baronet would see the importance of going forward and making such further changes next year which he had repudiated this year, as he had recognised principles this year which he had hitherto resisted.
Mr. Hardysaid, that he had hoped that the House would have come to an early decision upon the question then under consideration. The noble Lord had, however, thought it necessary to enter generally into the subject of the Income-tax, and all the points incidentally associated with it, and thus the measure had been obstructed in its progress. He would ask hon. Members who were now so loud in their opposition to this measure of the Government, why they did not oppose the resolutions when they were first pro-

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pounded to the House by the right hon. Baronet? On the first night of the introduction of the measure nothing was advanced against it. If the Income-tax was so odious, unjust, and oppressive as was represented by hon. Members, surely the perspicacity of hon. Gentlemen ought to have enabled them to have perceived this immediately after the right hon. Baronet had developed his plan to the House. But it was not until after the Opposition saw that the country was disposed to adopt the measure of the Government—yes, it was not until they saw the country disposed to support the proposition of the right hon. Baronet, that a meeting was called at the Reform Club, with a view of organizing a factious opposition to the bill—it was not until then that hon. Members opposite rose, one after another, to stigmatize the proposal of an Income-tax as a most monstrous, odious, and unjust proposition. The principal object which hon. Members appeared anxious to demonstrate was, that the Income-tax would press heavily upon particular classes, upon those who came within schedule D. What tax, he would ask, was not unequal in its operation? It was not fair that this tax in particular should be selected and denounced on the ground of its probable inequality. All other taxes were open to the same objection. Look at the condition of the poor man with regard to the tax upon an article of almost general consumption, upon what might also be considered a necessary of life; he alluded to tea. If a poor man paid 4s. a pound for his tea, 2s. of that was duty. He therefore was taxed with respect to tea to the amount of 100 per cent. The rich man, who paid 8s. per pound for the same article, paid only 33 per cent. Here was a great inequality. What was true with respect to tea was equally so with regard to other articles of subsistence which he could mention. It did certainly appear strange that whilst the hon. Member opposite objected to the Income-tax, he at the same time urged upon the right hon. Baronet the necessity of a tax upon sugar, with the view of increasing the revenue. It had, again, been said that the Income-tax would be inquisitorial in its character. He thought that the right hon. Baronet, had satisfactorily answered that objection. He did not think that the objection was well-founded. If a man made an honest return of his income, he would escape all
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the inconveniences of the inquisitorial nature of the tax. But the same objection might be urged against all other taxes. Any person by paying a shilling could go to Doctor's-commons, and thus acquaint himself with the private affairs of his neighbour. Again, by paying the same sum any one might go to the register-office, and inform himself of the mode in which estates had been conveyed. Yet to this no objection had been urged. Hon. Members, and particularly the hon. Member for Dungarvon, had objected to the Income-tax on the ground of the immorality which it was asserted it would give rise to. The same objection was applicable to all proceedings in law, not only in this House, but in courts of justice, and in cases of adjudication between one party and another. Frauds and perjury will be committed under circumstances the least favourable for the perpetration of such moral offences. Men, to maintain their own interest, will misrepresent the facts of the case. Such proceedings are of frequent occurrence in courts of law, where the evidence of the parties themselves is admitted as is provided in all the acts establishing Courts, in the nature of Courts of Request. They could not altogether guard against the commission of immorality; but he did not think that the Income-tax would be productive of more immorality with reference to fraud and perjury than other proceedings of a public nature were liable to. With reference to the alleged injustice of the tax with regard to particular individuals and particular interests, he would ask, did not the House pass private acts of Parliament which gave rise to complaints of injustice, and yet law after law of the same character was constantly enacted? He did not think that the House ought to consider the measure on such grounds. It should be recollected that a financial necessity had arisen, which rendered the adoption of an Income-tax indispensable. It had been maintained that the tax was a war tax, and ought only to be had recourse to under such circumstances. If an Income-tax were as cruel, oppressive, and unjust as it was represented to be, then, indeed, it would be oppressive and cruel to add such a tax to the calamities of war. He would rather see such a tax adopted in a time of peace. It would then be in their power to see how the tax would operate with

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respect to individuals, and its inequalities, if there were any, could be easily obviated. It was not just to designate it a war tax. It had been urged that the right hon. Baronet had brought forward his measure with the view of benefitting the landed interest. He thought that the right hon. Baronet had adopted a strange mode of pleasing the landed interest, by proposing a tax which they could not by any possibility avoid. Hon. Gentlemen opposite also affirmed that the measure of the Government would eventually bring disgrace and discredit upon the right hon. Baronet at its head. He should have thought that such a consummation was the very thing desired by hon. Members opposite. He thought that the country was in favour of the measure of the Government. He had presented to the right hon. Baronet a memorial, signed by all the respectable inhabitants of Rochdale and its neighbourhood, in support of the plan of the Government; and in that petition the right hon. Baronet was urged to go on with the measure, as the memorialists thought that it would not only conduce to increase the revenue, but to permanently benefit all the interests of the country. As he thought that such would be the effect of the measure, it was his intention to give it his unqualified support.
Mr. E. R. Ricefelt it his duty to state why, after the vote that had been come to upon the resolutions previously proposed by the noble Lord, the Member for the city of London, he could not throw any obstruction in the way of the first reading of the bill. He did not hesitate to say that he should much prefer the then measures proposed by the late Government for the reduction of the duties Upon corn, sugar, and timber, to the propositions of the right hon. Baronet. But these measures had been rejected, and the alternative was now, whether they should have recourse to direct taxation, or to other taxes that would press more heavily upon the industry of the country. He objected to that part of the plan which placed the same amount of tax upon incomes derived from trade and professions, and incomes derived from real estates; and if the right hon. Baronet did not amend this part of his proposal, he should, at a proper time, namely—on the third reading—express his opinions upon the subject. Another of his reasons for not offering any opposition to the first
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reading was, that there would be no more likely means to maintain peace than by showing that the resources of the country were amply sufficient to meet any struggle, whether warlike or otherwise, which, under certain circumstances, might become necessary to the assertion of our power and dignity, and by showing, further, that the more opulent classes were willing to refrain from throwing burdens upon the poorer and industrious classes. Upon these grounds he should not by his vote offer any opposition to the first reading of the bill. If the measure was amended in the manner he had suggested, he should then support it; otherwise he would oppose it upon the third reading.
Mr. Fox Maule,after having heard the speech of his hon. Friend (Mr. Rice), must say, that there appeared to him to be no necessity for his hon. Friend to reserve his vote to the third reading of the bill, because the right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel) had already distinctly declared, that he would not make those modifications which his hon. Friend required. His hon. Friend might as well, therefore, vote against the hill now as on the third reading. He was anxious to say a few words before the question should be put, because his course respecting this tax had been much misrepresented. It had been stated in that House, but he could not find upon what authority, that in having voted in the minority for postponing the decision upon the resolutions of the right hon. Baronet till after Easter, he had followed a course founded solely upon a factious opposition to her Majesty's Government. Now, he would appeal to the recollection of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and to the House, as to the course which he took upon those resolutions. He stated distinctly, when they were first brought forward, that he considered sufficient time had not been given to the people of Scotland to consider their nature and bearing; and that, in voting in the minority, it was his distinct object to gain further time to enable them to do so. And when he was taxed by the hon. Member for Lincoln with voting for delay, his answer was, that he believed that that vote had been given agreeably to the opinions and wishes of his constituents; that he should soon meet those constituents, and hear from them whether they objected to his vote or not. Now, how did the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Graham) deal with and turn about those simple facts? The right hon. Baronet stated that he had ap-

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peared among his constituents, and had sounded them upon the propriety of holding a public meeting, in order to discuss the resolutions of the Government; but that he had been induced not to call a public meeting, because he knew that if he had done so, those resolutions would have been approved of; and therefore he left the town and those whom he represented in Parliament without having the courage to call a public meeting on the subject. [Sir J. Graham: I did not say anything about it.] He understood the right hon. Baronet's words to convey exactly that meaning to the House, and he stated at the time that the right hon. Baronet entirely misrepresented him. Now he had since found that the only source whence the right hon. Baronet derived his information was an anonymous letter in a newspaper. On comparing that letter with the speech of the right hon. Baronet, no one could be at a loss to see that the right hon. Baronet had trusted entirely to the information there given. He wished to state to the House that he never went among his constituents with the slightest intention to call a public meeting; he never meant to convene a meeting on the subject. But he learned sufficient while among his constituents to know that those shopkeepers and merchants who would be affected by the bill of the right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel) most entirely disapproved of it. They complained of its inquisitorial character, and he should have to say a few words upon that point presently. They complained of its injustice and inequality; and not one of those with whom he conversed had a word to say in favour of an Income-tax. He was quite ready to admit, that in the town of Perth, and in all other towns, there was a class of persons whom the right hon. Baronet had captivated by his measures; and no doubt the right hon. Baronet had obtained their approbation to a very considerable extent. But, let me tell him (continued the right hon. Gentleman) that the day may come when he may find that those classes on whom he now trusts for the support of this measure, will have their eyes opened, and the veil that at present obscures their vision removed. Let me remind him that not many weeks since the agricultural interest thought they could confide in him for the protection of their interests; but are those who belong to the agricultural interest now confiding for protection in the right hon. Baronet? I will not use a hard word which has been objected to in
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another place, but I will say, that the right hon. Baronet has disappointed the expectations of the agricultural interest, that the country has, from one end of it to the other, expressed that disappointment at the manner in which he has treated them by the measures he has brought forward. Let me warn the right hon. Baronet, that although he may experience much inconvenience from this discovery on the part of the agricultural interest, yet it is nothing to that which he and the country will experience when it shall be the case, as I think it will be soon, that the masses shall discover that this imposition of an Income-tax, coupled with the assertion that they were not to be affected by it, was a deception. The re-action which will follow from that discovery will be dangerous, not simply to the Government, for that would not concern me so much, but dangerous to the stability and peace of this country. My opinion is, that it is utterly impossible to inflict a tax of the nature of this tax without, in a very great degree, affecting the working classes. You affect all who have an income down to 150 l. a year; and in doing so, you affect those upon whom the working classes depend for employment. The hon. Member for Knaresborough has stated that already, in anticipation of the effect which this tax would have upon commercial transactions, many of the manufacturers in the north of England have declared, that they shall be compelled to turn away a great number of their workmen. I have no doubt, that this will be the case, however much you may deceive the working classes at this moment by persuading them now to come to your aid for the purpose of upholding this tax. You may rely upon it, that when they shall discover that they have been cheated into giving you their support, the reaction will be dangerous to the peace of this country. But why do they come to your aid? why do these working classes whom you invite to attend public meetings to consider the Income-tax, give you their assistance; and why does that great body appear at and disturb the proceedings of other public meetings called to consider other questions — the Corn-laws, and the various other monopolies in this country? Why do the classes I have named do this? It is that they may get the blow struck at the middle classes who, they imagine, stand between you and them as a hindrance to their gaining the great object they have long been aiming at—Universal Suffrage.

