STAMPS AND ASSESSED TAXES. (Hansard, 14 July 1842)

§ Mr. John O'Connell

rose to move the amendment of which he had given notice, namely a resolution to the effect, that, considering the heavy existing taxation of Ireland, it was not expedient to increase the stamp duties in Ireland. He felt the full disadvantages and difficulties before him—first, from the lateness not only of the period of the Session, but also from the lateness of the hour (twelve o'clock). He was not, however, to blame for this, as he had been patiently waiting during the Session for an opportunity, which the 154 Government had not given till then, although to convenience the Government he had given way last March on the resolution respecting Irish stamp duties; having done soon the understanding, as he conceived, that Government would have given a speedy opportunity of discussing the principle of that resolution. As to the lateness of the hour, he was only complying with the wish expressed to him by several Members, to have his amendment disposed of as soon as possible, and also with an intimation he considered he had received of the convenience it would be to the Government. He had to deal with a most intricate subject, and therefore should claim the indulgence of the House. Another formidable disadvantage under which he laboured was his want of experience in dealing with financial matters, especially when contrasted with the long experience and financial skill with which he was provoking a contest. It might be asked why he had not made a motion against adding to the taxation of Ireland on the bringing in of the Spirit Duties Bill. But he had refrained, as he heard that a large number of that most respectable body, the Irish Distillers, were in London then, endeavouring by private remonstrance to obtain some alleviation of the grievances under which they laboured; and any public opposition might indispose the Minister to attend to them. He regretted to say that he believed that, notwithstanding this forbearance, the distillers did not obtain the redress they sought. He came now to his subject. His simple statement was, that Ireland had been taxed too much, and ought not to be more taxed. To make his case it was necessary to go into some details. The existing financial arrangements between Great Britain and Ireland were founded upon an act passed in 1816, for consolidating the two Exchequers, and rendering them liable to indiscriminate contribution, by equal taxes, to the united expenditure. Before that act their contributions were in the proportion of two parts for Ireland to fifteen parts for Great Britain. These proportions were fixed by Lord Castlereagh at the Union, although much protested against at the time by the Irish lords and others, as imposing too high a rate of contribution upon Ireland. Lord Castlereagh himself allowed at the time that he was not satisfied as to its justice but it was not necessary to dwell on this point, as presently; he (Mr, J. O'Connell) would be able to 155 bring forward the opinions of Members of the Government in 1816, condemning the 2–17ths for Ireland as unjust and oppressive. The arrangement of the debts at the Union, and up to 1817, was, that each country should separately provide for its debt previously contracted. Lord Castlereagh said, in 1800, that a perfect consolidation and union in financial matters was then impossible, consistent with common justice to Ireland, as her debt was so much smaller than that of Great Britain, the Irish debt on the 5th of January, 1801, as represented by the annual charge upon it, requiring annually only 1,194,000l., while the annual charge on the British debt was then 16,600,000l. This was the case, notwithstanding that the Irish debt had been most grievously and unjustly swelled, especially during the three preceding years, by her being called on to pay the expenses, first of the fostering by the Government of the rebellion, and afterwards of the putting it down. But he would not go into matters that occurred before the Union, as his present motion had nothing to do with the discussions on that measure. The question of the repeal of the Union was too grave and important to be based upon a question of pounds shillings and pence; and his present motion was to redress financial grievances, which should be redressed whether the Union were repealed or not. Lord Castlereagh further said that at the' Scotch Union a consolidation was effected by giving Scotland a money-compensation for taking on her the English liabilities, but that this was impossible in the case of Ireland, as the debt of the latter country was so much inferior to the British. He said, however, that as England might be able to reduce her debt—that, if she did so, in the course of some years, so far down, at least, as to bring it to bear no higher a proportion to the Irish than that of their rates of contribution, it would be well in such case to