INCOME TAX.

HC Deb 22 April 1842 vol 62 cc998-1040

Order of the Day for the second reading of the Income-tax Bill read.—On the question, that the Bill be now read a second time,

Mr. Charles Buller

rose, pursuant to notice, to move, that the bill be read a second time that day six months. He believed he owed the House an apology for again troubling them upon this question. He should not have done so, were it not that the bill had arrived at a stage at which it was not necessary to touch on the topics that had previously engaged the attention of the House. They had formerly discussed the necessity of any tax at all; they had discussed the general principles of the tax, and they had now to examine how those principles are carried out in the details of the bill now before the House. They had got the bill, and he must confess, that whatever had been his former objections to the Income-tax—whatever forebodings he might have had as to its operation, all those objections and all those forebodings, were greatly enhanced by a perusal of the bill before them. It had been said, that the tax was inquisitorial— that it was unjust—that it was arbitrary; and every detail of the bill only placed, in a stronger light, how rightly and justly those terms had been applied to it. He did not pretend, on the present occasion, to enter into a thorough and detailed examination of the bill, for it contained 189 clauses, and had only been distributed among hon. Members yesterday, or the day before. He was merely going to explain to the House the grounds of his most prominent objections to it. When he read this bill, and saw the provisions by which the tax was to be carried into effect, he did not wonder at the hostility which the principle had excited in former times. He did not wonder at the eagerness with which its repeal was demanded, and the joy with which it was hailed. He only wondered, that in a free country a tax which so trenched on the comforts and rights of British subjects could ever have been tolerated; and he thought, that nothing but the peril of the late war, and the strong national feeling which it excited, could have induced Englishmen to tolerate a law so contrary to their habits and feelings, and so adverse to all the principles of the constitution. He did not complain of the bill as introducing any unnecessary vexation; it was but the necessary vexation which must be inflicted upon her Majesty's subjects, in order to carry out a tax of the kind; but he did say, that the provisions of this bill gave an amount of arbitrary power which, as he believed, had never been given by any other Legislative measure since the revolution. Why, the mere inquisition which was requisite for this tax was bad in itself. It was a very had and a very oppressive thing, that the commercial, trading, and manufacturing people of England should be obliged to come before an officer of the Government and detail to him the exact state of their trade and the position of their affairs. He could not agree with what the hon. and learned Member for Bath stated, with regard to that objection. His hon. Friend seemed to treat it as the objection of an over-timid, or rather a dishonest mind; and said, that no honest man need fear an inquiry into his circumstances; but he would recommend his hon. Friend to pay some respect to the feelings of a commercial people upon that point. He would ask him to look at the contents of this bill, and then tell the House whether he did not begin to feel some little sympathy with that aversion which his hon. and learned Friend had admitted, that the people of England always felt to such an inquisition. But the measures for enforcing that inquisition appeared to him to render it doubly mischievous and oppressive; it was to be enforced by means totally alien to the character of every free people. He would not pretend to say he understood the whole machinery of the bill; for that machinery was so complicated, that nothing but experience could enable a man to understand it. There was a cloud of commissioners, that would astonish any weak mind. He wondered, indeed, that they had not had a protest against them from the hon. and gallant Member for Lincoln. There were, first, the stamp and tax commissioners, who presided over the hierarchy of the establishment; then there were commissioners for general purposes; then commissioners for special purposes; then came additional commissioners, and, that not being sufficient, there were to be assistant-commissioners to relieve them. So that whatever the stamp and tax commissioners had not eaten up, was to be lapped up by the general and special commissioners; and if any crumbs were left by them, they were to be picked up by the additional commissioners and their assistants. He had no wish to turn those commissioners into any ridicule, for they really seemed to him to be very effectual instruments of a very grinding tyranny. They gave them by this bill not merely a power of inquiry but they gave them also judicial powers. He found in this measure no less than seven clauses, giving a power of levying very large fines by these commissioners. There were fines of 20l. and 50l., to be recovered in the ordinary way, and to be resorted to for the levying of this tax. But, in addition to those powers of the commissioners, special, 'general, and otherwise, they had the power also, when they saw fit, of taxing to a large amount by trebling the duty. He would mention one instance of the mode in which this power was given. It was in clause 55. The commissioners were to go about calling upon persons to deliver in lists of their incomes; and if any person refused or neglected so to do within the time limited in the notice of the commissioners, such person should forfeit a sum not exceeding 20l.; and if he should be prosecuted for any such offence, then he should forfeit the sum of 50l. to be recovered in any of her Majesty's courts; but there was another penalty imposed by that clause—that such persons refusing or neglecting to deliver in such list, should forfeit in addition to the 20l., a sum not exceeding treble the duty at which such person ought to be charged by virtue of this act. Now, suppose an hon. Gentleman with 1,000l. a-year neglected to give in his list, he was to be charged with treble the duty he was liable to pay: so that instead of paying only 30l. he was to be fined by the commissioners 90l. He would ask whether with respect to any other tax ever imposed on the people of England such powers as those had ever been given? Why, in other cases, a man would be tried in a court of law, by a jury, but by this bill the power of trying and punishing was given to the commissioners. But, then, there was another circumstance which distinguished this from the assessed taxes, or any other tax, namely, that all these proceedings were to be carried on in secret. They were to violate the great rule of the publicity of all penal proceedings, and to subject to penalties upon evidence taken in secret, and not given to the public afterwards. A tax that could only be collected by such means must be very bad. But he did not mean to oppose these details; he did not mean to object to them in committee on the bill; because, if they were to have an Income-tax at all, they must have this inquisitorial and unconstitutional mode of carrying it into effect; but what he would do now, was, to call upon the House to reject a tax which must be enforced by such means—to reject a tax enforced by the mere pleaures of commissioners appointed by the Crown —to reject a tax that must be enforced by penal proceedings carried on in secret—to reject this tax, because nothing but the most imperative necessity could justify a course so much in violation of the principles of freedom and the British constitution. He considered these details, vexatious as they were, part and parcel of an Income-tax. When they voted for the second reading of this Income-tax Bill, they voted at the same time for all these inquisitorial powers; and, therefore, before they passed the second reading, and adopted the principle that carried those details with them, the House should well consider with themselves the necessity that existed for such a tax. He was not going into any of those topics which had been dwelt upon as proofs of its necessity. They had heard a good deal about the penny-postage, Affghanistan, China, and different other causes insisted upon by the present Government. None of those did he intend to touch upon. His simple argument against the necessity of the tax was upon the face of the tax itsfelf—the amount levied on each individual—the total amount to be raised by it; for in his opinion it never could be worth while to deviate from the principles of the constitution and the practice of all free states for a tax of 3 per cent. on each individual,—for the purpose of raising not more than 4,000,000l.—a comparatively small amount that might be easily raised in many other ways. He must confess he was greatly surprised to find that a tax like this had met with any support on the Opposition side of the House. He did not think, however, that the right hon. Baronet could be particularly gratified by the support his proposition had met with on his own side; he did not mean as to votes, because there was only one way for these unhappy Gentlemen to vote; but it was a very singular circumstance that hardly any Gentlemen connected with the Government had supported it without objecting to one or more particulars upon which the right hon. Baronet was prepared to stand. He could not suppose that the motives of many hon. Gentlemen on. that (the Opposition) side of the House operated so strongly with many Gentlemen on the other side, to whom this measure would not be recommended by its facilitating the adoption of the tariff. He was rather surprised to see the haste with which some of his own friends supported an Income-tax, in order that the right hon. Baronet might give them the blessings of his tariff; for it would be but prudent to be sure before they imposed an Income-tax that they were really going to get an efficient measure of free-trade. The right hon. Baronet had been the only expounder of the general scheme the House had had the advantage of hearing; and the expositions of the right hon. Gentleman had not been of the most consistent character. When it suited his purpose to shape his speech to gratify Gentlemen on the Opposition side of the House, then the cheapness that was to result from the tariff was cried up; but when he wished to allay the fears of the other side of the House, then it would appear that the tariff would effect no reduction in price. The right hon. Baronet had said, on one occasion, that a man worth 300l. a-year, who had to pay 9l. a-year to the Income-tax, would save 10l. or 12l. a-year by the operation of the tariff. Now what could he save it in except in the price of meat or provisions? But the instant this is asserted the right hon. Gentleman and some of his agricultural supporters say to the farmer, "Oh, there will not be any cheap provisions; you need entertain no apprehensions, the prices of provisions will not be lowered; you have nothing to fear, and the consumer has nothing to hope." When the Corn-bill was under consideration, the right hon. Baronet drew a touching description of his own position, placed as he was constantly between the fire of two parties: those on the Opposition side of that House telling the right hon. Baronet that his measure would not admit an atom of foreign corn; and if he denied that, an agricultural Member, being sure to get up and say, "Oh, you are going to ruin us by deluging us with foreign corn." But really there was no call for any compassion, for the right hon. Baronet, if he could so easily pacify both classes of objectors as he attempted to do in the present discussions, where he seemed to have nothing to do but lean over the Table, and tell the Opposi- tion, "you will have provisions cheaper," and the next moment turn round, and, addressing his own supporters say, "there will be no reduction whatever in the price which you will get for them." The right hon. Baronet he saw dissented: and, of course, he did not mean to assert that he had stated these contradictory views so broadly as he had put it, but he would appeal to any Gentleman who had heard the debates if that were not the purport and intention of the contradictory arguments which the right hon. Baronet had urged over and over again, according to whether it was a free-trade support on that (the Opposition) side of the House, or an agricultural support on the other side, that was to be conciliated. Some Gentlemen on that (the Opposition) side of the House did not like an Income-tax —they felt it was unjust—they had a great objection to the taxation of Income; but still they voted for it, because it took in a tax on Property. Now, he wanted hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House to consider the importance of encouraging this feeling in favour of a property-tax. Many of his hon Friends on that (the Opposition) side of the House said they voted for the Income-tax because they liked a property-tax, and then they were loudly cheered by hon. Gentlemen opposite. Now, did those hon. Gentlemen consider the consequences of what they were doing; were they aware that a strong feeling existed among the poorer classes, that this was a tax that would press only upon the richer classes, and that it was popular on that ground? Did they for a moment suppose that an Income-tax was popular among the constituences? Did any hon. Gentleman in the House think that his constituents would not 'ere long, move against so inquisitorial a tax? Let it only come into operation— let the shopkeeper and the merchant be compelled to open his books to the inspection of his neighbour, and possibly rival, who might have been fortunate enough to be appointed a commissioner under the bill—let the payment be enforced in the present general state of distress among the middle classes,—and they might rely upon themselves, that there would very soon be a movement against the tax, which would relieve the possessors of uncertain incomes. But the