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The lower classes may for a time appear satisfied with the scheme of the right hon. Baronet, because the effect of it will be to bring down the middle classes to their own level; but the result will be the injury and depression of both, and in time the combination of both will be irresistible. He thanked his noble Friend for giving him this opportunity of recording his opinion; the hon. Member further said, that opportunity had not, in fact, until now been afforded, and although it had been said, that the course was unusual, it was to be recollected, that the occasion was, at least, as unusual as the course. He should give his vote against the Income-tax upon the very grounds stated by the right hon. Baronet in 1833, for he could not concur in the explanation attempted by the right hon. Baronet this night, that his words were to he construed with reference to a conditional Income-tax in times not at all like the present. The right hon. Baronet had asserted, that
" The effect of an Income-tax must be, if it were properly collected, to expose men's businesses to a rigorous inquisition. It was a tax which would encourage immorality, fraud, and perjury, and it would discourage industry, which, in a country like this, was highly inexpedient."
Such had been the opinion of the right hon. Baronet some years ago, and such was his opinion at the present moment. Upon that plain and simple ground, he should rest and record his vote, and it was a ground which the country would understand more clearly from the distinct terms of the right hon. Baronet, than if he were to talk for months. The right hon. Baronet had alleged, that he was supported by a great many commercial bodies in the three kingdoms. He knew only of one corn-commercial body which had supported the right hon. Baronet—the Chamber of Commerce of Glasgow. He had heard this fact with some surprise, because not more than twelve months ago, the same Chamber of Commerce of Glasgow had passed a resolution approving of the resolution of his noble Friend (Lord John Russell) for a fixed duty on corn. Of whom, then, did the Chamber of Commerce at Glasgow consist? Of about 400 individuals, represented by thirty-six directors, of whom six retired annually. These directors, on their own responsibility, without concert or consultation, passed a resolution supporting the financial measures of the present Government. Of whom did these directors consist? The great majority were men
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deeply involved in East and West Indian monopolies—men whose interest it was to maintain the duty on sugar. Therefore he must take leave to doubt the impartiality of the decision of the Chamber of Commerce of Glasgow. He did not find that the Chamber of Commerce of Edinburgh had come to any such resolution, and some other bodies of the same kind had recorded their disapprobation of the scheme. He should most cheerfully record his vote against, the first reading of the bill, because he was satisfied that this was not a season for imposing a tax upon the country, which ought to be reserved for a greater emergency, and because he was convinced also, that the lower orders would find ere long, that the pretence that it did not touch them and affect their interests was a mere delusion.
Mr. M. Milnesapprehended that the right hon. Member who had just sat down was the only man in the House, and would be the only man in the country, who was not convinced by the explanation of the right hon. Baronet with respect to the passage from a former speech which had been read by the noble Lord opposite (Lord John Russell.) The right hon. Member had omitted the important point of the altered circumstances of the times out of which the present measure in fact grew. As Cicero had remarked of a law in his time, " est invidiosa lex, veruntamen habet excusationem, non enim videtur hominis lex esse sed temporis." This Income-tax was not the law of the right hon. Baronet, but of the times upon which he was thrown. He objected to the practice of raking supposed jewels out of the rubbish of by-gone debates: mere recrimation could never convince, and he should rejoice to see this practice disused on either side of the House. He denied that the right hon. Baronet had uttered one word of despair or even of despondency when he introduced his plan; he had taken a just view of the state of the country, and had wisely adapted his measures to the emergency, but he had never uttered a syllable to unnerve the hand or dispirit the heart of a single Englishman. Allusion had been made on a former night to the testamentary disposition of the late Government, and it reminded him of the will of a celebrated literary man, who, having three sons, left to one of them his faith, to another his patience, and to the third his courage, but not a single shilling in money to any of them. So the late Go-

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vernment at its decease left behind them many virtues, many good intentions, but not a single shilling in money. As to the late disaster in India, he hoped that nothing would be said or done at present to expose the circumstances which led to it; for if they were injudiciously disclosed, the effect might be to derange, confuse, and complicate our diplomatic relations with some of the great powers of Europe; yet, he must own, that to him the troops on the west of the Indus were as much objects of public interest as on the banks of the Douro or the Garonne, and the fleet in the Chinese seas as the fleet in the British Channel. In reference to the present posture of the country, it became the House to consider what was the condition of our connections with France and America. The full consequences of the unhappy treaty of the 15th of July, 1840, were only now beginning to make themselves apparent. The anti-English feeling in France was rather increasing than diminishing; France looked with suspicion at every act and intention of this country, and seemed almost to distrust her honour. Whatever we did we seemed to be inevitably misunderstood. Thus situated, it became the right hon. Baronet to take care that he had such a command of the purse of Great Britain as would enable him, should the occasion arise, at a moment's warning, to rouse the energies and apply the resources of the empire. He doubted whether he should have risen tonight, if he had not wished to express his unwilling dissent from one portion of the measure before the House. The right hon. Baronet had given such a large exemption to the labouring classes, that it required more than all the ingenuity of his opponents to pervert and misrepresent his intentions; but what he wished was, that the right hon. Baronet should afford an exemption to the labours of the head as well as to the labours of the hand. Trades and professions ought not to be taxed in the same proportion as funded and landed property, and he thought that some modification might yet be introduced into the bill which would make a distinction of I or 1½ per cent, in favour of skill, learning, and intellect. He pleaded for some distinction between labour and ease, between the fruits of toil and the enjoyment of superfluities. But whether this concession were made or not, he was well persuaded that if this bill were passed, the
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right hon. Baronet would, ere long, be able to come down to the House and declare, that the difficulties with which he had contended had been overcome, and that the country was in the enviable condition of being able to enjoy peace, if Providence so granted, or to undertake war, if forced upon her, and to accomplish all the great objects which lay within the reach of this great country, directed by a strong, and honest, and enlightened administration.
Mr. Raikes Currie:I ask for a few moments of that indulgence, which I believe the House never refuses to one who addresses it with reluctance and with sincerity. I may be supposed to address it with reluctance, because having had the honour of a seat here for five years, I have scarcely troubled it with as many sentences; with sincerity, because I fear that my sentiments will find little acceptation in this focus of party spirit. I feel it my duty, after the best consideration I can give the subject, to support the propositions of the right hon. Baronet. I am by no means insensible to the serious objections to an Income-tax; — I am by no means blind to the defects and short comings of the tariff: but, taking the Government propositions as a whole (and as a whole I think we are called on to consider them), they appear to me bold, honest, comprehensive; required by the circumstances which they are brought forward to meet; and, at all events, not more objectionable than any substitute equally effective which could be carried in the existing constitution of Parliament. I think this measure a bold measure, because, in the tariff some powerful and protected interests are boldly dealt with, because in the discharge of public duty the right hon. Baronet braves the odium of imposing a tax which, whatever it may seem to be at present, will become doubtless peculiarly unpopular with that middle class who form the bulk of your constituencies; its inquisitorial attributes will secure for it their extreme aversion. I think it an honest measure, because, while we impose no direct burden on the working classes, on the great body of the people, we severely tax ourselves. No other impost would hit so hard, the class to which I belong. You take 3 per cent from funded capital, and 3 per cent from profits—no small inroad, let me tell you, on a large commercial and banking business,

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I think this is a comprehensive measure, because, while you take money from the public, you do something at least, something in the right direction, to unfetter commerce, and to invigorate and expand trade, the source of all revenue. I believe, that those who most strenuously oppose the measure, acknowledge that it will be effective for the purpose it professes. But then it is not required by the exigencies of the public service. This, indeed, is a most weighty argument; for, if this be true, your tax is downright spoliation and injustice. I cannot come to this conclusion. When I see our expenditure annually exceeding our income, till a deficit of ten millions stares us in the face— when I see the miserable expedients to which we have resorted—when I remember the paramount duty, I will not say of upholding public credit, for that no one will deny, but of placing all your financial provisions above the shadow of suspicion, I can-not think that you have made too great an effort. When I look across the Atlantic, and see the shameless course which men who spring from our race, speak our language, and suppose that they have improved on our institutions, have pursued. I feel more than ever that this country is called on to exercise her high vocation as a teacher of all nations, and that the best teacher is example. Then I turn from financial to political considerations, and I confess I do not think that you have overstated the emergency. Your Indian wars would not alarm me if we had a righteous cause; but based, as they seem to me to be, on the most horrible injustice, I tremble at the wonderful arrangement of retributive justice which all history shows us does overtake the proudest and the mightiest, who become unprincipled oppressors. But there is enough in Europe to call on us to set our house in order. War appears to most of us such folly and such monstrous wickedness, that we can hardly conceive that a civilized nation would wantonly engage in it; but those who are acquainted with the irritation which exists in France, who know what a fearful part the effects of wounded vanity have played in the drama of the world, may well wish this country to be prepared for all contingencies. Thus, Sir, for the maintenance of credit, for the maintenance of European peace, for the vigorous termination of those struggles in which you are unfortunately engaged, I believe that an increase of re-
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venue is necessary—and granting this, I own I have listened with respect and attention to the substitutes rather hinted at than propounded by the noble Lord, without any conviction of their adequacy. But, say some of my hon. Friends to me, will you vote for an Income-tax in order to maintain abuses? Will you lay fresh burdens on the people, when you see that by freeing trade and maintaining duties, not for purposes of protection, but for purposes of revenue only, you might replenish the Exchequer and absolutely relieve the people? I reply to them, God forbid, if this were the real alternative before us; but while I cordially acknowledge that all this is theoretically possible, that it is undoubtedly the course of abstract justice, is it possible at the present moment, with the present distribution of political leaders, that it can be accomplished by any man with the instrumentalities with which he has to work? There seems to me a strange hiatus in all Whig argumentation on this subject—you conveniently forget that the instrument of legislation is a monopolist Parliament, the legitimate product of that distribution of political power on which you have stamped your approbation. The hon. Member continued to say, that he had looked forward to protecting and enlarging the suffrage as the means of righteous legislation when he first came into Parliament in 1837. How had his hopes been met? By a manly and candid declaration from the noble Member for London, that the Reform Act, advisedly and with premeditation, gave the preponderance of power to the landowners of the kingdom, and that if any changes were to be made in it, he could be ho party to them, as he considered the measure a final settlement of the question. But then all history shows that no dominant class ever voluntarily surrendered that which they deemed profitable to their own class-interests. Thus the friends of liberal principles and of free-trade were placed in a complete dilemma. After four years, not very well spent, the noble Lord came forward with his attack upon monopoly in a parliament of monopolists, and however chivalrous his self-devotion, the crusade was hopeless. He repudiated the only agencies which could win the victory, and then rushed into the battle. The noble Lord, in his lighter moments, was wont to smile at the impracticabilities of specu-