leave the Imperial Parliament the power of effecting the consolidation. Accordingly the act of Union provided, that whenever the two debts should come to bear that proportion to each other, the consolidation might take place; provided however, also, that a second condition should occur at the same time. This second condition was, that the respective circumstances of the two countries should appear at that time to justify their being called upon henceforth to contribute, indiscriminately, by equal taxes 156 in each. Thus, Ireland seemed to have two safeguards against being made at any time liable for the excessive debt of Great Britain; first, in Lord Castlereagh's ex planation that the manner in which the required proportion between the two debts was to be attained, should be by the reduction of the British debt, not by the increase of the Irish; and secondly, that no step could be taken in the contemplated consolidation unless the respective circumstance of each country should appear to justify equal taxation—in other words, until the ability of Ireland to bear taxation should have much increased. But the House would scarcely believe that the first of these conditions was attained by the wanton and flagitious increase of Irish debt, and not by any decrease of the British; and, as to the second condition, it was not taken into consideration at all. Thus he Contended, that the act of consolidation was totally illegal and void, as it violated the expressed intentions and views of its author, Lord Castlereagh, with regard to one condition, and as it was carried without reference to the second condition. The latter did not exist, and could not have been said so to do, as the very increase of the debt of Ireland, under a limited system of taxation, was in itself a proof of her inability to bear the same taxes as Great Britain; and even that limited system of taxation was too high for her. The present Lord Fitzgerald and Vesci, President of the Board of Trade, was, when Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer in 1816, the mouthpiece of Lord Castlereagh's Government, in proposing the consolidation of the exchequers, and in doing so he thus denounced the injustice of the Union rate of contribution imposed upon Ireland, and its grievous effects upon her:— I hope it will not be said that Ireland throws a great burden on the empire to save herself. Oh, no ! The necessity of reviewing the act of Union has been caused by the sacrifices she has made, doing her best to keep pace with you. You contracted with her for an expenditure she could not meet. She had been led to hope that her expenditure would be less when united to you than before. She has absolutely paid more in taxes since the Union than seventy-eight millions, being forty-seven more than her revenue in the fifteen years on which her contribution was calculated. Thus the Government itself, in 1816, confessed that the rate of contribution was too high. But the present Chancellor of the Exchequer bore witness himself to the 157 same fact. In 1822, when speaking to a motion of Sir J. Newport's, the right hon. Gentleman himself said—" The Union contribution of 2–l7 ths for Ireland is now allowed on all hands to have been more than she was able to bear." He should content himself, and he thought the House should be content with these admissions, coming as they did from two Gentlemen high in office at present, and one of them in that House. Thus the Union rate was established to have been unjust, and being so, the consequence necessarily follows, that the increase of Irish debt between 1800 and 1837 was unjust, it having been caused by the inability of Ireland to meet the unjustly grievous rate in question. What ought to have been done instead of consolidation of the Exchequers was, to have lowered the rate of contribution for Ireland, and to have made some arrangement by which the burden of the unjust increase of her debt since 1801 should be taken off her shoulders, at least for the greater part. But, instead of this measure of justice, the consolidation was forced on, although, as he had before shown, one condition of that consolidation was wrongfully and iniquitously attained, and the second condition was shamefully and totally disregarded. The consequence of that consolidation of the Exchequers have been to Ireland the increase of her taxes—the liability to further increase at the will and pleasure of England—the being compelled at present to a large portion of the payments on account of the British debt contracted before the Union—a debt with which she was promised by Lord Castlereagh in 1800 that she never should have anything to do. Finally, the consequence has been, and is, to Ireland, that from that hour she became, and is now, mortgaged in every acre and every one of her resources for the whole amount of the enormous debt of Great Britain, and no matter what may at any time be her surplus of