result would be, not the total but the partial repeal of the present measure; they would have the Income-tax repealed and the Property-tax perpetuated. He said, those who cheered the few hon. Members on his side of the House who supported the tax were bringing upon themselves a future, that they of all others would most dread to contemplate. But his hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Bath, had a dodge by which he was to make the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) and his friends subservient to his own purposes. He was now a strong supporter of the second reading of the bill, but when they got into committee, his note was to be altogether altered. The hon. Member for Bath would then ask the right hon. Baronet to give up the Income-tax, and, if that were refused, then he would turn round and do all in his power to defeat the bill, although his so doing might be accompanied by the awful calamity of the retirement of the right hon. Baronet from the office he now held. The hon. and learned Member was one of the few Members on that side of the House who were going to give their assistance towards carrying the second reading of the bill; he might rest assured that he would get very few of the hon. Gentlemen who sat upon the opposite Benches to join him in the operations by which he meant to follow up his present vote—very few indeed who would go out into the lobby with him against the tax upon incomes. Hon. Members might vote for the bill on the ground of their anxiety to see a property-tax imposed, but he could assure them that in voting for the bill they voted for an Income-tax; for an amendment to abolish that tax would not be tolerated for one moment by the other side of the House. Then, again, his hon. Friend the Member for Bath had given notice of an amendment which, notwithstanding it would work, if carried, gross injustice, he would vote for. Yes, he would vote for it, because it proposed to relieve a portion of the community from a portion of the Income-tax; and though he thought the exemption of one class unfair, he should vote for it, because common humanity would induce him to favour the escape of any body from this odious impost. The hon. and learned Member proposed that the tax to be levied on all incomes arising from trade and professions should be taxed only 3½d. in the pound. Now, in his opinion, the gross injustice of such a proposition could be shown by numerous examples. Let him only give one. Suppose the case of a lawyer; aged forty, with an income of 5,000l. a year. Let the amendment of the hon. Member for Bath be carried, and upon that income the tax to be levied would be 3½d. per pound. Then, suppose that his mother were alive, aged 80, with an income of 500l., that died with her; yet she was to be taxed to the full 7d. So the proposition was to tax the old woman at the rate of 7d., her interest in the income being but a short one, and the income which might be enjoyed for a long series of years at only 3½d. When they exempted any kind of income from the tax, they only swept away a part of the injustice and left the remainder more glaring. And that consideration caused him to agree with his noble Friend the Member for London, that they could not deal with the plan by amendments; it must be unjust under any circumstances; they must reject it altogether, or take it altogether, with all its injustice and all its inequality. He must confess that the more he reflected on the subject the Stronger were his objections to the tax altogether, and the stronger was his conviction of the utter fallacy of the opinion in favour of the policy of a direct taxation. Direct taxation must always be unjust and unequal. It appeared to him that all taxation ought to take away equally from every man's means of enjoyment. A tax upon income did not effect that, but a tax upon expenditure did. Take the case of a professional man. A young professional man had to save, but one more advanced in life had to save a much larger amount. One man had a large family, another none at all. Thus one man was under the necessity of saving in one proportion, and another in another proportion, according to his position; and he defied the power of legislation to meet and provide for all these contingencies when imposing direct taxation. But taxes on expenditure met and comprehended them all. Indirect taxation became applicable to the different styles of living adopted by different classes and different individuals. Take the house-tax for example. A man of 5,000l. a year, whose estate was entailed, with no power to charge it for daughters, must save more largely from his income than the man in whom the fee-simple of his estate vested. The consequence was, that the former lived in a less handsome house, and one better adapted to his actual means. Look at professional men; all of them had; different proportions of expenditure, varying according to their own ideas of necessity, capability, or comfort. Now, upon all these people you come with your rough and barbarous system of direct taxation—for he agreed with the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets as to its being the taxation of a barbarous period—you impose your Income-tax, and disregarding all the differences which must ever exist in the means and mode of the living of various individuals, you place your impost upon all alike, so that what falls lightly upon one presses with crushing severity upon another. Upon these grounds he objected to an Income-tax. But, on the other band, he did not say that the extravagant and unjust principles of taxing only the expenditure of the poor should be continually acted on. They might tax the expenditure of the rich, and raise a large revenue, without taxing those articles of customs and excise which were necessarily consumed by the poor. The noble Lord was quite right in adverting to the assessed taxes—taxes, for the most part, upon the expenditure of the rich. More than four millions of those taxes had been repealed, and recourse might have been had to those taxes again. He had been astonished at the tone taken by some hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side of the House, and to hear them taking it for granted that advocacy of direct taxation was essential to the character of a liberal politician. He claimed some title to that character, but he confessed he could not see the necessary connection between political principles and what appeared to him to be very bad political economy. It seemed to him that direct taxation had always been a badge of slavery, and never had been imposed except where the people had no voice in the imposition. The only instances he knew of direct taxes continued for a lengthened period in time of peace were taxes which he apprehended no one would defend; namely, the gabelle, and the taille, spoken of by the writers of that day as most odious. When he reverted to the practice of all free nations he found it strongly against direct taxation. The practice of this country since the Revolution was against it. [Sir R. Peel; The land-tax.] That he admitted was a direct tax. But the land-tax was so odious, that the classes who paid it had been gradually getting rid of it since the time of the Revolution, so that at the present time it was not one-half of what it had been in the time of George 2nd. He did not say that free nations had not for a while foolishly submitted to bad systems of taxation; but he contended that the history of the land-tax strengthened his view of the matter, because it consisted of a series of exertions of a free people to rid themselves of a system of direct taxation. Take the policy of the United States of America, which were generally considered as furnishing a specimen of democratic government, and one might judge from that of what the people would do if they had their own way in laying on taxes. In the United States of America the whole revenue of the central Government had always been raised by indirect taxation. Nay," he would go further, and say that, as regarded the local taxation of all the different states of which the union was composed, there was not one of them, with the single exception of Ohio, in which there was anything like a tax upon Income or property. The only vestige of it that had ever existed, was in the state of New York, during the late war; but the partial tax upon property that was then imposed was repealed in 1826. It appeared that the House of Commons was now called upon to discuss this question upon democratic grounds. He owned that he was never unwilling to enter upon the discussion of a question upon those grounds, as he thought that the welfare and good feeling of the masses ought to be the rule of their conduct as the representatives of the people. But there might be language held in that House which would appeal not to the welfare and good feeling of the masses, but rather to their bad feelings. Such, in his opinion, was the character of the language held on the other side of the House by Gentlemen high in office, when they endeavoured to persuade the poor that they were not simply to rejoice because they were exempted from taxation, but because the rich were made subject to it. The necessary effect of such language was to engender a hostile and illiberal feeling on the part, of the poor towards the rich. One right hon. Gentleman had said, that he hoped the meetings upon this subject would be attended by persons having less than 150l. a-year. In his opinion, this was dangerous language—far more dangerous than any that had been denounced on the preceding evening. He was very glad to find that the language, inflammatory as it was, had produced no effect whatever. By the by, he must admit that it bad produced some effect. The right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir J. Graham) had succeeded that evening in presenting a petition from 2,500 working people in Carlisle, rejoicing in the Income-tax. He did not complain much of this, because there was at least a kind of oscillatory consistency in the right hon. Baronet's language. In the inflamatory language which the right hon. Baronet held now, he recognised a kindred spirit to that which dictated the language held in 1830, when the right hon. Baronet pointed out to the execration of the people those whom he then represented as fattening upon the spoils of the people by means of their aristocratic influence in legislation, and whom he denounced as the birds of prey that fed upon the people. But he was happy to find, that beyond the. demagogues of the Treasury Benches, the appeal had not been successful; that no meetings of electors had been disturbed by persons intruding their opinions upon a tax which they were not to pay. The Chartist press was not conciliated. He would read to the House a passage from the National Association Gazette, and he must say, that a fairer indication of all the intellect and good feeling which there was among the Chartists, could not be found than in that which proceeded from the pen of Mr. Lovett. The following was the passage to which he referred:— Sir Robert Peel loudly boasted, that he would not tax the labourer. Loud as the boast was, it was still more loudly cheered, by the ignorant boobies who throng the seats of the House of Commons. That, to be sure, was rather strong language, and not argumentative. But this was reasonable:— It is ridiculous to suppose, that the means of one class of the community can be encroached upon, without the rest suffering. The passage went on to show, that any tax which pressed upon the capital out of which labour was employed, must ultimately fall upon labour itself. He had thought it right to read that passage to the House, to vindicate the body of the working men from the suspicion that they had yielded to the arguments which had been held by Gentlemen opposite, and that they wished for the imposition of an Income-tax, because it would fall only on the rich. The working classes felt that the tax would press heavily on themselves, and they opposed it as an encroachment on the comforts of every man in England. He apologised to the House for thus, for the third time, detaining them so long, but the opposition to the measure assumed now a different form. They were not now opposing an Income-tax in the abstract, but they had the details and principles of the bill before them, and he was anxious to take that the first proper opportunity of expressing his opposition to the bill. He was not sanguine enough to imagine that he should succeed on the present occasion; but as one who had taken a strong part in opposition to the bill, he felt anxious to defend himself from the misrepresentations, to which it appeared all those who opposed either the bill or the Government were to be subjected. If a gentleman offered the slightest opposition to the immediate progress of the measure, he was told that his conduct was factious. It seemed to be the tactic of the Government to set up gentleman after gentleman to say, "Oh, you are stopping the tariff, which it is most important to the best interests of the country should be immediately considered." They had a right fully, freely, and fairly to discuss, not only the bad principle of this measure, but its still worse details; and if by so doing they delayed the tariff that was not their fault, but the fault of the Government. If the Government chose to press forward the Income-tax before the tariff, the responsibility of the delay must rest with the Government, and not with the opposition. He knew that he was fighting against a majority—he knew that it was an uphill fight, but he knew that the opposition to the Income-tax was grounded on reason and argument, and that when the tax came to be in operation—when the Englishman should find all his circumstances exposed to the inquiries of the tax-gatherer, then all the odium attaching to this inquisitorial impost would fall upon the Government, and every year that it should be kept up the stronger, the more determined, and ultimately the more successful would be the opposition. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving that the bill be read a second time that day six months.