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lative radicals and abstract politicians; men who would be great statesmen if the world were a chess-board and human beings pawns, and all this might be very just, but did they ever undertake anything more visionary, more chimerical? One of his political friends had said of the noble Lord, that he was a man ready, at five minutes' notice, to take the command of the Channel fleet, or to build St. Peter's. The noble Lord under took —a far more arduous task—to build the temple of free trade out of the hewn stones of monopoly; and the result was that the building tumbled down, and the noble Lord and his friends remained struggling and mutilated under the scaffolding and fragments, Here we are a helpless, hopeless opposition; not so for want of leaders, for the noble Lord has the character and ability to lead any party and to conduct any Government,—but because we present the miserable spectacle of a soi-disant popular party, without a solitary puff of popular sympathy to fill our sails. What, then, remains for me, who most sincerely think that free-trade, the gradual abandonment, not of prohibition only, but protection, is absolutely essential to the welfare of your population, and, therefore, to the security of property, and to the safety of the state? What ought to be the course of the opposition? I will tell you what it ought not to be. It ought not to give a factious resistance to measures which they had advocated when sitting on the Ministerial side of the House. How could Liberal Members advance their views? By Whig instrumentality? He thought not. Were they to organise an agitation for Universal Suffrage? He was not prepared to do so. How then was the chasm to be bridged which the noble Lord had created, when he slammed the door of the constitution in the face of the unrepresented? What should they do? They ought to make the best use of any measures which showed that the right hon. Gentleman opposite desired to do justice to the people. And upon all these measures he would take the liberty of judging for himself. He had not been an inattentive ob-observer of what had taken place during the last five years. He had seen the right hon. Baronet conduct an opposition with great ability, and he believed, on the whole, with fairness. He found him now charged by hon. Gentlemen on that (the
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Opposition) side of the House with errors the most opposite, and labouring under accusations the most contradictory. At one time it was said that he had betrayed the aristocracy; and, at another, that he had pleged himself to uphold all monopolies; and we looked at the right hon. Gentleman on this side of the House, through the smoked glass of faction, and so fancy him as black as we wish. But the right hon. Gentleman two years ago, had made a pregnant declaration. "I consider the manufacturing interests of the country of more importance to you the agricultural interest, than any protecting law." The right hon. Baronet had said also, "I will never be a Minister to carry out other men's opinions." Coupling, therefore, these two opinions together, he (Mr. Currie) was sanguine enough to see in them the germs of a better system. He was sanguine enough to believe, that through his instrumentality, if, instead of hounding him on to take up with those who were ultra-protectionists, they (the Opposition) pursued an impartial course, viewing, if they pleased, his proceedings with suspicion, but still doing him justice, they would gain some good. He knew of no other agency by which they could do justice to the people. He told the right hon. Baronet, that he must do this justice, and that he must unfetter trade—that the days of legislation for class interests were numbered. It remained for the right hon. Gentleman to choose whether justice and mercy should issue forth in peace from the portals of our ancient monarchy, or whether they should be enthroned hereafter, at some doubtful, distant period, upon the wreck of all our institutions—under those institutions, he confessed, that he would wish to live and die. He would say to the right hon. Baronet in the words which he himself used the other night.—" Elevate your vision"— look beyond the sordid and party interests by which you are surrounded— look forth on the suffering, starving, but patient millions. In an old and densely - peopled country, where your chiefest care should be to make food cheap and plentiful, your party desire to maintain arrangements to render it scarce and dear. You cannot be the dupe of the shallow sophistry to which you sometimes condescend; follow your own free will. You know—you must know —that expanding trade offers the only

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hope for the existence of your increasing population, and for the safety of the state. You cannot be frightened by the childish bugbear of national dependence. You know that this country never can be wholly independent. You know, that while casual and occasional dependence is a perilous thing, full of danger to our monetary system, constant dependence is the handmaid of commerce, and the only sure cement of peace. If you say that protection is a political and social question, you cannot forget that the despair of starving millions may merge all politics and all society in one overwhelming ruin. You have the power to do justice to all classes. What a fearful responsibility that fact announces! Will you not, by timely concessions to the claims of justice and humanity, avert that fearful union of the starving workmen and their ruined masters, when they shall merge their mutual animosities in one fell cry for vengeance, and bury you and your monopolies under the ruins of the constitution? He would say to the right hon. Gentleman—and he spoke with all sincerity and respect—he would say to him once more, in his own emphatic language—" Elevate your vision"—look forth beyond a few feverish evanescent years, beyond the tiny segment of time with which we are personally conversant— when all the familiar faces which haunt these precincts have departed— when every pulse which beats within these walls shall have ceased for ever—when my name and the names of nine-tenths of those who hear me shall be utterly forgotten, or remembered only as household words, cherished by children and descendants—you will then be spoken of—for you there is no oblivion—you belong to history. You will be spoken of as an astute and able Minister—as a statesman fertile in expedients—as a debater perhaps unrivalled—as one who achieved pre-eminence in a field of the intensest competition. All this your enemies and detractors must admit. Will you not claim a higher and more enduring eulogy? Will you not enter among a far scantier and more glorious band, among those master spirits who have achieved supreme power, and used it like gods, to do justice to mankind —who have stamped their impress on the age in which they lived, and given an impulse, large, continuous, and abiding, to human happiness and human virtue? You stand on the loftiest summit of ambition;
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as you look forth from that dizzy height upon the millions of this mighty empire on that multitude, of all people, nations, and languages will not your heart be stirred within you—will you not acknowledge a constraining and diviner influence, enlightening and controlling you, like the Chaldean seer, to bless and not to curse them.
Mr. T. Duncombesaid, that if half the compliments which had been just paid to the right hon. Baronet and the Gentlemen opposite were true, every one in that House who had heard them, and every one out of it who read them, must be satisfied that the nation at the present moment was the most favoured nation on the face of the earth— that we had arrived at that point at which our political millennium was certain, and that we ought to bless the hour, and praise the day, when we saw the finances of the country regulated by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth— when we saw the forces paid by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kent—and when we saw the magistrates appointed by the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir James Graham), the Member for the great, and independent, and numerous constituency of Dorchester. These were, indeed, days in which we ought to fall down upon our knees and worship these gods upon earth. The hon. Gentleman had talked about living and dying under the institutions of the country; he would be the last individual who would wish to prevent his hon. Friend's living and dying under any institutions he might think proper. He hoped that he would long live, that the day of his death would be long deferred, and that, at any rate, it would not take place during the existence of the Income-tax, or of the Government that now oppressed the country. He differed, however, from the hon. Gentleman in the opinion he entertained of this measure. The hon. Gentleman said it was a comprehensive, a bold, and an honest measure. He admitted, indeed, that it was a comprehensive measure, for he believed it was a measure that would entail universal distress and every sort of hardship upon the country. But he denied that it was a bold measure or an honest measure. The hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Monckton Milnes) had said that nothing but a strong Government could have proposed such a measure. He agreed with him that nothing but a strong Government could have ventured upon a

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measure so obnoxious, so disgusting, and so repugnant to the feelings of the country. They were a strong Government; but in what consisted their strength? They were strong in numbers here, but were they strong in the public confidence? He knew that the right hon. Baronet was supported by a majority, who avowed that no amount of political inconsistency should prevent their adhesion, who declared that there was no profundity of political dirt they would not submit to be dragged through to support the right hon. Baronet; and then they told him that this was a strong Government. The hon. Member for Pontefract said, that he would like to see a dissolution at that moment; so should be. He should like to see the right hon. Baronet taking the sense of the country upon this question by a dissolution of Parliament. The right hon. Baronet, however, was too good a judge to appeal to the people. Restricted as the franchise was, he dare not appeal to the people. With regard to the question itself, the chief point in the speech of the noble Lord near him (Lord John Russell) had not been answered. The whole measure had been declared to be a juggle, and the noble Lord asked, what had been often asked before in debates of that House, "whom the measure was to benefit?" For they had heard much of the benefit it would afford to the working classes. Directly any hon. Member on that (the Opposition) side of the House complained that the Government were picking their pockets by an Income-tax, hon. Gentlemen opposite got up and said, that with the other hand at all events, the right hon. Baronet presented the people with a great quantity of beef, mutton, and other articles, so that the cost of living will be so cheap, that what was taken out of the pocket would not be felt. These allusions, however, created great uneasiness on the other side of the House, and up would get some greasy grazier, and assure his agricultural friends that there would not be the slightest danger—that there would be no cattle and no sheep imported, and not a foreign beast would appear to alarm the English agriculturist. The same arguments were repeated by the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Liddell), who said that a large supply of horned cattle was perfectly visionary; that he agreed with the right hon. Baronet in opinion that the alarm was wholly unfounded, that the demand from France was far beyond the supply. And the hon. Member agreed also
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with the right hon. Baronet in thinking that there would be no beef and no mutton; and that if the cornucopia, of which hon. Members were afraid, existed, he could not find it. Then came the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland, and he repeated nearly the same words. Now, what did all this mean? Who was right and who was wrong? He said it was a juggle between them, and the longer the debate continued the more perfectly would the film be removed from the eyes of the people. To the House of Commons the Government said, that they would obtain the tariff only at the price of the Income-tax, and to the working classes they said, that they were free from the Income-tax, but they must pay for their freedom by the distress they would experience from the tariff. They would not, however, be able long to hold out this delusion to the working classes of the country, who were beginning to see that the Income-tax would be the cause of that distress which would send thousands upon thousands to the workhouse. Let them look at the trades which would be flung out of employment by the tariff. Let them take the leather trade as an example. There were in the metropolis 30,000 families dependent upon the boot and shoe making and the leather trade of this country; and the tariff reduced the duty to such an extent, that it would be impossible for the English workmen to compete with foreigners; and they said, and said rightly, "If you remove the protection from us, remove also the protection granted to the agriculturists, and relieve us from the bread-tax." And if the argument of the hon. Baronet were true as to the small effect of the tariff upon food, he said that the measure was not an honest measure with regard to them. Then, again, let them take the cork-cutters. The whole trade would be brought to certain ruin by the reduction of duty on manufactured corks, and he did not believe that there was any set of persons who were more deserving the protection of that House, or the respect of the public. In that trade it was the pride that no single individual received support in a workhouse; they supported and they buried their own poor. A few days since, in consequence of the failure of their last hope, the amended tariff of the right hon. Baronet, which, though it raised the duty, did not in fact offer them any better protection, they were in despair. Then there were the straw-plait manufacturers of this country. He believed that there were