revenue it must go away from her and into the coffers of Great Britain. But the consolidation had been a great gain to Great Britain. In the first place, she obtained what was in itself a most important benefit — namely, the security to her national creditor of the present and future resources of Ireland. And then she has been able to relieve herself of much of the separate taxation which she was previously compelled to endure. This would be seen by examining into what was the utmost that could be set down for the 158 separate taxation that is so much talked of at present. In excise she pays on hops, bricks, soap, post-horse duty, and licensee, &c, about 1,700,000l There is then the product of her duties on home spirits, which are much higher than the Irish, and may be about 2,200,000l. In stamps she pays on newspaper supplements, medicines, cards, dice, stage and hackney coach licenses, &c, 560,000l., and by higher rates than the Irish on other items of stamps she pays a further sum of nearly the same amount. Land and assessed taxes gave last year 4,700,000l. The total of all these was 9,600,000l., which he took to be even an exaggerated statement of the British separate taxation, but his endeavour was to take the case as strongly against himself as possible, as he thought the case of Ireland so strong that it could afford to be under stated. But although he would not disturb the exaggerations in the statement he had just read, he should say there were deductions to be made from the total of 9,600,000l., on account of what are called in the finance accounts "drawbacks, re payments, allowances," upon the duties mentioned in the statement. Thus, for instance, hops, on exportation to Ireland, have the duty remitted upon them, or in other words, the duty is paid back by the Government to the exporter. Again, a portion of the amounts he had read were really paid by Ireland, as money went from Ireland to effect insurances in England, and as stamped medicines, cards, and some minor articles of stamp duties were imported from England paying the duty there. There was also what was in fact an unrcedited contribution from Ireland in the benefit the British Exchequer receives from the expenditure in Great Britain of millions of Irish absentee rents. He thought he was not saying too much when, taking all these deductions into account, he considered they amounted to at least 600,000l; and that, therefore, the separate taxation of Great Britain did not, at the very outside, exceed a net amount of 9,000,000l., and he believed they were really less. But, taking them at that sum, see how the case stands:—

Annual charge of the British debt contracted before the Union (see Par. Paper 256, of 1824)	£16,600,000
Separate taxation of Great Britain	9,000,000
Excess of annual charge	7,600,000

This amount of British debt, over and 159 above her separate payments, she, by the powers given her by the Consolidation Act, compels Ireland to assist her in paying although at the Union Ireland was strongly and repeatedly assured she should never have anything to do with the British debt contracted previous to the Union. Such being the benefit to Great Britain, what did the consolidation do for Ireland? It is pretended that she got great benefits, as it abolished the unjust and universally-condemned rate of contribution the Union had put upon her; and further, that Great Britain took on herself the burden of the increase of the Irish debt between the Union and 1817. But as to that increase, it having been declared and admitted to have been unjust, no argument can be fairly founded upon the burden of it having been taken off; and especially when its amount, viz., an annual charge of 2,700,000Z., was such moderate purchase money for getting the security of the resources of Ireland for the whole enormous amount of the British debt. He trusted now to show, that notwithstanding that the Union rate of contribution had been condemned, and that at the consolidation it was declared that Ireland should be released from that unjust and condemned rate, yet she has since been forced to pay, at the very least, as much as that rate. To show this he had taken the average of the revenues of the two countries during the twenty-five years, since 1817, with, also, the average of their united expenditure, and of the charge of their united debts; and, deducting the latter from their united expenditure, had got the amount of expenditure common to both, on which he had calculated the average of their respective contributions, taking the Union rates in each. It was necessary to premise that the respective amounts of income in the calculation should be altered by taking into account the uncredited payments by Ireland on articles chiefly of customs' revenue, which she imported from England, paying the duty there. These latter payments were different from the uncredited payments he had before spoken of, which were under