Mr. Ewart

said, that he fully concurred with his his hon. and learned Friend in the objections which he had urged against an Income-tax, but it did not necessarily follow that he was opposed to a Property-tax; on the contrary, it appeared to him, there existed a wide distinction between an Income-tax and a Property-tax. He had ever been in favour of a Property-tax, be- cause he thought it a fair and direct mode of calling on the public to defray the expenses of the State. His hon. and learned Friend appeared to advocate the position, that indirect was preferable to direct taxes, and instanced the United States of America in support of that opinion; but be was sure the House would agree with him, that there was no analogy between the two cases. Let the wide disparity between the countries be remembered, and it would at once be seen, that the rule applicable to the one could not, with any propriety, be applied to the other. The limited interests of America, and its limited expenditure, altogether shut out the possibility of any comparison between America and England. Nevertheless, there were some points in the principles of taxation, which were used in America that might very advantageously be acted on in England. Although the Americans proceeded upon a principle of indirect taxation, yet they skilfully enough contrived to make the great burden of taxation fall upon the rich, or at least to press upon the poor much less than it did upon the wealthier classes, for they proceeded more upon the ad valorem rule than did any other country which was indirectly levying a property-tax. His hon. and learned Friend had also alluded to the case of France. He had told them of what the state of things in that country was of old: but he had not told them that in modern times, and under a constitutional Government, France still retained the system of indirect taxation, as was evidenced in the land-tax and a species of personal property-tax, from which a very considerable portion of the whole revenue of the country was derived. He, in common with many who sat around him, was in favour of the principle of a tax upon property. A property-tax took from the reservoir instead of the fountain of labour, and that was the reason why he supported it. To that portion of the measure now before the House which affected professional and mercantile income, he entertained the same objection and the same hostility as that which bad been declared by Members generally on the Opposition side of the House; and if he wished to justify a property-tax, it would not be upon the partial and temporary principles upon which it was justified by the right hon. Baronet. He looked to a property-tax in a wide and large sense—he looked to it as a substitute for indirect taxation, as a means of enabling the Government to emancipate the commerce and industry of the country from the burdens which now pressed upon them. If taxation were removed from commodities imported and placed upon property, the commerce, manufactures, and industry of the country would be set free, and great national prosperity would ensue. It was with that large view, and not with the partial view of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, that he looked upon the imposition of a property-tax. In his opinion the objection to the right hon. Baronet's scheme was, that it was not sufficiently comprehensive. Probably the right hon. Baronet felt that he could not accomplish all that he would wish at once; but the measure, as it stood, was only a very partial one; and, morever, by the avowal of the right hon. Baronet himself, it was to be only a temporary one; for if he. understood the right hon. Baronet right, it was to last for three years—possibly for five years, but no longer. In his estimation, therefore, this measure did not possess the great and comprehensive character that ought to distinguish a property-tax. He owned that he could not consider a property-tax only as a war-tax. The question with him was this—" What is the best tax? Is a property-tax most suited to the circumstances of the country, or is it not?" He abjured altogether to the distinction between a war-tax and a peace-tax. He enquired only what was best for the country. If it were once proved that a property-tax was the best, then instead of making that tax temporary, applying only to a few years, he would make it permanent, varying the amount of it according to the circumstances and the wants of the country, raising more in war than in peace, and remitting portions of it as the expenditure of the country decreased. He repudiated the distinction that was attempted to be set up between a war-tax and a peace-tax. Commerce had its contests, contests as formidable as those of war. England at this moment was engaged in a commercial contest more formidable than all the military and naval contests into which she had ever embarked. She had now to compete with all the countries of the world—her manufactures and commerce no longer enjoyed the almost exclusive advantages which they possessed at the first dawn of peace. Competitors had sprung up in every direc- tion, and were rapidly driving her from marts which before were all her own. It was necessary, therefore, that some great effort should be made to remove the burden of taxation from manufactures and commerce, and to place it, where it certainly ought to be placed, upon property. By far the most formidable rival with whom we should have to contend was America, and it was time for us to to look at the manner in which we were losing the strength which America was acquiring. According to the last returns from Liverpool, it appeared that emigration to the United States had increased tenfold—that men possessing capital, and who had been engaged in trade, were quitting this country and crossing the Atlantic; abandoning our shores and going over to our great rival, leaving behind them an indigent population, to which their capital, enterprise, and intelligence had previously given employment. On various grounds, he should say, that a property-tax was even more a peace than a war-tax, and he would add, that the tendency to favour a property-tax was an evidence of the temper of the times in which we lived. The general feeling was, that we could not cheapen subsistence otherwise than by transferring fiscal burdens from commerce to property. To pass now from the Income-tax to the tariff, he should say, that though the latter had much to recommend it, the right hon. Baronet had begun at the wrong end. It appeared to him(Mr. Ewart) to partake of the nature of what, architecturally speaking, would be called the inverted pyramid. There could be no fundamental reform of the commercial tariff which was not based on the repeal of the Corn-laws. The right hon. Baronet possessed an opportunity of which he had not availed himself, to place our commercial system upon a sound basis, by affecting those fundamental changes of which the late Mr. Huskisson was the enlightened and strenuous advocate. He need hardly assure the House that he made these remarks without the least party motive. He was not insensible to the fact that by the new tariff several important improvements would be effected, and he entertained no doubt that some portions of the tariff would receive the support of many liberal men in and out of Parliament; but he could not admit so much without expressing his dissent from that portion of it which imposed a duty upon the export of coals On that point the right hon. Baronet had deserted the principle that prevailed in other portions of the plan. It was a blemish, unless removed this year, must be expunged from it at a future time. It would act as a discouragement to the commercial steam navigation, and consequently to their naval steam force. He rested all his support of the principles of commercial freedom on the assurance it gave that this country would become the great depot of the world. Sir Robert Walpole, who, except Pitt and Huskisson, was the greatest commercial Minister the country ever had, said, in his famous excise scheme, that they ought to divide articles of import into two sorts, those which were to be taxed and those which were not to be taxed; they ought to impose duty on few articles, and to emancipate all articles as much as possible. So far as the right hon. Baronet has introduced his changes into the tariff, so far he was always moving in the right direction. He should wish him to cut out from the Income-tax all the obnoxious clauses, and to extend the amelioration of the tariff.