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150,000 females employed in the straw-plait manufactures; and he had received several communications, not only with reference to the straw-plait manufactures, and the boot and shoe manufactures, and the cork makers, but from other trades which would be injured materially by the tariff. He would give a sample of what was going on from a letter of one of the straw-plait manufacturers in Suffolk, whose petition he had lately presented to the House. He said—
" I cannot consider the Government proposition otherwise than awfully cruel to our own poor, unless they would first give us free-trade in bread corn. So convinced are the manufacturers in this neighbourhood that the proposed tariff will destroy our home trade, that we are all discharging our hands as fast as we can, and the wailings of the poor women are already heart-rending."
How did the right hon. Baronet prove that this measure would benefit the working classes? Only satisfy him that it would benefit the working classes, and as far as his vote went he would give his support to the right hon. Baronet. It was never maintained in the old days of the Income-tax, or of the property-tax, that it could in any way benefit the working classes. The noble Lord (Lord John Russell) had already quoted part of the speech of the right hon. Baronet in 1833, but he had not read the concluding portion. It was well worthy of especial notice. The right hon. Baronet said:—
" With respect to a tax upon income without property, I very much doubt whether it would promote the interests of the labouring classes, because it would diminish the funds at present appropriated to the encouragement of industry and the promotion of labour, and it would ultimately be found that the lax did not affect the person who paid it so much as the labourer by diminishing his means of employment;"
Again, in 1835, on another discussion for referring the question of the general taxation of the country to a select committee, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goulburn), in answer to the hon. Mover, Mr. Robinson, said, that although it had been agreed, that the property-tax had been opposed principally by the wealthy classes, this was all a mistake. He went on to say—
" Hon. Members appear to me to have entirely forgotten the circumstances under which the former property-tax was imposed, and afterwards repealed. The hon. Member for Tynemouth has contended, that when the question of the repeal of that tax was under the
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consideration of Parliament, the repeal was carried solely by the influence of the wealthy portions of the community. Now, is it true, that the opposition to the tax at the time of its repeal proceeded from the aristocracy? Quite the contrary. I well remember, that the agitation of that question did hot originate with those who are usually termed the aristocracy, but with an individual who avowed himself, and was generally acknowledged to be, the warm, perhaps, the extravagant, advocate of popular interests—I mean the late Lord Chancellor of England, Lord Brougham—who took up the question, and opposed the tax expressly on the ground of its tendency to fetter the industry of the country. The hon. Member (Mr. Robinson) was not then in Parliament, and of course did not hear as I did the speeches then made by the noble and learned Lord, against this tax, week after week, month after month, in which the consideration of the interest of the rich entered but little, if at all, into the arguments employed. What he insisted on was, the inquisitorial nature of the law—that it threw impediments in the way of trade and commerce, and interfered most injuriously with the industry of the labouring classes. The hon. Member, therefore, is wrong in supposing that the clamour for its removal at that time came from the rich, or that its abolition took place in deference to their wishes. Whether it be right to re-impose it, I do not now say; but I fully concur in what has been observed upon the present occasion, that if imposed again it must apply alike to all parts of the empire—to Ireland as well as to England."
What right had the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to say that he was now bringing in a measure to benefit the working classes, which in 1833, as well as in 1835, was stated to be a tax of such a nature, that it must fall more heavily on the working classes than on any other? He asked why they did not apply this measure to Ireland? Ireland benefitted as much as any other part of the empire by the measure which was the immediate cause of the present deficiency; of the penny post, had not Ireland as much as England the benefit? But what did they propose to do? They put on a small tax of 200,000 l. on spirits, whilst they put an Income-tax of 4,000,000 l. upon England. [An hon. Member: "The stamp duties also."] The right hon. Baronet, in truth, admitted a great part of their case. He admitted that it was an inquisitorial tax. Did the public know the consequence of this inquisition? He would just give a few of the questions that were asked by that inquisition, the last year before the property-tax was repealed. The hon. Gentleman who had just spoken said, that the tax was popular with

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the commercial interests. It certainly was not popular in the city of London in the year 1815. In the last year there were 11,000 surcharges in the city of London alone. What had occurred upon those surcharges? Four thousand had appealed against the surcharges; three thousand of these appellants succeeded, and one thousand surcharges were confirmed. Seven thousand persons submitted to the surcharge without complaint. Well might it be argued from this what was the state of things when seven thousand surcharges were submitted to. Either this large number of a great commercial community were prepared and did absolutely evade the assessment, or they shrunk from exposing their circumstances. It was then said what a pestilential effect such a tax must have upon the morals of the community: yet the right hon. Baronet told the country they must submit to this inquisition. What Were the questions put to the professional men, the tradesmen, and the victuallers? They had been collected and laid before the House: and when it was proposed to keep them as records of the tax, Lord Brougham said that the only course to be taken with respect to these documents was to have them burnt at the hands of the common hangman, and burnt they were by persons appointed for that purpose in every part of the country. And well might they be burnt when such question's as these were asked of the professional men, the merchants, and the traders. Of the traders it was asked:—
" What is the amount of goods sold or business done in the three years preceeding 1814? Upon what principle do you calculate your gross profits, either by percentage or any other mode, specifying the manner? Are you subject to any deduction for interest of money for capital or money borrowed, and if so state the amount? What is the amount of the salaries or wages of persons employed by you?"
Was such an inquisition to be treated as nothing? He would only next turn to the licensed victuallers, and of them it was asked,—
" What is the amount of money taken in your house in the course of one week, month, or year? State the particulars of your trade, whether beer, wine, spirits, or eating? What is the quantity of beer drawn per month? Is there any interest paid by you to the brewer, or to any other person, for money for the purposes of business, if so, state the amount? Have you, besides your trade, any income from money in the funds or houses, or any other species of profit whatever?"
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And not only were they obliged to make these answers, but they were obliged to swear to theft truth. Hon. Gentleman talked of the support the measure obtained, but he confessed he could not find any individual out of the House who was in favour of the tax; and he believed that if the House could possibly be converted— he feared it was almost impracticable— into a Palace of Truth, the right hob. Gentleman would find that the hon. Gentleman sitting behind him, when the question was put, aye or no, would say "no" to this most obnoxious tax; He had, however, another objection to this tax. It was said that it favoured the landowner and oppressed the tradesman. Under the present Reform Act every borough elector was bound to pay, before the 20th of July in every year, all the Queen's taxes, and assessed taxes made previous to the 6th of April before he could be registered. The county electors were hot forced to make any such payment. This, therefore, would give another great and important power, under which the myrmidons and spies of the Government were to be let loose on the country. He had already brought the rate-paying clauses before the House; they would be now giving a further power to the government to intimidate the voters by means of their agents, the tax-collectors, who would no doubt act in perfect harmony with the 364 magistrates for boroughs lately appointed by the right hon. Baronet. He knew that the rate-paying clauses were a convenience to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They were the Chancellor of the Exchequer's clauses, and they reversed the true order of things, for they made taxation precede representation, instead of allowing representation to go before taxation. He had no doubt that this would be a most productive tax to the right hon. Baronet. No one disputed that; but he told the right hon. Baronet it was a tax which could only be collected amidst the heart burnings and dissensions of the people. It was possible that the opponents of the measure might be defeated, but at any rate they had the satisfaction of knowing that when this nefarious machinery should be in full operation, they had warned the country of its danger, and although defeated they had done their best to pre-vent the plunder and persecution of the people.
Mr. Roebucksaid, that it appeared, that any hon. Gentleman who chose to act for himself upon his Own sense of what is

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right, and not to do that which might be pleasing to those shining lights who sat about him, was to be subjected to an ordeal by no means pleasant, nor much, he thought, for the honour of those who practised it. It seemed, that those who sat on the Opposition benches assumed to themselves the right of saying, that if any one among them did what they did not like, he was to be marked out as the enemy of the cause, and, it therefore, became the duty of those who did not share in such views to state fully and energetically what were their real sentiments, and what induced them to depart from the bright lights who sat around them, and follow the small candle of their own intelligence. He should endeavour to do this for himself. A few words which he had addressed to the House on a former occasion had given rise to much observation; but he was glad to have had a defender in one (Mr. R. Currie), who had made a much more eloquent defence than he could have made for himself. That hon. Member also had spoken of the boldness, the honesty, and the straightforwardness of the right hon. Baronet's measure; so that he was not quite alone in his opinion of the bill, and he had the eloquent defence of the hon. Gentleman to fall back upon. In addressing himself to the question he would take all the elements involved in it, and having combined them into one whole, he would compare the two systems— namely, that proposed by the right hon. Baronet, and that proposed by the noble Lord the Member for London. In justice to himself and to the right hon. Baronet, he was bound to lake this course—to consider the whole of his proposition together, not to take any part as a unit, but combining the tax and the tariff, to compare the whole measure with that of the noble Lord. He would also take the whole proposition of the noble Lord, and having stated the exigencies of the time, he would analyze both plans, and then put it to the House to say, which was the best under the peculiar exigencies of the country. If he satisfied the House, that the exigency was such as to require a searching remedy, and if he could show that the proposition of the right hon. Baronet was the most complete and effectual, he would assume, that he had made out his whole case. He would first call the attention of the House to those points in which the plan of the right hon. Baronet and that of the noble Lord agreed, and thus the value of each
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would be more easily appreciated. He should also point out in what degree he differed from both, as to the remedy which the present juncture required, and failing to induce the House to concur in his opinion, he would give reasons for falling back upon the plan of the right hon. Baronet as the better of the other two. The noble Lord admitted, that at the present moment there was a great deficiency of the revenue to meet the expenses. This was equally admitted on the other side. The noble Lord allowed, that the deficiency ought to be provided for out of the current income. Upon this point also both parties were agreed. They further agreed, that the deficiency could not be saved out of the expenditure. There, however, he differed from them both. In his opinion, the proper mode of meeting the present emergency was, not by imposing further burdens upon the people in their present distressed condition, but to reduce the expenditure to the level of the income. The House, however, he was satisfied, would not agree to this course, and if he should press any such proposition to a division, he did not believe more than half-a-dozen Members would go out with him upon it. He did not think it an unfair assumption to say, that any proposal to meet the deficiency by saving from the expenditure would be almost universally resisted by the House. If, as had been threatened, the constituency complained of this tax, he would say, they had no just right to complain. It was they who elected the majority, well knowing that the persons whom they sent to Parliament would vote against any plan for making up a deficiency by saving from the expenditure; and they had no right to complain of that which was the work of their own hands. Those who were entitled to complain were, the persons not represented in that House; and he hoped, that they would complain, not of the right hon. Baronet, but of the noble Lord who spoke of the finality of the Reform Bill. That doctrine was the root from which all the evil sprang. The blame of the present exigency rested on both parties, but on none more than on the noble Lord who moved the amendment to the proposition of the right hon. Baronet. The noble Lord had followed out his system for more than eleven years, and the consequence was, that he and his party had fallen from a height of popularity which no Minister had reached for a long time previously, and he was now