heads under which Ireland was supposed to pay nothing at all. But those he now would speak of were upon items on which the rates of duty are the same as in England. The late Lord Congleton, in his ' Financial reform," estimated these at 300,000l. annually, and did not include in 160 his estimate any portion of the customs' receipts on tea for consumption in Ireland. Those receipts were, at the time he wrote, and for some time after, credited to the British revenue, and amounted then to nearly 500,000l. Neither did he include the Irish quit and Crown rents, which, by a paper of the present Session, No. 222, continuing a former return, have averaged about 65,000l., annually, since the Union. As to the present uncredited payments by Ireland on foreign articles imported through England, it was only necessary to compare the details of foreign imports into either country, in this year's finance accounts. On some articles of common consumption, there appeared no receipt whatever in the Irish list; on others a receipt of 1l., of 5l., of 16l. or 20l., while the English receipts on them amounted to many thousands—in some to hundreds of thousands. Thus there must be an uncredited payment by Ireland upon such articles; or, if that were contested, and that the amount in the Irish list was held accurately to represent Irish consumption, then a most convincing argument was furnished of the utter inability of Ireland to bear further taxation, when she was so poor, as only to consume those articles to the amount stated in her lists. Under all these circumstances, he did not think he was overstating his case, in taking the aggregate of the Irish payments uncredited to have amounted to an annual average during the twenty-five years of 400,000l. Subtracting this from the average of British income, and, of course, adding it to the Irish, the twenty-five years' averages will stand thus. British income, 49,671,330l.; Irish ditto, 4,930,473l.; united expenditure, 53,198,413l.; charge of united debts, 29,363,422l. Subtracting the charge of debts from the expenditure, we have 23,834,991l. as the amount of common expenditure—viz., that on which, according to the terms of the Act of Union, the amounts of contribution were to be calculated in the ratio of two to fifteen, or two-seventeenths for Ireland. Now, first take the case, that England took off the burden of the Irish unjust increase of debt between the Union and 1817, there will remain 1,194,000/., being the charge of the Irish debt at the Union. Subtract this from the amount of Irish income, and there will remain 3,736,473l., which has gone to England, and which will be found to amount, not to the condemned propor- 161 tion of two-seventeenths, but to the far higher and more grievous proportion of two-twelfths of the common expenditure. But, if we take it on the ground that Ireland should not be totally absolved from the whole amount of her increase of debt from 1801 to 1817, but that that amount should have been shared between the two countries, the following would be the re-suit—taking, as before, the annual charge to represent the debt, for the sake of the convenience of the calculation. Charge of the Irish debt on 5th of January, 1801, 1,194,000l.; charge of the Irish "debt on 5th of January, 1817,3,927,000l.; being an increase of 2,733,000l., or 229 per cent.; whereas, the charge of the British debt in the same interval had only increased from 16,600,000l. to 27,750,000l., or 67 per cent. Now, he would show what would have occurred had the arrangement been that an increase equal in proportion to the British, should be paid for by Ireland, and that the excess of her increase above that, was to be put on the two countries in the proportion of their rates of contribution:—

Irish debt charged at the Union	£1, 194,000
67 per cent, increase, up to the year 1817, as in England	799,980
Add 2–17ths of the excess of increase (viz., 1,933,020l.)	227,414
Total average for 25 years debt liabilities of Ireland	2,221,394

A deduction, however, is to be made as follows:—The charge of the United debts in 1837 was 31,677,000l., and it is now no more than 29,450,110l., showing a decrease since 1817 of 2,226,890l. It would be only fair in the calculation to give Ireland at least two-seventeenths of this reduction, which would amount to 261,986l; and this sum subtracted from the debt liabilities of Ireland, would leave only 1,959,408l, after providing for which, the Irish income would give still 2,971,065l to meet her proportion of the common expenditure. Two-seventeenths of this common expenditure would be 2,804,116l, leaving a surplus of Irish income over expenditure of 166,949l, which surplus is the one-eighth of the surplus of the united income over the united expenditure on the average of the twenty-five years since 1816. Thus, he contended, that even under the harsh and stringent arrangement he had supposed, it. would be found that, in