Sir J. Walsh

could not fail to remark the striking difference of opinion that seemed to prevail amongst the Gentlemen opposite upon the subject of the proposed tax. One section of them came forward and contended that the Income-tax, in its present shape, was most inquisitorial— that it was most unequal in its pressure upon different classes of the community; that it would weigh down the springs of trade and commerce; and that in all respects, as applied to trades and professions, it was most unjust, and consequently would receive their strongest opposition. But on the other hand, another section sprung forth from the same benches, and declared that they were disposed, not only to admit the principle of direct taxation as applied to property, but to give to it their warm and cordial support, as an introduction of that great principle, which, in their eyes, would be the most valuable in the taxation and finance of the country. The right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, and those who supported him, considered the Income-tax—to use a term applied to it by an hon. Member opposite —as the most valuable weapon in the armoury of the Exchequer; but the Government felt that it would be shorn of all its efficiency if those modifications of it Were adopted, which hon. Gentlemen op- posite proposed. Hon. Gentlemen opposite had also stated, that it was a tax which ought to be reserved for great emergencies, and they denied that the right hon. Baronet had made out any case of emergency to justify the Government in resorting to this extreme expedient. With the permission of the House, he would address a few observations to the first class of objectors—to those Gentlemen whose arguments were directed against the inequality and consequent injustice of the tax. It had frequently been admitted, in the course of the debate, that inequality in the abstract was essentially inherent in all taxes, and that they could not devise a tax which did not press unequally in its operation. To use the pithy words which he had read the other day in a magazine, he would say that a perfectly fair and just tax was very desirable, but such a tax would require omniscience to assess, and omnipotence to levy it. Inequality, therefore, was not a valid objection against any tax. Hon. Gentlemen opposite had endeavoured to make out that the tax would be less unjust and less unequal if it were exclusively applied to fixed property. He much doubted that assertion. He would remind the House, that all the acts which established the funded securities of the country, guaranteed the fund-holders against any special direct taxation. When Mr. Pitt brought forward the Income-tax, and proposed taxing the funds, it was maintained by many, that to do so, would be to violate the pledge given to the fundholders by the different acts of Parliament; but Mr. Pitt contended, that the provisions of those acts were never intended to apply to so great and sweeping a measure as that which embraced the whole income of the country, and maintained that he was perfectly justified, under these circumstances, in imposing a general tax on the funds, in common with all other incomes. In his opinion, Mr. Pitt was correct, and the right hon. Baronet at the head of the present Government had done right in adopting the same principle. He thought, however, the case would be changed, if the partial taxation should be adopted which hon. Gentlemen opposite adverted to. He would contrast the mode in which the right hon. Baronet proposed to deal with landed property, and with incomes arising from professions. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Peel) proposed to assess equally all incomes derived from trades and professions, upon a return of the net annual incomes of the three last years. The tax upon incomes derived from the occupation of land was to be assessed upon a return to be given to the tax collector of the actual rent, making; deductions on account of certain specified charges; but, as far as he could learn, no deductions were to be made from the income of the owner of the property on account of repairs and other outgoings to which he was subject, and which could not amount to less than 20 per cent upon the rental; therefore, he said that those who derived their incomes from trades or professions were placed in a better position than the holders of landed property. The landed proprietor would have to pay his 2l. 17s. 8d. out of 80l., whereas the professional man and trader would be taxed to the same amount only upon 100l. Then, as to the fundholder, it was well known that incomes arising from an equal amount employed in trade were far greater than could be obtained from an equal amount in the funds. A man who invested 20,000l. in the funds, or in landed property, would realise an income of only about 650l. a year, whereas if the same sum were invested in trade or commerce, he would not, in the event of success, obtain less than 2,000l. a year. He saw no reason, therefore, why the 2,000l. should go free, while 650l. should be taxed. It was argued that property invested in trade or manufactures was unstable, as compared with that which was invested in the public securities or in land. It was assumed that the property arising from trade would not be inherited, and that there was nothing to bequeath. He did not mean to contend that funded and landed property, on the whole, was not the more secure, but there were many trades in which the facilities for making a fortune were great, and in which the property was as capable of being transmitted to children, and of being dealt with in settlements and family provisions, as much as was property vested either in land or the funds. Then landed property was not free from the vicissitudes and uncertainty which applied to all human things. Of late years there had been many fluctuations in the value of land, and those whose property had, in consequence of the depression, become encumbered, had been reduced to great destitution. But was not the property engaged in many of the large trading establishments of this metropolis quite as secure as either funded or landed property? Take an income of 10,000l. a-year arising from one of our great London breweries, would not that be as certain as an income of 10,000l. a year arising from a landed estate? Many changes and revolutions might occur to affect landed property, but the taste of the British public for porter was proof against all revolution, He thought that hon. Gentlemen opposite would find inequality even under their own propositions, and by exempting incomes arising from professions and trades, they could not get rid of their own argument of inequality as affecting the incomes derived from landed property. But had the professions and trades any claim to be exempted? The whole effect of the remission of taxes for several years past had been to favour those classes. Take, for example, that tax which had been so often adverted to—the remission of the Post-office duty. It might be said, that that was a benefit shared by all classes; but he thought that it was shared in a larger degree by the trading and commercial interests than by private individuals. Had not the proposed changes in the commercial tariff the same object? "Were they not intended for the relief of the commercial interests? This was not disputed by any one—it was acknowledged by all. It had been admitted by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Ewart) had acknowledged that night, that those changes would confer a great boon upon the classes to which he had alluded. Those who had gone into trade some years ago had done so with the knowledge of the taxes to which they were liable, and to the extent to which those taxes had been repealed those persons had been benefited. Then as to this deficit, how had it been incurred? Could they find nothing in the various items to be carried to the debit side of the commercial interests of the country? The war with China had been referred to in the course of these discussions, and it had been shown that a large portion of that deficit had been incurred on account of that war. And the expenses were not like those which would be required for carrying on the war in Affghanistan, and which would fall in the first instance upon the East India Company; but these expenses would fall entirely and directly upon this country. It might be said that Captain Elliot had been imprisoned, and that the honour of the country had thus been insulted and must be vindicated. But how did this collision take place in the first instance? The East India Company had carried on a trade with China for 200 years—a trade established on a secure if not on an extensive basis. He would not go into the question whether it was right or wrong to open the China trade, but would remind the House that the united voice of the trading and commercial community of the country was roused and brought to bear on Parliament for the purpose of having that trade opened. It was stated in the House at the time that the change would render a collision with the Chinese inevitable. They knew the foreign policy of the Chinese, yet hon. Gentlemen were unceasing in their demands that the House would open what was stated to be a boundless market for the British commercial interests. He admitted that it was a great object—an object worth struggling for, but it was not fair in hon. Gentlemen, the advocates of the commercial interests, to turn round and say, "You have adopted our suggestions—you have plunged this country into a great war for the purpose of obtaining a market for our commerce —you have engaged us in a war the success of which is doubtful, the morality of which is perhaps more so, the expense of which is at least certain, and the advantages of which are dubious." It was not fair in the commercial interests to say so, and at the same time claim, like the old noblesse of France, an exemption from taxation. He had not addressed himself to what he considered the main question at issue, viz., the emergency upon which the tax was grounded. That had been so ably argued that he was unwilling to take up the time of the House upon it. He thanked the House for their attention, and should trespass upon them for a short time longer. The right hon. Member for Edinburgh had stated that they were to look at the war in Affghanistan chiefly in a financial point of view. He thought the right hon. Gentleman right in that opinion, but he had been misunderstood. Considering this war, then, in a financial point of view, there never was one in India likely to be more expensive than that in which they were now engaged; and when he considered the immense distance —the great extent of country over which they would have to keep a line of communication—the necessity for preserving the English army again from defeat—considering that their efforts should be commensurate to the occasion, and that nothing should be left to hazard—he did think the Government were bound to provide for the exigencies of a war which, in all likelihood, would prove the most expensive of any which this country had undertaken in India. Hon. Gentlemen opposite had also alluded to the state of the foreign relations of this country, and the noble Lord the Member for London argued against resorting to an Income-tax in consequence of the effect which such a step would have on foreign nations. The noble Lord said that it might lead foreign countries to imagine that England was reduced to her last resources. In alluding to foreign affairs he was aware that it was a subject of peculiar delicacy. Yet it was one on which a private Member might speak his sentiments, and hold language which, coming from a Cabinet Minister, might be rash and unjustifiable. He was sorry to say that there existed in France a jealousy and a feeling of hostility towards this country, which he hoped the discretion and temper of the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government would allay, but which no Member of that House, who regarded the interests of his country, would overlook. He had lately visited France, and he regretted to say that he found a strong hostile feeling against this country; and though the Government of the right hon. Baronet was not responsible for this, it yet behoved them to take into their consideration the consequences which might arise from such a state of things. But it was not by disguising the state of their finances that they could hope to guard against any difficulties which might arise with France. That country would have a much higher opinion of England when it saw them taking effectual means for remedying a temporary embarrassment. He had the greatest confidence in the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, and he would support the proposition for an Income-tax; but he did so on the distinct understanding that it was imposed to meet an emergency, for no modification of the tax would ever induce him to consent to its being substituted permanently for other taxes. He entertained sanguine expectations that the necessity would pass away and that trade would revive. When that period came, he hoped the House would not be prepared to continue a tax from motives of convenience which they had imposed from necessity. When that necessity ceased, he hoped the first object of the right hon. Baronet would be to remit a tax which, though most onerous in its nature, would yet be cheerfully borne by the patriotism and good feeling of the country so long as the necessity required it, but which he was perfectly confident the right hon. Baronet would not continue one moment longer than the circumstances of the country rendered it imperatively necessary.

Sir W. Clay

concurred with the hon. Member who had just sat down as to the injustice of taxing fixed property and exempting property of a different description. He would not argue the general question, for he believed it was pretty nearly exhausted; and if it had been proposed to take a vote upon the question, without further discussion, he for one would have consented to it. But a debate having arisen, he hoped the House would indulge him whilst he endeavoured to point out what he conceived would be the effect of the proposed measure, in reference to a subject which had as yet been but little commented upon—he alluded to that portion of the plan which went to regulate the mode in which the tax should be levied upon the agricultural interest. The object of the right hon. Baronet in proposing to levy a tax of 3½d. in the pound, instead of 7d. upon persons engaged in agriculture, could not, he was sure, be from any unfair wish to excuse or favour the agricultural interest. He believed that the object of the right hon. Baronet was as he professed, to get at the profits of the farmers. Now, how did the right hon. Baronet propose to get at those profits? He takes the rent, and says "I will assume that the farmer's profit is half his rent." Now, he (Sir W. Clay) denied that rent and profits bore any relation whatever to each other. The assumption that they did so, proceeded from a false view of the principle by which rent is regulated. What is rent? The commonly accepted definition of rent among political economists, and doubtless, the sound one, was this; that rent consists of the surplus profit on capital employed in the cultivation of land beyond the profit that can be obtained by the application of the same amount of capital in any other mode of employing it. Now, let them suppose that the general rate of profit upon capital employed in trade was 5 per cent.; and that the profit on capital employed in the cultivation of land was 15 per cent.; in such cases, the rent would consist of the extra 10 per cent. It must, of course, be assumed that the general rate of farming profits is equal; and that whether the farmer rents fertile land or poor land, he will derive an equal return upon the capital which he employs. If it were true that all the land in the kingdom were of equal value, and required an equal outlay per acre to render it productive, then the just relation between the profit on the farmer's capital, and the rent he pays to his landlord might be found; but the fact was notoriously the reverse;—and the cases in which the scale of the right hon. Gentleman would give the true measure of profit of farming capital would be few in comparison of those when the result would be false; in most cases the scale would be either too high or too low. To make his meaning intelligible, let them take two farms of 300 acres each. In one case the land shall let at 15s. an acre, and in the other at 3l. an acre. The land at 15s. an acre would produce a rent of 275l., the half of which would be less than 150l., and the tenant would escape from the Income-tax altogether. But the land which let at 3l. an acre would produce a rent of 900l., the half of which would be 450l., and the tenant would be taxed at 13l.10s. Now, was it at all clear in the latter case, that the tenant did make a profit of 450l.? On the contrary, there was not the slightest ground for supposing it. The capital employed on the 300 acres of poor land would yield as much profit to the tenant as the capital employed on the 300 acres of fertile land; the only difference would be in the rent. The rent on the fertile land would be very high, there being a large surplus of profit over the ordinary profits on capital; and the whole of that surplus profit would go to the landlord, whilst, in the case of the poor land, there would only be a small surplus of profit to go for rent. In this case, therefore, the scheme of the right hon. Baronet would work great injustice, because, in the one case, from a certain amount of capital which was yielding a fair and reasonable amount of profit, no tax would arise, while in the other case, the same amount of capital would pay a tax of 13l, or 14l. This was not a mere matter of curiosity, or a question interesting merely as a scientific problem; but it would have a very material effect in the practical working of the tax. As by the present arbitrary rule, an enormous proportion of farming capital was exempted from any contribution whatsoever. He believed he was justified in saying that throughout England, Scotland, and Wales, two-thirds of the farms were let at rents under 300l. a year. Taking the profits at half the rent, they thus exempted two-thirds of all the farming capital of the country from the Income-tax. The amount of the farming capital of the country was estimated at between 300,000,000l. and 400,000,000l. Now, by exempting two-thirds of this vast amount of farming capital from taxation, great injustice was committed on all the other classes of the country. Neither could he (Sir W. Clay) perceive any peculiarity in the nature of farming capital, or in the position of the farmer, that could justify this mode of levying the tax on this species of property. On the contrary, he could conceive many reasons why to this description of capital it should be far less objectionable to apply the inquisitorial process than to the capital of ordinary traders. A farmer was in a very slight degree dependent for success upon his credit, or upon the reputation of his wealth. He was not subject to the bankrupt-laws; his principal creditor was his landlord, and his principal disbursements were to his own labourers. An investigation into the affairs of a farmer could do him but little injury on the one hand, while on the other, the process of ascertaining the amount of his profits would be much more simple than in any Other case. He therefore thought, that the proposed scheme of the right hon. Baronet, as regarded the farmers, was based on a fallacious principle. There was no general and certain relation between rent and profits, and the exemption of so large a proportion of farming capital from taxation was made without there existing anything peculiar in the position of the farmer to justify the exemption. The hon. Member went on to say that he was disposed to give the right hon. Baronet full credit for a large portion of his commercial tariff, and in the discussion of that tariff the right hon. Baronet should have whatever humble support it was in his power to give; although there were portions of it to which at the fitting time, he should be prepared to state his objections. He would only allude, then, to one point, because it was one from which a great loss would be occasioned to the revenue; he meant the alteration of duty on timber. That alteration had been justified on the ground that it would be a great advantage to the shipping interest. He thought this was a mistake; and the right hon. Baronet was making a sacrifice without any countervailing advantage. It was not true that Canadian timber was employed in mercantile-ship building in this country to any considerable extent. To the extent to which merchant ships built of Canadian timber could find profitable employment in the trade of this country, to that full extent such ships were built in Canada itself; and with builders in the colony, of course, builders there could not compete. For all other uses, the present duty on Canadian timber formed so very small a proportion of the price of the article that the reduction of the duty, while it was no great boon to the consumer, formed a considerable item in the deficiency of the revenue. He thought the right hon. Baronet had done wisely in reducing the duty on the superior description of timber, but it was of that reduction of duty the shipping interest complained. Nor did they consider the reduction of duty on colonial timber as any compensation. With respect to the comparative merits of the plan proposed by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Baring) and the one brought forward by the right hon. Baronet, he gave the preference to the former. He did not think the arguments of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Baring) had been answered. The right hon. Baronet might have been justified in calling for an Income-tax in a great emergency of the State; but he called for it before the emergency bad arisen, and when it was left to every man to dispute the reality of that emergency; he should therefore support the motion of the hon. Member for Liskeard.