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left in the hopeless condition in which he would find himself at the end of the division. The unrepresented classes were the persons who should feel just indignation at the course which had been pursued, and that indignation ought, properly, to fall to the share of the noble Lord. It was granted, that there was a deficiency, that the deficiency must be provided for, and the question then was, what were the best means of meeting it? It was not to be met by those charges and recriminations too commonly indulged in, which had the effect of making one debate to spring, phoenix-like, out of the ashes of another. It would not do to take up a volume of Hansard at one side and pitch it across the House at the head of an hon. Member on the other, who would retort by pitching another volume of the same work back at his assailant. It would not do, like two angry scolds, to deal in accusations and retort, such as "It was you who did it".— "No, it was not, it was you." Such was the course hitherto pursued. When it was asked who caused the deficiency? the right hon. Baronet said, "We did not. Look to Canada, and see there the smouldering ashes of a smothered war." The right hon. Baronet said this, as if he had no share in the proceeding—as if he had not stood at the back of the noble Lord and hounded him on. If there was to be a war expenditure, both parties must admit their share in the proceedings which led to it. There was no use in idle talk and recrimination; there was no use in flinging Hansard in each other's faces. The people knew the share which each party had in reducing the country to its present exigency, and might justly say with Mercutio, "A plague on both your houses." Both were equally guilty, and both were justly exposed to the indignation of the country. The right hon. Baronet had to raise a sum of from 2,000,000 l. to 3,000,000 l. to meet and cover the expenditure of the year. This he could not effect by any alteration of the tariff, and here it should be remarked, that the noble Lord in all his propositions never once said, that he could raise the required sum by any of his plans. This was a curious fact. The noble Lord never pointed out as a man of business any plan which would clearly go to provide for the deficiency. There was still another point. The noble Lord had stated, that he could provide for the deficiency, but contented himself by saying, that his plan would produce a cer-
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tain sum of money. One of the modes was by an 8s. duty on corn, which, it should be remarked, was not simply for the purpose of revenue but for protection also, and on the point of protection the noble Lord again agreed with the right hon. Baronet. The country should understand, that; when there was so much talk of relieving the working classes, and so much indignation expressed at the imposition of an Income- tax, which it was said, would press upon capital and thus prevent the employment of labour,—the country should remember, that notwithstanding this indignation, the Leader of the Opposition united with the Leader of the Government in keeping up the tax upon corn. How, he should like to know, would hon. Gentlemen who professed their desire to remove all restrictions on the importation of food, reconcile their votes for a total abolition of the Corn-laws with the imposition of an 8s. duty? How would they reconcile to themselves and their constituents their support of an 8s. duty on the first article of life, or what excuse could they give when (he hoped he should be pardoned the expression) for party purposes they went in direct opposition to their former votes? With respect to the tariff of the right hon. Baronet, the noble Lord concurred in that also, as far as it went, though he condemned it as not going far enough with respect to certain articles. He also agreed in thinking, that it did not go far enough, for he was desirous of doing away with the whole of the discrimating duties. As far, however, as the noble Lord and the right hon. Baronet were concerned, it would not be difficult to bring them into equilibrio upon this point. If the noble Lord went further in the article of sugar, the right hon. Baronet made amends in other articles of provision; and here the measure of the right hon. Baronet was of the utmost importance to the working classes, and it was well for the country to find a Minister who was bold enough to make such a proposition, notwithstanding the opposition which it was calculated to create amongst his own supporters. Protection to the landed interest was the cry usually raised for paltry purposes, whilst it was obvious that the whole lives of parties in that House were spent in a disgraceful scramble for power. [Cheers from the Ministerial benches.]He was glad to hear that cheer, but who, he asked, were those who used the Poor-law for electioneering purposes,

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professing to be the friends of the poor, and then turning round to the farmers, assured them that they would look to the protection of agriculture? These courses were adopted for party purposes, and night after night that House exhibited disgraceful scrambles for power both on one side and on the other. What was there in the proposition of the right hon. Baronet to quarrel with, when there was so much of agreement between him and the noble Lord? The difference between them was this:—They both agreed that there was a deficiency, which the right hon. Baronet proposed to make up by a direct tax, which the noble Lord never, as it appeared, intended to provide for. ["Oh, oh."] If he was in error, let it be shown. If the noble Lord proposed to make up the deficiency, let it be shown that he had done so. It had not, however, yet been shown. It was true the noble Lord said, that by his plan some monies might be gained from lowering the taxes, but it was not attempted to be shown, that a sum would be realized sufficient to meet the deficiency of revenue. The right hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department adverted to this, and put the question as to what tax could be re-imposed—whether any of the proposed alterations of the noble Lord would make up the required sum, and, if not, how was that sum to be supplied? This question the right hon. Baronet distinctly put, and had any answer been given to it? The question was pertinent and pithy. Why had it not been answered? Simply because it could not. Much had been said of political economy, much sympathy had been expressed for the poor, and complaints had been made that employment would be curtailed by the defalcation of capital. The noble Lord argued that revenue should be raised, not by putting on, but by taking off taxes, which would lead to a larger consumption of the several commodities thus relieved. But out of whose pocket would the larger sum come? Somebody must pay it. [" No, no. "] No, no! If 2,000,000 l. were to be raised, somebody must pay it; and would not this be a defalcation of capital? But even then it was admitted that the whole of the deficiency could not be raised in that way. If so, what else remained but direct taxation? There must in any event be 2,000,000 l. taken from the means of employment, to meet the exigencies of the State. If done directly the people
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would know how it was taken; if indirectly, it would amount to the same sum. He defied any political economist to take 2,000,000 l. of money from the people without thereby diminishing their means of enjoyment. He could show from the writings of the most eminent political economists that all taxation fell upon capital, wages, rent, and profits. That which fell upon wages was bad, as was also that which fell upon capital. The question for a statesman to consider was whether more was taken in the way of taxation than the people could reproduce annually; for if there was not a reproduction the tax then began to fall upon capital, which would then be reduced. It would then be a statesman's duty to act as one would act in private life, and reduce his expenditure to the amount of his income. Now, if a proposition were made which would have the effect of so altering our fiscal regulation as to give to the people what they ought to have, and if an instrument were provided for carrying such a proposition into effect, would the noble Lord vote for it? No, he would not unless it afforded protection to agriculture. Taking, therefore, the House as it was, and judging between the leaders of both parties, seeing that the total abolition of these duties could not be effected, and that the House was not prepared to make such fiscal alterations as would give the people their rights, opposed as such a proposition would be by the noble Lord and the right hon. Baronet, what was to be done? Was the country to be left in the financial state in which it would remain if the noble Lord's resolution were carried— a state in which no man of forethought, honour, or courage would allow it to remain, Under such circumstances every man was called on to make a sacrifice, and he was not to be daunted by the cuckoo note of inquisitorial. All talk of that kind would quickly fade away in the result of actual experience. For his own part he should vote in the way which he thought right, and if his constituents thought he was wrong, they could give an intimation to that effect in the proper way. He should not be frightened from his propriety by the alleged inquisitorial nature of the tax. As to the idle taunt of a war-tax it was beneath an answer. What meant a war-tax? A tax which was to be spent in war. Was not money expended in the war in Affghanistan? Was not

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money spent in the war in China? This money was raised by taxation, and so much of it as was spent thus was a war-tax. People talked of a reserve in time of need. Was not this a time of need? We wanted more than we had. We had acted like careless spendthrifts for more than ten years, and it was high time that we should make up our accounts and pay over the counter. The money must be had somewhere, and if it pressed upon the industry of the people, they had the remedy in their own hands. It was in the power of the constituency to turn out any man who voted against the imposition of taxes. As regarded the present proposition, he concurred in the opinion that a direct tax was the least expensive, at the same time that it gave to the people the advantage of knowing what they had to pay. He hoped that he should not be ranked as an enemy of the people in taking the course which he considered the best. He might be wrong, but guided by the light he had, and weighing well the two propositions, he was prepared to advocate the plan which let the people know what they had to pay, and imposed the tax in the cheapest manner. He should, therefore, vote for the proposition of the right hon. Baronet, and he hoped he should be able, hereafter, to persuade him to alter what was crying and unjust in the measure when it went into committee. ["Oh, oh."] Yes, he would oppose in committee whatever he considered unjust in the measure, and, he believed, that means might be adopted for making it press more equally. It was in the power of the House, by votes, by arguments, by addresses to the Crown, to alter what was obnoxious in the measure, and if these failed, not on those who made the endeavour to amend the bill, but on those who resisted it, let the odium fall. He would vote for the right hon. Baronet, because he alone of the two statesmen who had made their several propositions, had really adopted means equal to the exigency. He had fairly met the difficulty in the face, and had stated it to the full extent in which it ought to be exhibited. He had met the case honestly, and had plainly stated it without circumlocution. He had not indulged in any shuffling expediency, and was therefore more worthy the confidence of the people than those who were now his opponents.
Mr. Wallacedeclared he never heard a
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more illogical speech than that which had just been delivered by the hon. and learned Member for Bath. It was a speech of cleverness, but in no respect applicable to the matter in hand. The hon. Member proved that he knew nothing about the subject on which he had undertaken to enlighten the House. The hon. Member told the right hon. Baronet he approved of an Income-tax, and assigned various reasons for the support he intended, giving to what most other people considered a most odious imposition, that is, he would give him his support at the present stage, but when it appeared in Committee he was oppose it on the ground of professional income not being a fair subject for taxation, in other words, the hon. and learned Member was prepared to oppose when the shoe pinched himself, but allow it to full with all its weight on others. But the people also felt for themselves, and, if he knew any thing of them, he should say they would not submit to the imposition. At any rate Scotchmen or Irishmen would not. All he could say was, that if any Scotchman tamely submitted to it, he must be one of the few noodles which Scotland produced. He would tell the promoters of this detested Income-tax, that they were bringing an old house about their ears. Distressed as the people were from one end of the kingdom to the other, they were not prepared to let the Government take away still further from them the means of giving employment to the working classes. For his own part, he was resolved to take every opportunity of opposing this Tax, for the purpose of putting it off long enough to allow the whole agricultural population to see whether the promised tariff was likely to be productive to them of good or of evil. And now he felt bound to call upon hon. Members on the other side, who represented agricultural constituencies, to exert themselves, for the purpose of inducing the right hon. Baronet opposite to show in what manner he could 'benefit the consumer without loss to the landed interest. The truth is, the country must get the tariff, or refuse the Income-tax. It was not every hon. Member in that House who could recollect the working of the Income-tax in former times, but he was old enough to possess some acquaintance with that subject. He believed the present generation had not an idea of the oppressive and