reality, the con- 162 solidation had not relieved Ireland from the condemned rate of contribution; while under any more favourable arrangement —such as that asserted by the defenders of the consolidation namely, that England kindly took the whole burden on herself of the unjust increase of the debt of Ireland—it would be found, that the latter had been forced to pay not two-seventeenths, but. two-twelfths of the common expenditure. Where, then, was the benefit, of the consolidation to Ireland, or rather, where was not the injury? If in consequence of it the British market was more freely opened to the Irish corn and cattle, that was a benefit to England herself, and besides, she took care, in return, to get the command of our market for her manufactures. But an argument might be raised, that as be had shown that Ireland since, 1817 had at least, paid the Union rate of contribution, which same rate she had been found unable to pay before 1817, therefore, that he had proved her to have increased in ability. But this was not the case; she had not paid that rate since because of greater ability than before, but because the expenditure of the empire had materially diminished. That expenditure diminished 26,000,000l. the year that the Consolidation Act came into force, and even the heavy expenditure of the year 1841 was 14,000,000l. less than that of 1817, making a total of reduction of expenditure since 1816 to the present time of 40,000,000l. It was this reduction which enabled England to drain from Ireland the full amount and more of her Union contributions to the common expenditure. But the expenses of Great Britain are on the increase, and the Consolidation Act gives her the power of un-limitedly drawing upon Ireland. The latter will be again rendered bankrupt as she was before, and therefore it was, that he thought it was time to protest, and that Ireland should demand at least some modification of the Act of Consolidation, if not its total repeal, on the grounds of its undeniable illegality and grievous oppression to Ireland. The hon. Member quoted the expressions of the late Lord Sydenham, in 1830, denouncing the financial injustice with which Ireland had been treated, and showing that an increase of taxation upon her had led to an alarming decrease of revenue, owing to the exhaustion of Ireland. He also quoted from the report of a finance committee in 1815, 163 to show, that while the taxation of Great Britain from the Union, including not only permanent taxes, but also the extraordinary and war taxes, had increased only as twenty-one to ten, the permanent taxation of Ireland had increased as twenty-three to ten. He also stated some figures from a parliamentary return of the year 1820, showing the number of notices in the two or three preceding years to the commissioners of assessed taxes in Ireland, of the intention of persons paying those taxes, to give Up the objects of them, such as carriages, horses, servants, ? in consequence of which notice the assessed taxes in Ireland became unproductive, and were consequently given up. He gave those quotations to show the efforts that had been made to tighten the screw of taxation in Ireland, and the result always was, to diminish the receipts of revenue, and to impoverish Ireland more than before, as would be found to be the case again if her taxes were now increased. If she ought to be made to contribute to the growing expenditure caused by the rather questionable wars into which Great Britain had plunged, she ought, at any rate, to be relieved from the necessity of contributing to the 7,000,000l. which went to pay the annual charge of the British debt, contracted previous to the Union, over and above the amount of separate taxation which Great Britain paid for that purpose. The making Ireland pay to that debt was utterly unjustifiable. Some persons had asserted that if Ireland had been treated with injustice, it had been compensated for by relief of taxation, and a greater proportion of public money, in loans and grants, than England had got. But by a return he had moved for this Session, which, amongst other things, continued a former return relative to taxes in the two countries, he found that of the relief of taxation, that is, the gross amount since the Union, Great Britain had got 42,000,000l.. while Ireland had got but 2,300,000l. On the other hand, while of taxes imposed, 6,900,000l. were put on Great Britain, Ireland had had the large proportion of 900,000l., that is to say, her relief of taxation was less than one-eighteenth part, her share of the imposition of taxation was nearly one-seventh. And as to the assessed taxes, which were made the occasion of taunting Irish Members with the indulgence they had received by. the remission of them, the total 164 amount of relief given by their remission in Ireland, including a partial relief some years previous to the total repeal, would be found by those