Mr. Wakley:

Notwithstanding all that had been said with regard to this bill, he was still disposed to believe that a property-tax was the best tax that could be imposed, and he exceedingly regretted that the present bill was so framed that he could not give it any support. If the right hon. Baronet had proposed even a graduated income-tax and not a property-tax, he would have supported him most earnestly, because he believed that no tax could operate so justly in this country as a tax that came directly from the wealthy classes of the community. The part of the right hon. Baronet's opening speech which elicited the warmest approbation was that in which he denounced all taxation upon industry. The right hon. Baronet most emphatically dwelt upon that point; but was there no industry on the part of men who had incomes above 150l. a year? This tax was a direct tax upon the industry of all men who obtained an income above 150Z. That was one of the strongest objections he entertained against the tax, because it could not be just to tax the produce of man's labour in the same proportion as they taxed income derived from a fixed capital. This was felt on the part of the public to be so great a grievance, and so intolerable, that he could assure the right hon. Baronet that he had by this measure laid the foundation for a graduated Income-tax. So far, therefore, he rejoiced at the position the right hon. Baronet had taken, because he was convinced it would lead to the adoption of a just system of taxation. He had received several letters on this subject. He would quote one of them. It was written by a person to show how unjust it was that he should be taxed precisely the same as individuals who had fixed incomes. The writer said:— To illustrate my view I freely and candidly state facts, but must beg of you not to make my name unnecessarily public. I rent business premises at 230l. a year. They are rated at rack-rent to the poor, police, highway, and sewer rate. The house, which is a small eight-roomed one, attached to the counting-house, in which there are seven widows, is charged in the assessed taxes with eighteen windows. In short, the whole of the assessed taxes for this place is 20l. 2s. 5d. per annum. The capital employed is small, being but 5,000l.; but, with industry, it enables me to employ thirty-four men, most of them with families. I keep fifteen horses, and ten waggons and carts, and altogether, the gross returns exceed 25,000l. per annum, which left, I admit, last year, a gross profit exceeding 5l. per cent, upon the whole, subject, however, as you must be aware, to deductions for bad debts. Supposing the 5,000l. was funded instead of used as above. The interest would be the only portion subject to the tax, say 170l., which, at the rate proposed, would be about 5l. Now, if the 5,000l. being employed in trade is taken at 5l. per cent, interest, and taxed at the rate of 3l. per cent., the produce would be 7l. 10s. which mode would yield 50l. per cent, more upon the given sum of 5,000l. than if the same was funded. Yet no objection could be made. But if the premises are brought into schedule B, and the gross profits into schedule D, the class of society which you represent, namely, the tradesmen, or (as I would call them) the working bees, will contribute out of all proportion. I hope that this may be a groundless fear. I should say that it was, did I not see by Sir Robert Peel's figures, that he contemplates schedules B and D, that is, traders' rents and profits, to yield 1,370,000l., while the funded property is estimated to yield only 646,000l. Again; it should be estimated what taxes the 5,000l. employed in trade now yields, in a direct and in an indirect way. Although the assessed taxes and the poor and police rates are not small items, and although thirty-four clerks and labourers are not a small number to be provided with the means of living out of the judicious and energetic employment of that small capital, its benefit does not stop there. No. There is the rent for the farmers' produce of hay, straw, and corn for the horses. There are the wheelwrights, the smiths, the harness-maker, stamp duty, paper, insurance, postage, &c, all aided, which must not be lost sight of. These remarks may be premature. It may be the Minister's intention to limit the tax to actual property, and if so, no Englishman ought to object. Few, I think, will. But, if the tradesman's energy and talent are to be taxed, in addition to his capital, I, for one, think that the tradesman will soon pass away, the working artisan and the labourer shortly made candidates for the union workhouses, and the country's character for enterprise be lost for ever. I now subjoin a list of Government and parochial taxes which I actually paid last year:—Assessed taxes, 20l. 2s. 5d.; stamps, 25l.; poor's-rate, 32l. 16s.; other parochial rates, 16l. 13s. 8d.; sewer rate, 5l. 11s.; total, 100l. 3s. 1d.; out of a capital of 5,000l. This was not an isolated case.—[Sir R. Peel: What was the clear profit or income realised by this person?] He could not tell. That would be for the assessor to find out. Very likely, however, the assessor would not rely upon the statement of this individual; and he might be surcharged. This the party might appeal against, it was true; but the right hon. Baronet proposed to carry that on in secret. To this secret tribunal he objected. Every man ought to have a public investigation if he wished it. If the commissioner should have a desire to act unjustly, the appearance of the public would serve as a check upon him. Would the party have the opportunity to have an open investigation before the local commissioner?

Sir Robert Peel

was understood to say that the party would only have the option of going before the local commissioner, or before a special commissioner appointed by Government; but that he would not have the power to have the investigation carried on in public.

Mr. Wakley

thought, that that was very unjust. The public ought to be present if the party wished it. He was bound to state that out of doors there was no strong feeling against an Income-tax. His impression was, that the people thought that in principle it was the most just tax that could be imposed; and it did the right hon. Baronet the greatest credit for the powerful and gigantic efforts he was making to overcome the present difficulties, and to meet any future disasters that might accrue to this country. That was his feeling, and it would be most unfair and ungenerous for him to deny it; nor would he deny it, whatever obloquy and abuse the course he was pursuing might bring upon him. He cared not for abuse. He was not tied to any party. He was bound to state the candid and naked truth. Beyond all question there was no system of taxation so fair and just as direct taxation upon property. Let the tax collector come into your house at once, without any disguise; and let him say, "I have called this morning for 35l." The reply would immediately be, "What is this for?" The answer of the collector immediately follows: "It is for the Income-tax." This sets the tax-payer upon his reflection, and he says, "I want to know how this money is applied;" and in the space of a short time you thereby make every man a political reformer. Then it is, that he investigates, with extreme acuteness and perseverance, what becomes of the money which is abstracted from the fruits of his labour. It was matter, therefore, of rejoicing, that this country had a minister who would act thus boldly by the people. He was delighted to see this commencement of a sound course of legislation. There was no fraud, no deception, no deceit, no delusion in all this, and he hoped this system of taxation would be persevered in. He objected, however, to the present bill, because the sum that would be collected by it would not be adequate to the cruel nature of the inquisition it would introduce. The amount they were about to collect was only a fourteenth part of the revenue. If it had been a half he should have been delighted with the measure, for then the right hon. Baronet would have been able to take off many taxes which now pressed so heavily upon the energies of the people. He hoped that when the people should be made fully aware of the advantages of direct taxation they would overwhelm the House with petitions for the adoption of a graduated scale of taxation upon property and in-come. The noble Lord the Member for London (Lord John Russell) agreed with the right hon. Baronet in opinion, that a sliding-scale could not be applied to a tax upon income. But he wanted to know why it could not? A sliding-scale was applied to the assessed taxes. It was applied to their horses, their servants, their carriages, and to their houses. He did not mean to say, that the gradations were carried out upon a just principle. On the contrary, he knew they were not. Take the window-tax, for example. For any window above eight a tax of 13s. was imposed; but when the windows were above 180, then the tax was only 3s. for each window. But his argument was this:— that if a graduated scale of duty could be applied to your horses, your carriages, your servants, your houses, and your windows, why could it not be applied to your acres, and to your thousands of pounds? He hoped that this question would be answered. He was perfectly satisfied that when those gentlemen who were now so anxious to have a sliding-scale applied to corn, had found by experience that it was equally applicable to money, they would derive the greatest gratification in finding their views of political economy carried out for the benefit of the people, who, he could assure those Gentlemen, never would rest until a sliding-scale should be applied to an Income-tax. When that should be proposed it would be hailed by the country as the best tax that ever was imposed. The principle of a sliding-scale was already applied to property in the instance of stamp duties, and though he was aware that it was made to press with undue weight on the masses, still all he argued for was the flexibility and applicability of the principle. His hon. and learned Friend (Mr. C. Buller) had said that taxation should be regulated in proportion to the amount that it would withdraw from a man's enjoyments. But who was to estimate what a man's enjoyments were? What he believed to be the just principle was this: that every man should be made to contribute in proportion to his means; and that special care should be taken in carrying out that principle, if possible, not to withdraw from any man the necessaries of life. The man of 200l. a year would lose nearly 6l. of his income while the man of 6,000l. would lose only about 180l. The 6l. taken away in the one case would deprive a man of some of the very necessaries of life, but of what comfort, of what luxury would the 180l. deprive the man of 6,000l. a year? If a man of 6,000l. a year, minus 180l., could not obtain all the pleasures and gratifications he desired, he must be a very luxurious, avaricious, and unreasonable fellow indeed, and the more he was taxed the less he was to be pitied: such a man could hardly be taxed too severely. He would simply state the case of one of his constituents to show how unjustly and cruelly the tax operated. He was a clerk with from 150l. to 160l. per annum; he had a wife and four children, kept one girl as a servant at 6l. a year wages, and found, on casting up his year's account, that he was 11l. in debt. What was he to do? he must abridge some of the necessaries of life in order to avoid debt. He and his family left off sugar, and, to avoid the keep of the servant (the daughter of a man with a large family, who was a cripple), they sent her to live out of the House, merely paying her wages for occasional assistance. When it was as much as he could do to struggle with his difficulties came this Income-tax and overwhelmed him; it reduced him in fact to complete poverty. Moreover, the curse fell upon the very humblest classes also; for the poor servant-girl was necessarily turned adrift and sent home to her crippled father. What were the watch and clock makers of Finsbury to do under the tax? They earned from 150l. to 180l. a year; and even from this paltry sum a heavy deduction was to be made. The man who had 4,000l. in the funds did not pay one farthing, and if a man had 40,000l. in the funds he had only to divide it between ten members of his family, and set the tax at defiance. This was a case which might easily occur, and which the right hon. Baronet did not seem prepared to meet. The right hon. Baronet had vaunted of the tax he was about to lay upon Irish absentees, but how did he attempt to tax the many Irish absentees, not in this country, but in France, Germany, and Italy? The tax in fact would compel them to be absentees, not only from Ireland but from England. The farmers of England, too, had a right to complain: he knew some of them, and they asked him how it happened, that while the farmer of 300l. a year was made to pay in this country, he entirely escaped in Ireland? He could give them no answer, but that it was the will and pleasure of the right hon. Baronet. For these reasons, and with these objections he was obliged reluctantly, he owned, to vote against this tax: it was in principle the best description of tax that could be imposed, provided it were made equal in its pressure and fair in its collection; in that case it would have the effect, not merely of rescuing the country from its embarrassments, but of placing it in the proud situation it formerly occupied. He wished to face the financial difficulty, and to restore the public credit, but it must be done by requiring a proportionate sacrifice from men of all ranks by a graduated scale; and then, though an Income-tax was not to be compared with a Property-tax, he should hold it a great good, and should heartily support it. At present, framed as it was, he had no choice but to vote against it.