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annoying character of an Income-tax. It was every thing that could be odious and disgraceful to a free country. He should oppose it to the utmost of his power, and give the proposition of the noble Lord the Member for London his most cordial support.
Mr. Sharman Crawfordhaving heard it stated by the hon. Member for Bradford, that a memorial had been presented to Government from a numerous and respectable body of Rochdale, in favour of the right hon. Baronet's proposal, desired to say, that he had taken pains to inform himself of the feeling in that town by calling a public meeting. At that meeting, which was numerously attended, the opinion expressed, without a dissentient voice, was, that the Income-tax ought to be opposed. He felt bound, therefore, to consider that the opinion of the people of Rochdale was opposed to the plan of the right hon. Baronet. On the last division he had abstained from voting because he would neither give his support to the proposition of the noble Lord, nor that of the right hon. Baronet, but on the present occasion he should feel it his duty to vote against the right hon. Baronet.
Mr. Cobdensaid, that there were other taxes quite as unequal in their pressure and as unjust in their operation as any Income tax could be. He did not therefore oppose the Income-tax as an Income-tax. He opposed it as he would oppose any other tax to be laid on under the present circumstances of the country, because, in the first place, when trade was suffering and while every private establishment was compelled to reduce its expenditure, economy ought to be carried into every department of the Government, from the most illustrious person in the land down to the humblest. He could not agree with the hon. Member for Bath that, because he did not see a majority ready to support him, he must therefore go over to the other side and swell a majority already too large. In the second place he opposed an Income-tax, because he believed the country was paying taxes to classes and to individuals which, if repealed, he had the highest authority for stating there would be an abundant revenue accruing to the State. He would say, then, abolish monopolies first; and then, if the expenses of the Government could not be met, would be the time to talk about imposing fresh taxes. The right hon. Baronet and his followers would
704
not admit that the Corn-laws and the restrictions upon trade had anything to do with the distress that prevailed; but when the budget was brought forward they proposed what was called a grand system of tariff reform. Then it was suddenly discovered that commercial restrictions caused the distress of the country, and then the noble Lord the Member for Lancashire, who for three years had opposed all the attempts of the free-traders, said it would be a crime of the highest magnitude to delay for an hour measures which were to restore prosperity to the country. There was a new-born zeal for commercial reform, and these raw recruits actually child and snubbed the old veterans in the cause of free-trade, who for years had been vainly knocking at the doors of that House and asking for relief. For three years the manufacturers and traders had been showing what in their own opinion was the remedy for commercial distress. Petitions had been sent up to that House with five million signatures, and a thousand meetings had been held all over the country— all those proceedings tending to one point —the repeal of the Corn-law. The right hon. Baronet had come down with what he called a tariff, but it was not a tariff, for it excluded the most important article of commerce. The right hon. Gentleman excluded corn from his list of marketable commodities. He said emphatically that the right hon. Gentleman would not allow the corn that was wanted to come in, for by his new proposal he placed as complete a barrier against a regular trade in corn, as there was under the old system. The traders and manufacturers had applied for one sole remedy for the grievances of which they complained. He did not mean to say that all advocated a total repeal, because a very large section were favourable to a fixed duty, but had any body of merchants, manufacturers, or traders, presented petitions to that House in favour of a sliding-scale? ["Question."] That was the question. They brought forward what they called a tariff, from which they expunged the article, not of corn only, but of sugar also. Those two commodities were essential to the trade of this country to both the New and the Old World. There was now sugar in this country, from the Brazils and Cuba, lying in bond, which might be had for half the price which was obtained for the article imported from our own colonies. What, after all, was this

705
tariff? Take cattle, the most important article it contained. ["Question."] It was the question. Why the right hon. Baronet himself had told them they were to take the two subjects together. The most important change, then, in the tariff was the introduction of live cattle. Now, he admitted the importance of that feature as the concession of a principle. But there could not be a great trade in cattle—it must be principally restricted to the nearest parts of the Continent. Then if there was no great importation, there could be no great export of goods, and no great consequent increase of employment for the people. But if there was a large import of cattle, that would be no deterioration of the revenue, for cattle had hitherto been prohibited, and it was manifestly unfair to put forward as an excuse for an Income-tax that which made no reduction in the revenue; but, on the contrary, increased it. He found no reduction in this tariff upon articles of general consumption—no reduction upon tea, sugar, or butter. There was a reduction of 4s. per cwt., it was true, upon salted meat; but he doubted much whether much salted meat could be consumed by the people of this country without injury to their health. There was no reduction upon the article of cotton, though there was a duty of 5 to 6 per cent, upon the raw material. Much had been done in trifles, but the articles most essential to the trade of the country the right hon. Baronet had passed over. These were the things to cause a defalcation of 1,200,000 l., and these were the excuses for the Income-tax. There was a reduction in the article of timber at a time when the people could not afford to build houses, and when the merchants could not build ships. The Government allowed the importation of beef at a time when the people were reduced to a potato diet and wanted bread; they admitted French boots and gloves, to compete with our own artisans at a time when they hindered them from the advantage of a free-trade in corn. He denounced them for thus appearing before the country in the guise of free-traders, and beginning their operations at the wrong end. The Income-tax was not necessary to carry out the principles of free-trade, and as a free-trader he utterly repudiated it. The articles in which they desired free-trade were those which yielded no revenue to
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the State, but only put money in the pockets of individuals. The free-traders did not wish to touch the Queen's Exchequer at all. A free-trade in corn would be of ten thousand times more importance than all the right hon. Baronet had proposed. Allusion had been made to the petitions that had been presented in favour of the tariff, and he was ashamed to say, that the persons most active in promoting those petitions were the clergy of the establishment. What had been the conduct of the clergy when they were asked to join their dissenting brethren in opposition to the Corn-laws? They refused, on the ground that they could not interfere in party politics. No sooner, however, was the Corn-bill secure, than the clergy had come forward as partisans and supporters of the Government; and so rash and hasty had they been in so doing, that they had actually signed petitions for the whole tariff before the amended tariff had come out, and had prayed that the whole might pass. Thus, then, they had petitioned for the first tariff with all its errors, and now he supposed they would have to petition again for the amendments. [Interruption.] He assured the House that he did not intend to trespass further upon its patience. But, representing as he did a constituency desolate and wretched as the people of Stockport now were, he conceived that he had not intruded their wrongs and sufferings upon the attention of the Legislature more than they deserved. When the right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel) brought forward, a proposition which was to be a panacea for all the ills of the country, he thought that as the representative of a large and suffering portion of the community, he occupied a position in that House, which warranted him in expressing an opinion as to what the probable effect of the right hon. Baronet's proposition would be. He was bound to say, that he thought the right hon. Baronet and his supporters were entirely deluded as to the result of the measures now proposed. He believed that under the operation of those measures, the right hon. Baronet would not find such a revival of trade as would give him an opportunity of removing the Income-tax. He could not see from what such a revival was to arise. The remedy had been delayed too long. For years past the right hon. Baronet and his party had resisted all amelioration.

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For years past trade and commerce had been allowed to languish and decline— no helping hand had been extended to them; and now that a remedy was at length proposed, he feared it came too late. During the last six months there had been a reduction of the wages of the working class, equal to an annual sum of 5,000,000 l. sterling. Think how that would act upon the Exchequer, and upon the trade of the country. Think of this mighty reduction in the earnings of the people, and then consider what must be the prospect of a country so situated — a country, the prosperity of whose trade and commerce, nay, whose very greatness in the estimation of the world, depended upon the industry of the working classes of its community. Let the House consider this, and then ask itself whether, having so long delayed the application of remedial measures, it believed that the homœpathic system now proposed would be sufficient to effect a cure. Three years ago, the Gentlemen opposite refused to believe that the manufacturers were in distress. Two years ago they shut the doors of the House against them. Twelve months ago, when the representatives of the manufacturing classes went into statistical detail, and brought forward statements of figures to show that they were in distress, the right hon. Baronet told them that they were not in a state of suffering. All remedy bad been left alone until the symptoms of distress and poverty were felt in the Exchequer. Now the question of trade and commerce was taken up —now the principles before stigmatised as something atrocious and not to be tolerated, were taken into consideration with the view of being acted upon; and now the Government came forward to propose an Income-tax as a remedial measure for the great interests which had been suffered to fall into decay and ruin. He told the right hon. Baronet that he would fail in his policy unless be went further. Hitherto the taxation of the country had been derived from its manufacturing industry. The manufacturers had been the beasts of burden who had sustained the expenses of the country's wars. The right hon. Baronet knew the importance of the manufacturing world to the revenue of the State. The right hon. Baronet had now the remedy in his own hands. He might
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now relieve the consumers of the country, and give them an opportunity of bearing the expenses of the State, which they could well do, ay, better than the people of any other country on earth, if free scope were given to the exercise of their industry. Let the right hon. Baronet do this, and he might have revenue and prosperity yet. Let him fail to do so, and he would soon find that he had exhausted the energy of the working bee—that the honey was consumed— that there was nothing but the honeycomb to feed on;—let them see how long that would last. Arkwright, when he had finished his invention, said the country need not care for the war which then raged, he would pay the expenses; and he had done so. It was the cotton trade, despised as it was, that had enabled the country to pay the enormous interest of the debt the war had heaped upon her. If they destroyed that trade, as they were trying to do, destruction would come sooner upon them than they were aware of.
Mr. Muntz:I am as much opposed to the Income-tax as the hon. Member, or any man in England. But the right hon. Baronet dared not to have proposeda property-tax without one upon income also. At the same time I am so anxious to see a tax upon property, that I would rather vote for a tax upon both than lose it. The hon. and learned Member for Bath says the House was about to come to a party vote. I will not give a party vote —I never will—I am going to vote with the right hon. Baronet, because I think it would be for the benefit of the people at large [cheers]—I say to the interests of the people at large—not to the interests of the elector—not to the interests of my supporters—that is no consideration to me [laughter and cheers].If my vote does not please my constituents, they know what to do in the case. I wish them to do as they please; but I am sure I am voting for the interests of the great body of the people, when I place the burden of taxation upon those who are not only competent to bear it, but who are the framers, the regulators, and the directors of the law. Now, I object to the Income-tax. [Laughter.] I don't quite understand that laugh. I said before, that I object to an Income-tax as much as any man in England, and I was going to assign a reason why I object to it. I object to it,