papers to have been about 500,000l. or 600,000l., while, in the same papers, Great Britain would be found to have given herself relief under the same heads to the amount of upwards of 5,000,000l. Then, as the public money spent on the two countries, a return of the year 1839 gave 8,000,000l. odd, as the amount spent upon Ireland, and looking through the finance a sum should be added, which would give a total for Ireland of, in round numbers, 9,000,000l. One of the returns he had moved for this year was similarly worded by him as the return of 1839, and was for a parallel amount for Great Britain, and it gave an amount of 15,600,000l., notwithstanding some unexplained omissions that he would not now delay to discuss. Again, it had been said that Ireland never repaid a loan of public money; but the finance accounts of the present year would show that she has repaid more than 5,000,000l., whereas Great Britain has repaid only a little more than 3,000,000l. And money advanced to Ireland bore interest at 5 per cent., though obtained by the Government at 3 per cent., which was not the case in Great Britain, where the percentage was seldom above 4, and several advances bore no interest at all, such as, among others, the 250,000l. advanced to the projectors of the Thames Tunnel. In fact, Ireland had got nothing to compensate her for the drains, direct and indirect, that were made from her. The papers he had so often mentioned showed, upon an account of the remittances of moneys from the Irish Exchequer to the British, and vice versa, there had, on the whole amount since the Union, been an excess of Irish remittances of no less than 25,000,000l. Then there was the loss by diminished expenditure of public offices, owing to their being removed to England. Ireland lost the amount of their expenditure, which, in her anomalous and wretched condition, was of importance to her; and if any reduction of the imperial expenditure were effected in consequence, the benefit of the economy was spread over the three countries, while the loss was to Ireland alone. Then came the enormous absentee drain, nearly 4,000,000l. destroying much of what benefit Ireland could otherwise expect from her provision 165 and cattle exports, as the money the latter produced went away for the greater part into the pockets of landlords living abroad. It was ridiculous to institute a comparison between the contributions of Great Britain and Ireland. One was a rich, the other a poor country. Great Britain had various manufactures—Ireland but one, and that failing. There was a bitter complaint the other day that agricultural wages had fallen in some English counties to 7s. or 8s. a week. But the average of agricultural wages in Ireland was not 6s. Again, out of the 53,000,000l., making the amount of the united income of Great Britain and Ireland last year, Ireland paid equal rates on articles that produced 44,000,000l., and yet the produce credited and uncredited was but one-eleventh of that amount. Was not that a sign of poverty in a people who are one-third of the population of the empire? But the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) had himself admitted this poverty, when he confessed that an Income-tax in Ireland would not pay the expenses of collection. The hon. Member read an extract from the works of Mr. Ricardo, showing that the ability of England to bear taxation had increased faster even than her taxation, and he asked how could this be shown in Ireland. He read from the railway report a return of the decrease in the period from 1825 to 1835, in the Irish import of cotton manufactures and yarn, of sugar, and various other important articles, and also a decrease of Irish exports of value; and contended that, although in consequence of no returns being kept at the Custom-house since 1825 of the cross-channel trade, Mr. Drummond had been obliged to get his statements as to that trade from interested parties, and that, therefore, much reliance could not be placed upon their accounts of prosperity, yet their accounts of adversity and diminution were much less suspicious, as no trader would willingly undertake his dealings. He also read Mr. Willam's evidence as to the decline of the woollen trade, and various extracts from the hand-loom weavers' report showing the decline, or annihilation of nearly all manufactures in Ireland. The linen trade was nearly the only one left to Ireland, and even that was much declining. At a meeting in Belfast last autumn, it was declared that the linen manufacturers had lost 300,000l. by the 20 per rent increase 166 of duty on import into France, and the recent French ordinances would complete the ruin. But even if the linen trade flourished, one trade and the prosperity of one town would be bad proofs of the prosperity of a nation. The hon. Member concluded by urging the Government not to cripple Ireland against the day of any real emergency of the empire.