Mr. D'Israeli

said, every Gentleman who had spoken, appeared to be of opinion, that new taxes in some form or other must be imposed, and that the country ought no longer to suffer under the evils of a financial deficiency; but scarcely any one had thought of inquiring into the causes of the deficiency. The budget of this year was characterised by a circumstance unprecedented in the history of the country. The right hon. Baronet had, for the first time, introduced into a financial statement an exposition of the state of the finances of our Indian empire. He confessed he was not astonished that the right hon. Baronet had taken this step. Such a course was wise and sagacious; and he thought, that any one who had watched the course of events, and the circumstances of our Indian empire for some years past, must have anticipated, that the time would arrive when the Minister of this country would announce that the finances of India must form an item in the British budget. A single Minister had the opportunity of governing 100,000,000 of people, and had the almost uncontrolled expenditure of a vast revenue, almost without the cognisance of his Colleagues; and when that was the case, a British House of Commons ought to exercise the same control over the resources of that country as they did over the revenue of England. If, financially, there was a reason why the House should interfere with the state of the revenue in India, politically there was no reason to refrain from so doing. The wars in central Asia were not the wars of the East India Company, but of England; and it was absolutely necessary that England should step forward and offer to take that responsibility which must ultimately devolve upon this country. It had been said, that the statements of the Minister in this respect were exaggerated and unnecessary. It was a matter of notoriety, that five years ago there was a surplus revenue for India and England, in round numbers, of nearly 2,500,000l. in each country. It was a matter of equal notoriety, that at this moment there was a deficiency for each empire, in round numbers, of 2,500,000l. Now, surely there could be no inquiry more legitimate than an investigation into the cause of this deficiency. But before going into this part of the subject he would take the liberty of alluding to one inaccurate statement which had been made with respect to the financial condition of India. It had been stated, that the Indian Government had raised loans at 5 per cent. But within the last few days he had been informed on very good authority, that money had recently been obtained in Calcutta at the high rate of 8½ per cent., and that, too, on landed security, the best security which could be offered. He could scarcely believe it possible, that the Government in India could obtain money at 5 per cent., when their previous securities were at a considerable discount in the market. He, therefore, thought these loans must have been raised on some false pretence—on some such representations as those which described the Indian revenue at 20,000,000l. when it was not more than 15,000,000l. It was necessary the House should obtain some accurate information on the subject. One fact was not disputed—that five years ago there was a surplus revenue on the two empires of 5,000,000l., and at present there was a deficiency of 5,000,000l. It was rather curious, that the deficiency commenced almost simultaneously in the two countries. Generally speaking, our commerce had not declined, nor had our revenue diminished; but our expenditure had increased, and it was this increase of expenditure, both in India and England, that had destroyed the surplus revenue and created the deficiency. It was not very unreasonable to infer, that the same cause at the same time had destroyed the surplus revenue in both empires. And what was that cause? Not our commercial regulations or financial arrangements. It was the foreign policy of the late Government which had had this disastrous effect, and had rendered necessary the present increase of taxation. What was the policy which had produced this great expenditure and consequent deficiency? The country knew little about it. We were engaged in a war which had never been announced to Parliament by the Sovereign, which had never been developed by the Minister, and which had never been sanctioned by the nation. This was the war which bad caused the deficiency complained of; and could there be a more legitimate matter of inquiry than to investigate the causes of that war? Not only was that inquiry legitimate, but it was the first duty of the House of Commons to investigate the causes of that war, which had been so disastrous— which had brought on the English arras the greatest disgrace in the records of modern history. A short time ago news arrived of a calamity which had filled the country with mourning and with shame —a calamity the consequence of that war—and when it was announced to the House, what occurred? A right hon. Gentleman rose in his place and said it was grossly exaggerated. He should like to know what authority the right hon. Gentleman had for making that statement. The very next arrival confirmed the accounts which had been previously received, and supplied additional details. No inquiry, however, had been announced into those circumstances which had entailed so much disgrace and dishonour upon the arms of England. He admitted, that the tax about to be imposed was one of a most odious and inquisitorial character. All parties agreed in the necessity of increased taxation, but no person inquired for a moment into the causes of that necessity. There used to be a doctrine once very fashionable with the noble Lord opposite—popular at least to some extent in the House—and that was the responsibility of Ministers. Nothing could be more remarkable than that a Government should have commenced a war without consulting the House of Commons—that they should have experienced the greatest disasters—destroyed the supplies of two great empires,—involved both empires in debt, and escaped from office without the slightest comment or inquiry. Nothing would be more astonishing than that they should be succeeded by a Government discreetly silent on the subject; but if the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government intended to originate no inquiry—he would remind the House, that there was one body in this country on whom the responsibility would ultimately rest, and that body was the House of Commons. The Parliament of England, which had never been consulted, was the assembly on which this responsibility would devolve. It was a remarkable circumstance, that when the contingency of a public bankruptcy in India was at this moment contemplated and nothing but the vigorous conduct of the right hon. Gentleman had averted the evil—when hon. Gentlemen were nightly complaining that people might not present petitions against the taxes — when noble Lords announced, that they would divide the House on every occasion against this inquisitorial impost—it was remarkable that no Member had risen to inquire into the causes of this impost, and into the present state of both England and India. He had no intention himself of interfering in these debates. He believed, that the measure was necessary, not only from causes which were apparent, but from many others which might not be brought forward. The first duty which they ought to perform was, without reference to party, without giving any opinion on what was past, to investigate the causes which had led to the wars in India, and to the financial difficulties which had followed them.