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because it is exceedingly inquisitorial, because it falls with exceeding weight upon those unfortunate tradesmen, who in times like these, dare not let their circumstances be known to the public, and who for that reason are obliged to declare and pay upon an amount of profits which they do not realise. I mention this, to show that I am well aware of the working of an Income-tax. I remember the last Income-tax, I was then in business and felt the operation of it, but I do not consider that these privations imposed upon the tradesmen constitute a sufficient reason for my objecting to the property-tax, which now appears to me to be necessary. If I believed that the proposals of the former Government, if carried into effect, would render unnecessary the imposition of an income or of a property-tax, I should feel bound to vote against the present proposition of the right hon. Baronet; but I do not believe that those proposals would have realised the views of those who introduced them. I am ' totally at variance with the Members of the late Government upon that point. I believe that their measures would have failed. In the present state of the country some remedial measure is required; and I do not wish for longer delay. I go further than this, and say that I do not believe, that the measures proposed by the right hon. Baronet and his supporters will relieve the distress of the country, and therefore it is that I wish they may be laid on, because they will show the people that other measures are necessary such measures as neither party in this House have yet proposed. The only object I had in rising was to say these few words to justify the vote I am about to give. [Laughter.]I have not the slightest objection to Gentlemen laughing. I feel that the reasons I have assigned are sufficient. I wish to lay the burden upon the Government and upon those who are able to bear it. I have no more to say upon the subject.
Mr. Rundlerose amidst loud and general calls for a division, He merely wished to state that he purposed to vote against the proposition of the right hon. Baronet, for the very reason assigned by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, as inducing him to vote in favour of it; and that reason was, that he wished to see the burden of taxation laid upon the lawmakers, whom he conceived to be the landed proprietors of the country. He thought that
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a legacy duty ought to be imposed on the descent of real property. Until measures of that kind had been resorted to, he did not think they would be justified in imposing an Income-tax upon the country.
The House divided on the question, that the word "now" stand part of the question:—Ayes 285; Noes 188: Majority 97.

List of the AYES.

Acland, Sir T. D.

Carnegie, hon. Capt.

Acland, T. D.

Charteris, hon. F.

A'Court, Capt.

Chelsea, Visct.

Ackers, J.

Chetwode, Sir J.

Acton, Col.

Christmas, W.

Adare, Visct.

Christopher, R. A.

Adderley, C. B.

Chute, W. L. W.

Alford, Visct.

Clayton, R. R.

Allix, J. P.

Clements, H. J.

Antrobus, E.

Clerk, Sir G.

Arbuthnott, hon. H.

Clive, hon. R. H.

Archdall, Capt.

Cochrane, A.

Arkwright, G.

Cockburn,rt.hn.SirG.

Ashley, Lord

Codrington, C. W.

Astell, W.

Colvile, C. R.

Attwood, J.

Conolly, Col.

Bagge, W.

Coote, Sir C. H.

Bagot, hon.W.

Corry, rt. hon. H.

Bailey, J.

Courtenay, Visct.

Bailey, J., jun.

Cripps, W.

Baillie, Col.

Currie, R.

Baird, W.

Damer, hon. Col.

Balfour, J. M.

Darby, G.

Baring, hon. W. B.

Dawnay, hon. W. H.

Barrington, Visct.

Denison, E. B.

Baskerville, T. B. M.

Dickinson, F. H.

Bateson, Sir R.

Douglas, Sir H.

Beckett, W.

Douglas, Sir C. E.

Bell, M.

Douro, Marquess of

Bentinck, Lord G.

Dowdeswell, W.

Beresford, Capt.

Drummond, H. H.

Beresford, Major

Duffield, T.

Bernard, Visct.

Duncombe, hon. A.

Blackburne, J. I.

Du Pre, C. G.

Blakemore, R.

Eaton, R. J.

Bodkin, W. H.

Egerton, Sir P.

Boldero, H. G.

Eliot, Lord

Borthwick, P.

Emlyn, Visct.

Botfield, B.

Estcourt, T. G. B.

Bradshaw, J.

Farnham,E. B.

Bramston, T. W.

Feilden, W.

Broadley, H.

Fellowes, E.

Broad wood, H.

Ferguson, R. A.

Brooke, Sir A. B.

Ferrand, W. B.

Brownrigg, J. S.

Filmer, Sir E.

Bruce, Lord E.

Fitzroy, Capt.

Bruce, C. L. C.

Fitzroy, hon. H.

Buck, L. W.

Fleming, J. W.

Buckley, E.

Follet, Sir W. W.

Buller, Sir J. Y.

Forbes, W.

Bunbury, T.

Forester, hn. G. C. W.

Burroughes, H. N.

Fuller, A. E.

Campbell, Sir H.

Gaskell, J. Milnes

Campbell, A.

Gladstone, rt.hn.W E.

Cardwell, E.

Godson, R,

711

Gordon, hn. Capt.

Lyall, G.

Gore, M.

Lygon, hon. General

Gore, W. O.

Mackenzie, T.

Gore, W. R. O.

Mackenzie, W. F.

Goring, C.

Mackinnon, W. A.

Graham, rt. hn. Sir J.

Maclean, D.

Granby, Marquess of

M'Geachy, F. A.

Greene, T.

Mahon, Visct.

Gregory, W. H.

Mainwaring, T.

Grimsditch, T.

Manners, Lord C. S.

Grimston, Visct.

Manners, Lord J.

Hale, R.B.

Marsham,Visct.

Halford, H.

Martin, C. W.

Hamilton, W. J.

Martyn, C. C.

Hamilton, Lord C.

Marton, G.

Hampden, R.

Master, T. W. C.

Hanmer, Sir J.

Masterman, J.

Harcourt, G. G.

Meynell, Capt.

Hardinge, rt.hn.Sir H.

Miles, P. W. S,

Hardy, J.

Miles, W.

Hawkes, T.

Milnes, R. M.

Hayes, Sir E.

Mitchell, T. A.

Heathcoate, Sir W.

Mordaunt, Sir J.

Heneage, G. H. W.

Morgan, O.

Henley, J. W.

Morgan, C.

Hepburn, Sir T. B.

Mundy, E. M.

Herbert, hon. S.

Muntz, G. F.

Hill, Sir R.

Neeld, J.

Hillsborough, Earl of

Neeld, J.

Hinde,J.H.

Neville, R.

Hodgson, F.

Newry, Visct.

Hodgson, R.

Nicholl, rt. hn. J.

Hogg, J. W.

Norreys, Lord

Houldsworth, T.

Northland, Visct.

Holmes,hon.W.A'C.t

O'Brien, W. S.

Hope, hon. C.

Ossulston, Lord

Hope, A.

Owen, Sir J.

Hornby, J.

Paget, Lord W.

Ingestre, Visct.

Pakington, J. S.

Inglis, Sir R. H.

Palmer, R.

Irton, S.

Palmer, G.

Jackson, J. D.

Patten, J. W.

James, Sir W. C.

Peel, rt. hon. Sir R.

Jermyn, Earl

Peel, J.

Jocelyn, Visct.

Pigot, Sir R.

Johnson, W. G.

Planta, rt. hon. J.

Johnstone, Sir J.

Plumptre, J. P.

Johnstone, H.

Polhill, F.

Jolliffe, Sir W. G. H.

Pollock, Sir F.

Jones, Capt.

Praed, W. T.

Kelburne, Visct.

Price, R.

Kemble, H.

Pringle, A.

Kirk, P.

Pusey, P.

Knatchbull, right hon.

Rashleigh, W.

SirE.

Reade, W. M.

Knight, H. G.

Reid, Sir J. R.

Knight, F. W.

Repton, G. W. J.

Law, hon. C. E.

Rice, E. R.

Legh, G. C.

Richards, R.

Leicester, Earl of

Roebuck, J. A.

Liddell, hon. H. T.

Rolleston, Col.

Lincoln, Earl of

Rose rt. hon. Sir G.

Lindsay, H. H.

Round,C. G.

Lockhart, W.

Round, J.

Lopes, Sir R.

Rous, hon. Capt.

Lowther, J. H.

Rushbrooke, Col.

Lowther, hon. Col.

Russell, C.

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Russell, J. D. W.

Trench, Sir F. W.

Ryder, hon. G. D.

Trevor, hon. G. R.

Sanderson, R.

Trollope, Sir J.

Sandon, Visct.

Trotter, J.

Scott, hon. F.

Vere, Sir C. B.

Seymour, Sir H. B.

Verner, Col.

Sheppard, T.

Vernon, G. H.

Shirley, E. P.

Vivian, J. E.

Sibthorp, Col.

Waddington, H. S.

Smith, A.

Welby.G. E.

Smollett, A.

Whitmore, T. C.

Somerset, Lord G.

Wilbraham, hn. R. B.

Somerton, Visct.

Wodehouse, E.

Stanley, Lord

Wood, Col.

Stuart, H.

Wood, Col. T.

Sturt, H. C.

Wortley.hn. J.S.

Sutton, hon. H. M.

Wyndham, Col. C.

Tennent,J. E.

Young, J.

Thesiger, F.

Young, Sir W.

Thompson, Mr. Ald.

Thornhill, G.

TELLERS.

Tollemache, hon. F. J.

Baring, H.

Tomline, G.

Fremantle, Sir T.

List of the NOES.

Ainsworth, P.

Cobden, R.

Aldam, W

Colebrooke, Sir T. E.

Anson, hon. Col.

Craig, W. G.

Archbold, R.

Crawford, W. S.

Armstrong, Sir A.

Dalmeny, Lord

Bannerman, A.

Dalrymple, Capt.

Barclay, D.

Dashwood, G. H.

Baring, rt. hon. F. T.

Dennistoun, J.

Barnard, E. G.

Drax, J. S. W. E.

Bell, J.

Duff, J.

Bellew, R. M.

Duncan, Visct.

Berkeley, hon. C.

Duncan, G.

Berkeley, hon. Capt.

Duncombe, T.

Berkeley, hn. H. F.

Dundas, Admiral

Bernal, R.

Dundas, D.

Bernal, Capt.

Dundas, hn. J. C.

Blackstone, W. S.

Easthope, Sir J.

Blake, M.

Ebrington, Visct

Blewitt, R. J.

Ellice, E.

Bodkin, J. J.

Ellis, W.

Bowring, Dr.

Elphinstone, H.

Bridgeman, H.

Evans, W.

Brocklehurst, J.

Ferguson, Col.

Brodie, W. B.

Fielden, J.

Brotherton, J.

Fitzroy, Lord C.

Browne, R. D.

Forster, M.

Browne, hon. W.

Fox, C. R.

Bulkeley, Sir R. B. W.

Gibson, T. M.

Buller, C.

Gill, T.

Buller, E.

Gordon, Lord F.

Busfeid, W.

Gore, hon. R.

Byng, G.

Granger, T. C.

Byng, ft. hon. G. S.

Grattan, H.

Cave, hon. R. O.

Grey, rt. hn. Sir G.

Cavendish, hn. C. C.

Hall, Sir B.

Cayley, E. S.

Harris, J. Q.

Chapman, B.

Hastie, A.

Childers, J. W.

Hatton, Capt. V.

Christie, W. D.

Hawes, B.

Clay, Sir W.

Hay, Sir A. L.

Clements, Visct.

Hayter, W. G.

Clive, E. B.

Heathcoat, J.

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Heneage, E.

Power, J.

Hobhouse, rt.hn.SirJ.

Protheroe, E.

Holdsworth, J.

Pulsford, R.

Howard, hn. C. W. G.

Redington, T. N.

Howard, hn. J. K.

Ricardo, J. L.

Howard, Lord

Roche, E. B.

Howard, hn. E. G. G.

Rundle, J.

Howard, P. H.

Russell, Lord J.

Howard, hn. H.

Rutherfurd, A.

Humphery, Mr. Ald.

Scholefield, J.

Hutt, W.

Scott, R.

James, W.

Scrope, G. P.

Jervis, J.

Seale, Sir J. H.

Johnston, A.

Shell, rt. hon. R. L.

Labouchere, rt. hn. H.

Shelborne, Earl of

Lambton, H.

Smith, B.

Langston, J. H.

Smith, rt. hon. R. V.

Leader, J.T.

Somers, J. P.

Macaulay, rt.hn.T.

Somerville, Sir W. M.

M'Taggart, Sir J.

Stanley, hon. W. O.

Maher, V.

Stansfield, W. R. C.

Mangles, R.D.

Stewart, P. M.

Marjoribanks, S.

Stuart, Lord J.

Marshall, W.

Stuart, W. V.

Marsland, H.

Strickland, Sir G.

Martin, J.

Strutt, E.

Maule, rt. hn. F.

Tancred, H. W.

Mitcalfe, H.

Thornely, T.

Morris, D.

Towneley, J.

Morrison, General

Traill, G.

Morrison, J.

Troubridge, Sir E. T.

Mostyn, hn. E. M. L.

Tuite, H. M.

Murphy, F. S.

Turner, E.

Napier, Sir C.

Villiers, hon. C.

Norreys, Sir D. J.

Vivian, hon. Major

O'Brien, C.

Vivian, J. H.

O'Brien, J.

Vivian, hon. Capt.

O'Connell, D.

Vyvyian, Sir R. R.

O'Connell, M.

Wakley, T.

O'Connell, M. J.

Walker, R.

O'Connell, J.

Wall, C. B.

Ogle, S. C. H.

Wallace, a.

Ord, W.

Wason, R.

Oswald, J.

Wawn, J. T.

Paget, Col.

Williams, W.

Palmerston, Visct.

Winnington, Sir T. E.

Parker, J.

Wood, B.

Pechell, Capt.

Wood, C.

Pendarves, E. W. W.

Wood, G. W.

Philips, M.

Worsley, Lord

Plumridge, Capt.

Ponsonby, hn.C.F.A.C.

TELLERS.

Ponsonby, hn. J. G.

Hill, Lord M.

Powell, C.

Tufnell, H.

Bill read a first time; to be read a second time.

SUPPLY.
House in Committee of Supply.
Sir George Clerk,in the absence of his right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer moved, that a sum not exceeding 8,253,000 l., be granted to pro vide for outstanding Exchequer-bills during the ensuing year.—Agreed to.
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On the motion, that the sum of 60,000 l. be granted to defray the charges of civil contingencies, for the year 1842,
Mr. W. Williamsbegged to be informed what the question or business was, which was before the House. Something relating to supplies had been brought forward, amidst the greatest noise and confusion, which prevented him from hearing a word of what was passing. This might be a very easy way to obtain votes of the public money, but it was not the proper method of proceeding.
Sir George Clerkexplained, that the present motion was, that the sum of 60,000 l. be granted towards defraying the charges of civil contingencies for the year. The vote was necessary for the public service. The amount required would be 130,000 l., though only 60,000 l. were at present asked for.
Mr. W. Williamshaving learned, that a sum of 8,000,000 l. or more, had been voted away during the confusion, must say, that when such large votes were to be proposed, notice should be given of the intention to propose them. He should have had some remarks to make on the motion, but could not hear a single word that passed. If the hon. Gentleman meant to confine the present motion to a vote on account, he should not oppose it.
Vote agreed to.
House resumed.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS.
On the Order of the Day, for going into Committee on this Bill,
Mr. Leaderobjected to the measure. He should have opposed it at an earlier stage, but no discussion had taken place and he had not at first been aware of the extensive manner in which the bill would affect the rights of the new corporations. Unless the bill had been considerably altered, he should feel it his duty to oppose it, as no good reason was assigned for some of the clauses.
The Attorney Generalwas surprised at the opposition of the hon. Gentleman, as he held certain clauses in his hand, the insertion of which, he had understood, would meet the objections of the hon. Gentleman. The bill was intended to protect from penalties those persons who, holding leases under corporations, had accepted the office of town councillor, on the understanding, that such leases did not come within the meaning of the law

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which prohibited persons who held contracts from corporations, acting as members of such corporations. When the clause in question passed, it was the undoubted opinion of the law officers of the Crown, and of legal men on both sides of the House, that the word contract did not include leases held from corporations. They had all agreed—and two of the gentlemen who concurred with the opinion now held seats on the Bench—that a person holding a lease did not come within the terms of the prohibitory language in the 28th section of the act. That reading of the law was acted on for four years, when somebody raised a speculative point of law, A quo warranto information was moved for against a town-councillor of Bridgewater, for having acted in that capacity while holding a lease from the corporation. Pending the trial of that information, he (the Attorney-general) had drawn the attention of the then Government to the circumstance. The opinion was unanimous, that the information could not be sustained. Scores of persons holding leases of the same kind had taken the office of town-councillor, and the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) answered, that he had information, that there was not the least chance of the decision going against the party complained of—that the point was quite clear. The result, however, was, that the information issued, and, to the surprise of every one, the Court gave judgment in favour of the information. He (the Attorney-general) did not mean to impugn the decision of the learned Judges. He bowed to that decision. But it was only an act of common justice to give to these persons who had taken office, under the opinion of the House, indemnity against any penal consequences which might ensue from that course. The object of the bill was to prevent the penal actions from going on, which, in consequence of the circumstances that had taken place, might be brought forward in hundreds. Provision was made by the bill for paying the costs of any actions brought up to a certain time. Provisions were likewise introduced with regard to actions brought after that given time had expired, and for securing those persons who had been elected to offices. The bill was a short one. It provided, in the first place, that the word "contract" should not be taken to extend to a lease, purchase of lands, or loan of money. It
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was further provided, that persons who had already incurred penalties under the decision of the Judges, might apply for indemnity as to the penalties and the costs. He had had various communications from various quarters, and his invariable answer was, that the object of the bill was to do an act of justice, and, therefore, that he could not admit any other matter into it. But it being considered, that the bill was defective without some provision for the prevention of jobbing, he had admitted the clauses which had been drawn up by his hon. Friend, the Member for Worcester. He wondered, however, at the opposition of the hon. Member for Westminster, as the hon. Member had given his concurrence to the clauses on the subject being mentioned to him.
Mr. Leaderexplained. He had only mentioned to the hon. and learned Gentleman, that there would be less difficulty in carrying the bill, if such clauses Were introduced; but he had never seen them in a formal shape. He, therefore, suggested, that they should be printed, because the bill as it stood, repealed the 38th section of the Reform Act; and it was necessary for hon. Members to know the provisions which were to be introduced.
Sir F. Pollocksuggested, that the bill should be suffered to pass through the committee pro formâ, and that the clauses might be printed, and added on bringing up the report. He declined, however, to make it a declaratory act, as had been suggested.
Sir R. Fergussonwished to know if the provisions of the bill would be extended to Ireland
Lord Elliotsaid, he was sure his hon. and learned Friend would have no objection to do so with his bill, if it was deemed necessary.
Sir F. Pollockthought it would be more regular to confine the operation of the measure to England, as it was in England alone the mischief had occurred.
Mr. Bernalsuggested a short bill to be applied to Ireland.
Sir R. Peel: If the words of the English and Irish Municipal Acts are the same, and the principles identical, surely, it would be much better to introduce the amendments as regards Ireland into the present bill, than to bring in a separate bill for the purpose. I think the unneces-

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sary multiplication of acts of Parliament a very great evil.
Sir F. Pollockwould, as he had stated, go through the bill that night; and when it was reported, he should move its recommittal. The amendments ought to be printed between those periods, and, in the meanwhile, he should consider some clauses as regarded the extension of the measure to Ireland.
Mr. Hodgsonsaid, that having attended several nights to propose the amendment of which he had given notice, that the words, "office, or place of profit," in the bill, should not extend to the office of sheriff, he should certainly press its adoption upon the committee, unless some objection were stated to it.
The Attorney Generalsaid, that he must object to the clause, not as improper in itself, but as opening the door to the introduction of all sorts of amendments of the Municipal Corporations Act, into a bill which professed to have no such object.
Bill went through committee pro formâ, and was reported.
House adjourned.