Mr. Christie

admitted that it was necessary to provide against the prevailing deficiency of revenue; the House ought to meet the evil in order to remedy it, and although he would not go over the grounds so often previously stated, he might be permitted shortly to explain his views, and his several grounds of objection to the Income-tax. First, he objected to it on account of its direct nature; it was the most oppressive and injurious of all direct taxes, in addition to which it was most odiously inquisitorial, and harassing to trade and commerce. He objected to it, because it gave full scope to the most malevolent feelings, because it engendered deceit and fraud—because it was most unequal in its operation, and always obtruded its inequality and injustice to the view. In one word, he objected to it as a tax which, as had been often expressed in those debates was so unequal, so harassing, so mischievous, so revolting to the feelings, that it can only safely be resorted to in one of those last emergencies in which a nation is apt to think and feel as one man, and which even then is resorted to by a wise Minister only for the exigency of the time, and for that with a most perilous responsibility. The right hon. Baronet has himself emphatically said, that "he was unwilling to establish the disgusting inquisition with which it must be accompanied," and would not support such a tax; but, said the right hon. Baronet, "the circumstances are different, and everything depends on the circumstances. At the time at which I spoke there was a surplus of 1,500,000l. There is now a deficit of nearly double that amount." It was then proposed to reduce taxes to the amount of 1,340,000l., But if at a time when there was so large a surplus in the Exchequer, when considerable reduction of taxation could have taken place, and they could yet have steered clear of a deficiency, the right hon. Baronet thought it necessary to fence himself so warily against an Income-tax, and to shun reduction of taxation, surely when the surplus was turned into a deficiency, he should increase his efforts to avoid the tax of which he felt so righteous a horror, and arm himself tenfold to resist reduction of taxes. But what did he do with a deficiency of 3,000,000l. in a time which he describes as a time of war, and pregnant with disaster? He who in a time of peace, with a surplus of 1,500,000l., shuddered at the slightest reduction of taxes, lest the imposition of an Income-tax might be made a few more shades more improbable, went and reluctantly gave up taxes to the amount of 1,200,000l., and this by way of showing the consistency of his opinions, and his unabated desire to save the country, by every means in his power, from the horrors and disgusting inquisition of an Income-tax; and, by way of making his consistency more complete, he made a boast of his reductions. He boasted of the deficiency which his own tariff would produce, and he called upon the House to agree cheerfully to a tax to make up a deficiency which did not yet exist. He called the deficiency 4,000,000l. This was unfair; they had only a right to calculate it at 3,000,000l., or rather 2,500,000l., for to get beyond that they were obliged to resort to hypothesis and possibilities. And, as for the necessity of a resort to this mode of taxation, the same might have been urged as a reason for the proposed reduction in 1833; and if they practised patience then, they were much more bound to practise patience now. Their duty was to make up an annual deficiency of 2,500,000l. Certainly the first duty of the right hon. Baronet was to retain those taxes which already existed, to which the feelings of men had become accustomed, and which were, therefore, more easily levied than other taxes, the evils of which men knew not of; and then to make up the deficiency in any other way rather than the imposition of an Income-tax. The noble Lord the Member for London had ably detailed the mode in which this deficiency might be made up. They might easily raise the amount by resorting to taxes on articles of general consumption, which were not so oppressive as a direct tax; or go to a window-tax or a house-tax, which, though direct taxes, did not possess the unequal and inquisitorial features of an Income-tax. Oh! but he remembered that the right hon. Baronet had contended that all assessed taxes were as unequal as an Income-tax, falling alike on men of large and men of small incomes—men whose incomes were derived from land or the funds, from the precarious earnings of a trade or profession. Yes; but they fell on these in different degrees. Individuals had the power of rendering themselves liable to such taxes in proper proportions, to the extent and nature of their incomes. The man of 700l. a year derived from a profession or trade, lived in a smaller house, took care to have fewer windows, and kept fewer servants, than the man who has 700l. a year from land or from the funds. These taxes, therefore, had the faculty of adapting themselves to these differences in income, which the right hon. Baronet's Income-tax wantonly confounded. It was strange that the right hon. Baronet should not have seen the distinction; and when the right hon. Baronet gravely propounds so obvious a fallacy, he hoped the right hon. Baronet would excuse him in saying that the country might think he would hardly do himself or his Government an injury, by giving more frequent permission to his followers to speak for him. The right hon. Baronet had been pleased to be very facetious on a part of the speech of the noble Lord the Member for London, and on the arguments used by the noble Lord: but it was curious that the best supporters of the present measure were on the Opposition side of the House. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Dumfries had made a speech highly laudatory of the course pursued by the right hon. Baronet; and his encomiums consisted chiefly in the fact that the right hon. Baronet had resorted to the principle of direct taxation. The hon. Member dwelt, as far as he could understand him, upon the great benefit of direct taxation on account of the advantage it afforded to the enforcement of economy upon the Government. He, however, believed that without this tax there was a sufficient check upon the executive, for he believed there was a general unwillingness to pay money unnecessarily for the purpose of the Government. Then the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. R. Currie) supported the right hon. Baronet for a different reason. He was willing to give the Income-tax as the price of the great and important concessions to the principles of free-trade to be made by the right hon. Baronet. He could not see those great concessions. Where did the hon. Member discover them? Did he find them in the Corn-bill, which he concurred with his party in scouting for its nothingness. Or in the tariff, with its high differential duties from the beginning to the end—a differential duty of 100 per cent on coffee; a heavy duty of 30s. a load on foreign timber, with only a nominal 1s. duty on colonial timber? If these were all the concessions that were to be made by the right hon. Baronet, he thought that the price which the hon. Member for Northampton was willing to pay for them was very extravagant indeed. Again, the hon. and learned Member for Bath was a supporter of the right hon. Baronet, and had yet another reason for his support. His opinion was, that the deficiency should be made up by means of economy and reductions carried through all the Government establishments; but he had no hopes in the present state of the House of finding his views succeed. It seemed, however, that there was a long way between a desire for economy, and the support of an Income-tax, which was, indeed, inconsistent with that desire; for if the right hon. Baronet once got the Income-tax, he would be placed far beyond the efforts of the people to wring from him those measures of economy which the hon. and learned Member desired. The whole support, indeed, of the hon. Member was inconsistent. He was at once the warmest eulogist, and most vehement opponent of the measure. He praised the measure as honest, fair, and straightforward, and then he laid his finger upon a principal feature as a cruel and gross injustice. He hoped, indeed, to amend it in committee, but his hon. and learned Friend, the Member for Liskeard had pointed out the impossibility of the hon. and learned Member for Bath getting rid of this obnoxious feature in the bill, and he would warn the hon. and learned Gentleman that all his attempts would be unavailing, and that the bill would come out of the committee just as it went in. This unrighteous inequality will remain. The man who makes two, three, or four hundred a year by pursuing a toilsome trade or profession, and who, out of these scanty earnings has to support a family, is called upon to contribute to the tax from which a man having a fixed permanent income of little less than 150l. a year—a single man, perhaps, but at any rate certain that his wife and child will enjoy, after his death, the income which he himself possesses, and infinitely better off, therefore, than the first, was exempt. He thought the very line drawn by the right hon. Baronet for exemption was one of the most unjust features of the measure. Persons whose incomes were under 150l. a year, were generally persons who were altogether accustomed to a most moderate expenditure, who have no care for keeping up what was called an appearance, and who had no difficulty in even living within their very small incomes. But go higher, and you arrive at incomes which entail necessities of expense more than proportionate to their increased amounts—entailed, not merely expenses for appearance sake, which they might not be disposed to view with indulgence, but expenses for education of children, whose mental and moral culture it would be the last struggle of a refined and high-minded parent not to permit to sink below the level of his own, or expenses even necessary for the pursuit of a profession by which, after many years of patient industry and frugality, the poor obscure beginner may attain to wealth and eminence, and acquire that reputation from which the nation derived lustre. Only consider the expenses necessary for pursuing the profession of the common law. Circuits, chambers, law-books cost the barrister from 200l. to 300l. a year, and if his fees amount to 600l. or 700l., or even 1,000l. a year, out of which he has to meet the necessary expenses of his profession, and to support, perhaps, a growing family, you tax this man, to whom under any circumstance every shilling is of the utmost consequence, while you let free the man without the trouble and expense of a profession, or a family, whose income is under 150l. a-year, in order that you might set up the character of the people's friends, while, at the same time, to conciliate the fund-holder and the landowner, you impose on them only the same tax you imposed on the precarious incomes derived from professions or trades. And for what was it that the right hon. Baronet was bringing upon himself all this odium and unpopularity, and was embarking on this suicidal course? Could it be, that party exigencies impelled him, and that, finding immediate difficulty and danger, in other courses, he flew to a danger that was more remote? His agricultural friends would not allow him to help the revenue by a moderate fixed duty on corn; besides that, the right hon. Baronet opposed such a plan last year, and even if he could depend upon his party following him— which he could not—he could not brave the [public contumely that would await him if now, in office, and to preserve office, he espoused a principle of such moment, which, out of office, and to gain office, he had resisted. Neither would the landed interest allow him to do an act of obvious justice, which would also be fiscally expedient, in adopting the motion which was about to be proposed to the House by the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Elphinstone), and imposing taxes on the transmission of real, alike with personal property. And then, the tariff, designed to please the public, which party necessities would not allow him to gratify in other ways—and, at the same time, studiously ministering, in all important articles of consumption, to the interests of colonial monopolists. And for these two purposes, combining exorbitant differential duties with ostentatious reductions of duty, so that the public would derive much less benefit than would, at first sight, seem from the reductions; they still prevented fair foreign competition; no encouragement was given where such differential duties exist to commerce, which they said needed to be revived, or to manufactures, whose languishing condition they lamented but the colonial producer remains unscathed; and to do him the least possible harm, and the least possible good to the consumer, they inflicted the utmost possible injury on the revenue. The hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Cobden) ably exposed, the other night, the faults and fatuities of this tariff. The sin of a high differential duty pervaded it. A high duty was necessary to avoid offence to a class on which the right hon. Baronet's power greatly depended. And this high differential duty necessitated a greater reduction of duties for the other purposes of popularity after which the right hon. Baronet so anxiously desired, but which it was so difficult for him to attain. Here again, therefore, party exigencies operated to assist in driving the right hon. Baronet to this Income-tax. He viewed the tax as a tax for the maintenance of a party, and this was one of the chief reasons why he gave his cordial support to the amendment of his hon. Friend, the Member for Liskeard.

Mr. Percy S. Smythe

said, that the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down had dealt out his censure and his counsel to all those hon. Members on either side of the House who were inclined to support the present motion, but had wholly failed in making out any argument against it. The hon. Member for Liskeard, too, not content the other night with making a fierce attack upon the borough mongering aristocracy, he himself having sat for the close borough of West Looe, had again come forward to oppose the present measure, but was not more fortunate in enunciating the principle which he would adopt. He agreed, however, in one part of the hon. Member's speech, where he said that they were called upon them to discuss the merits or demerits of an Income-tax. Many Gentlemen might think that it was partial, and therefore objectionable; that it was inquisitorial, and therefore oppressive, and yet feel themselves constrained to vote in its favour from a deep sense of the exigencies of the country. It was not a question between the merits of the budget of the last and present year, of the superiority of direct over indirect taxation. Some might prefer indirect to direct taxation, and yet feel constrained to surrender their individual and private opinions. Some Gentlemen, again, might prefer other modes of direct taxation, such as had been before resorted to, and yet vote for the motion of the right hon. Baronet, because they believed as he did, that this was exclusively a question of confidence. Even hon. Members on the other side of the House did not say that circumstances might not justify and might not even require the imposition of an Income-tax; their opposition, therefore, was not one of principle. All they said was, that present circumstances did not justify it. Because Europe was not involved in actual war, because France was not invaded, because the ramparts of Vienna and of Berlin were still secure, and because the Rhine was still German — could they see no danger, and would they make no exertion? Mr. Burke had often talked of the school of geographical morality: Match him, this sample of geographical statesmanship. Was the march across the Indus less important, or did it require less exertion, than if it took place nearer our own doors? Suppose these occurences had taken place at Madrid— suppose a British envoy had been murdered in cold blood—suppose the British residents had been butchered in defiance of a convention — suppose the army had been treacherously betrayed and cut to pieces— and then would they tell him that, because these things happened in one peninsula, they were to be treated with inertness and carelessness; whereas, if they had occurred in another peninsula, they would have insured the utmost sympathy and energy? Let not that indifference, which had reduced Clive to suicide, and Hastings to beggary and proscription, and which would fain have detracted even from Lord Wellesley's magnificent proconsulate, find a support; let it not be said within the walls of Parliament that the evil spirit was allowed to make light of these difficulties and these dangers. They must look with circumspection to the events in the East. Although two Secretaries of the Board of Control had spoken, they had carefully shirked all reference to the affairs of India. Let them, however, reflect upon the inevitable effect which continued disasters in that country would have upon England. Let them remember, that if war, should shut out from us the United States or the Brazils, we might have to resort to India for our cotton and our sugar. Let not, then, our difficulties be underrated. If they were underrated here, they were not so abroad. If they looked at the conduct of the French opposition during the recent debates, they might even think those difficulties overrated; but whilst they existed, he found in them his justification for his vote. If he wanted any further justification for the imposition of the Income-tax, he found it in the speech of the gallant Commodore the Member for Marlebone, who stangely enough opposed the tax, and yet said, that if the British fleet in the Mediterranean in 1840 had encountered a hostile fleet, it would not have been victorious, and who followed up that statement by saying that he never remembered such a crisis as the present, except on two occasions, with reference to which, perhaps, he might be biassed by his professional feelings in giving too much importance—the mutinies at the Nore and at Portsmouth. These were his reasons for supporting the present measure. Admitting that it was a tax repugnant to the practice of the constitution—admitting that the feelings of a large body of the people were opposed to it—admitting that it partook somewhat of the dictatorship of ancient Rome—inimical to the common practice of the Constitution—yet he believed that like that, it was, in such a crisis as the present, a just, an equitable, and a necessary measure.

Mr. W. O. Stanley

hoped, after the various remonstrances and representations that had been addressed to the right hon. Baronet, that he would consent to some modification of the tax. The noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) had pointed out the other night how completely, in the case of coppers, an advantage was about to be given to the mines of Cuba, and that ought to show him the necessity of well weighing his propositions before he brought them finally before the House.

Mr, Scott

said, though he had a very shy feeling of the inexpediency of the measures brought forward by the Government, he did not mean to throw any opposition in their way. The question before them was, whether this was the time to impose such a tax? It appeared to him that the origin of the tax was to be traced to a wish to maintain monopoly. If the measures proposed by the late Government were carried, they would have a far less deficiency to provide for, and the interests of trade would be materially benefited. That was his opinion, and he also thought, that those great advantages were set aside for the sake of the landed interest. That being his opinion, he thought that a land-tax was the best to be proposed; and if that were the tax, it would have his cordial support. If the tax were proposed to relieve the consumers, it would be another thing; but the right hon. Baronet proposed it for a temporary purpose, not for the sake of relieving the people from the taxes on consumption. The tax he proposed was not a tax on property, but it was an Income-tax, which was the worst that could be resorted to. If, instead of taking trades and professions, the right hon. Baronet taxed property, he would give him his cordial support. With regard to the time the tax was to continue, he thought that the difficulties and inquisition, which attended it, would prevent any fear as to its being borne for any considerable time by the people. In its own nature the tax was unjust, but in its practical working out it was rendered ten times more unjust, and, therefore, it was one which the House ought not to press. The measure gave a temptation to dishonesty, which the House ought not to sanction. Upon these grounds, and believing the right hon. Baronet had not made out a case to justify the imposition of the tax, he should enter his protest against it.

The House divided on the question, that the word now stand part of the question: —Ayes 155; Noes 76:—Majority 79.

List of the AYES.
Acland, T. D.	Baillie, H. J.
Allix, J. P.	Baird, W.
Antrobus, E.	Baring, hon. W. B.
Arbuthnott, hon. H.	Barrington, Visct.
Arkwright, G.	Baskerville, T. B. M.
Astell, W.	Bateson, Sir R.
Attwood, M.	Beresford, Maj.
Bailey, J.	Blackburne, J. I,
Bailey, J., jun.	Blake, M. J,

Blakemore, R.	Johnson, W. G.
Bodkin, W. H.	Jones, Capt.
Borthwick, P.	Lascelles, Hon. W. S.
Botfield, B.	Lawson, A.
Broadley, H.	Liddell, hon. H. T.
Bruce, Lord E.	Lindsay, H. H.
Bruce, C. L. C.	Lopes, Sir R.
Buck, L. W.	Lygon, Hon. G.
Buckley, E.	Mackenzie, T.
Buller, Sir J. Y.	Mackenzie, W.
Bunbury, T.	Mackinnon, W. A.
Burroughes, H. N.	Mahon, Visct.
Campbell, A,	Manners, Lord J.
Carnegie, hon. Capt.	March, Earl of
Chapman, A.	Marsham, Visct.
Chetwode, Sir J.	Martin, C. W.
Christopher, R. A.	Masterman, J.
Chute, W. L. W.	Meynell, Capt.
Clements, H. J.	Mordaunt, Sir J.
Clerk, Sir G.	Morgan, O.
Clive, Hon. R. H.	Munday, E. M.
Cockburn, rt h. Sir G.	Neeld, J.
Conolly, Col.	Newport, Visct.
Coote, Sir C. H.	Nicholl, rt. hon. J;
Copeland, Mr. AId.	O'Brien, W. S.
Corry, rt. hon. H.	Ossulston, Lord
Cripps, W.	Packe, C. W.
Currie, R.	Paget, Lord W.
Damer, hon. Col.	Palmer, G.
Darby, G.	Patten, J. W.
Dawnay, Hon. W. H.	Peel, rt. hon. Sir R.
D'Israeli, B.	Peel, J.
Dodd, G.	Plumptre, J. P.
Douglas, Sir H.	Praed, W. T.
Douglas, J. D. S.	Price, R.
Dugdale, W. S.	Pringle, A.
Eaton, R. J.	Rashleigh, W.
Egerton, W. T.	Reade, W. M.
Eliot, Lord	Repton, G. W. J.
Farnham, E. B.	Richards, B.
Fitzroy, hon. H.	Rolleston, Col.
Forester, hn. G. C. W.	Round, C. G.
Fuller, A E.	Round, J.
Gaskell, J. Milnes	Ryder, hon. G. D.
Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E.	Scarlett, hon. R. C.
Godson, R.	Scott, hon. F.
Gordon, hon. Capt.	Seymour, Sir H. B.
Goulburn, rt. hon. H.	Shirley, E. P.
Graham, rt. hn. Sir J.	Somerset, Lord G.
Greene, T.	Stanley, Lord
Grimsditch, T.	Stewart, J.
Grogan, E.	Stuart, H.
Hale, R. B.	Sutton, hon. H. M.
Halford, H.	Tennent, J. E.
Hardinge, rt. hn. Sir H.	Tollemache, hon. F. J
Hardy, J.	Tollemache, J.
Heathcoate, Sir W.	Tomline, G.
Henley, J. W.	Trench, Sir F. W.
Hepburn, Sir T. B.	Trevor, hon. G. R.
Herbert, hon. S.	Trollope, Sir J.
Hillsborough, Earl of	Trotter, J.
Hinde, J. H.	Vere, Sir C. B.
Houldsworth, T.	Vivian, J. E.
Holmes, hon. W. A'C. t	Waddington, H. S.
Hope, A.	Walsh, Sir J.
Jackson, J. D.	Whitmore, T. C.
Jermyn, Earl	Wood, Col, T.

Wortley, hon. J. S.	TELLERS.
Wyndham, Col. C.	Fremantle, Sir T.
Young, J.	Baring, H.

List of the NOES.
Aldam, W.	M'Taggart, Sir J.
Archbold, R.	Mitcalfe, H.
Bannerman, A.	Morris, D.
Baring, rt. hon. F. T.	Morrison, General
Barnard, E. G.	Murphy, F. S,
Bell, J.	Napier, Sir C.
Berkeley, hon. Capt.	Norreys, Sir D. J.
Bernal, Capt.	O'Brien, J.
Blewitt, R. J.	O'Connell, J.
Bowring, Dr.	Parker, J.
Brocklehurst, J.	Plumridge, Capt.
Brodie, W. B.	Pryse, P.
Brotherton, J.	Reddington, T. N.
Browne, hon. W.	Rundle, J.
Cave, hon. R. O.	Russell, Lord J.
Christie, W. D.	Scott, R.
Clay, Sir W.	Seale, Sir J. H.
Clements, Visct.	Smith, B.
Cobden, R.	Smith, rt. hon. R. V.
Colborne, hn. W. N. R.	Somerville, Sir W.
Collins, W.	Stanley, hon. W. O.
Crawford, W. S.	Staunton, Sir G. T.
Denison, J. E.	Thornely, T.
Duncan, G.	Tuite, H. M.
Duncombe, T.	Turner, E.
Fielden, J.	Villiers, hon. C.
Fitzroy, Lord C.	Vivian, hon. Major
Forster, M.	Vivian, J. H.
Gill, T.	Vivian, hon. Capt.
Grey, rt. hn. Sir G.	Wakley, T.
Hastie, A.	Wall, C. B.
Hatton, Capt. V.	Wawn, J. T.
Hawes, B.	Williams, W.
Hay, Sir A. L.	Wood, B.
Heathcoat, J.	Wood, C.
Howard, hn. C. W. G.	Wood, G. W.
Humphery, Mr. Ald.
Hutt, W.	TELLERS.
Langston, J. H.	Buller, C.
Macaulay, rt. hn. T.	Tufnell, H.
Not Official.
Paired off.
AYES.
NOES.
Cochrane, A.	Duncan, Visct.
Tyrrell, Sir J. T.	Philips, G. R.
Master, Col.	Easthope, Sir J.
Gore, O.	O'Connell, M. J.
Cardwell, E. '	Granger, T. C.
Douro, Marq.	Hill, Lord A.
Shelborne, Earl of	Oswald, J.
Eastnor, Visct.	Hollond, R.
Codrington, C. W.	Dalmeny, Lord
James, Sir W. C.	O'Brien, C.
Bell, M.	Ogle, S.
Johnstone, J. H.	Murray, A.
Duncombe, Hon. A.	Dalrymple, Capt.
Campbell, Sir H.	Maule, rt. hn. F.
Forbes, W.	Rutherfurd, rt. hn. A.
Hill, Sir R.	Ferguson, Col.
Balfour, J, M.	Dundas, hn. J, C,

Feilden, W. J.	Gordon, Lord F.
Charteris, hon. F.	Duff, J.
Manners, Lord C.	Byng, G.
Egerton, Sir P.	Townley, C.
Sturt, H. C.	Howard, Sir R.

Bill read a second time.