INCOME-TAX (IRELAND).

HC Deb 17 March 1848 vol 97 cc701-68

House in Committee of Ways and Means.

SIR BENJAMIN HALL

, in submitting to the consideration of the Committee the Motion of which he had given notice, and upon which, as he had already intimated, he intended to take the sense of the Committee, could not proceed in his observations without first expressing his regret at being the cause of hon. Members connected with Ireland, absenting themselves from that scene of conviviality and charity for which that anniversary was always so distinguished, and of which he was reminded by the emblems of nationality borne by the hon. Gentlemen who sat near him. He had no doubt, from the fact of his introducing the subject to the consideration of Parliament, he should be accused by some persons on the other side of the Channel, who dealt occasionally more in fiction than reality, of having selected that particular day for his purpose; but those Members who heard him, whether agreeing with him or differing from him in opinion, must be well aware, that according to the rules and regulations of the House, that was not only the first opportunity, but the only opportunity, he could by any possibility have taken for offering the Motion to their consideration. He feared, however, that he had really caused some hon. Gentlemen considerable inconvenience by the delay which had already taken place, because he observed some time since a paragraph in a Dublin paper, headed— Important Announcement.—Great departure of Irish Members.—The following Irish Members have left Kingstown since Friday last, in order to be present in the House of Commons to vote against Sir Benjamin Hall's Motion;"— and then followed the names of several Irish Members who seldom honoured them with their presence. He could, however, assure those hon. Gentlemen, that much as he desired to see the Union preserved in all its integrity, he could upon the present occasion have gladly dispensed with their attendance; but if their stay in London depended solely upon the length of the observations which he should feel it his duty to offer to the Committee, they would very soon find themselves back again in the harbour of Kingstown, which they had so recently and apparently so unwillingly quitted. He was anxious to avoid any unnecessary length of discussion, and to pre-vent, if possible, any pretext for touching upon those various ramifications of the subject, into which that discussion might possibly extend. It was, therefore, his intention to confine himself strictly within the limits of the point at issue. In suggesting such a proposition as the extension of the income-tax to Ireland, he might, in offering that suggestion, be expected by some persons to enter largely into the condition of that country, and into the state of the social relations which exist there; but he thought that the Bill introduced by his right hon. Friend the Secretary for Ireland, would afford ample opportunity on its second reading for entering into that vast field of discussion; and he would not give any cause for anticipating that debate. The Motion he was about to make, was a plain and simple proposition, perfectly intelligible to all parties, and thoroughly understood and appreciated by persons out of the House; for nearly all the petitions presented to the House in reference to the income-tax, since he had first announced his intention of extending that tax to Ireland, had contained a prayer, that if the income-tax was to be imposed upon Great Britain, it might also be extended over every portion of the united Kingdom. It was so plain a proposition, that it required but little preface, and as little argument to enforce it upon the favourable consideration of all unprejudiced minds. It was based upon justice, and founded essentially on strict principles of equity; and so it had been considered by nearly all the statesmen of the present day. In the year 1833, the right hon. Member for Tamworth stated distinctly, that if an income-tax was established in the country, it ought to be applied to Ireland; and this he said, knowing well the capability of that country to bear taxation. That right hen. Gentleman said— It would hardly be contended that if a property-tax were established, Ireland ought to be exempted from its operation. To impose a property-tax on England and Scotland would, in his opinion, be extremely unjust. Twelve years after, the right hon. Baronet so far from having changed the sentiments he had expressed in 1833, said— His objection to such extension rested in a great measure on the non-existence of proper machinery to work out the object. Extensive arrangements must be made, and officers must be appointed for the collection; and it would be unwise to make these arrangements, and to appoint such officers, unless the tax was likely to endure. And he added— If the income-tax was made a permanent source of revenue to the empire, then its extension to Ireland might be advisable. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to have anticipated that the income-tax might be a permanent source of revenue, and his anticipations seemed likely to be realised, for the present Chancellor of the Exchequer stated the other night most distinctly, that there was no hope of repealing the income-tax—that it was absurd to suppose such a possibility—that there it was, proposed by the former Government, opposed by the present Government, but now by them supported as a Government; and he considered his right hon. Friend was quite right in saying, it would never be repealed; because it was much too convenient an impost for any Chancellor of the Exchequer to abandon. They were to have it at 5 per cent during peace. Future Chancellors of the Exchequer would tell them what it was to be when war was proclaimed; but now that they had it from high authority that the tax was to be continued, and as the right hon. Gentleman opposite the last time he spoke upon the subject, said, if the income-tax was to be a permanent tax, it would be advisable to extend it to Ireland, he hoped now for the honour of the support of the right hon. Baronet, in attempting that which he himself had described as "advisable." He had a right, therefore, to expect the support of the head of one party in the House. He would turn to another section of the House, very different from the party he had already alluded to, having scarcely one political feeling in common with the right hon. Gentleman, but, strange to say, agreeing in this one point—that the income-tax should be extended to Ireland. Hon. Gentlemen would perhaps do him the honour to recollect, that he alluded to this subject in November last, just to remind the hon. Member for Limerick that he had taken a note of his expressions upon the subject; and he gave the hon. Gentleman to understand, that he might possibly call upon him to fulfil the intentions which he had expressed. That hon. Gentleman seconded a resolution for the extension of the income-tax to his own country. It is true that some days afterwards he said he did so, merely to create a diversity of opinion He therefore asked him to be consistent, and, if diversity of opinion was his object, to vote with him, as the hon. Member's vote would then be at variance with the last opinion he gave upon the subject; so that by two opposite conclusions he hoped to obtain the votes of two leaders of sections in this House—that of the right hon. Baronet, because he said, if the income-tax was to be a perpetual source of revenue, it ought to be extended to Ireland; and that of the hon. Gentleman, because he loved diversity of opinion; and it so happened that his (Sir B. Hall's) proposition was exactly timed for him to give expression to his feelings. It was often said, that we may arrive at the same goal by different routes, and come to the same conclusion by different lines of argument: he trusted, therefore, that the right hon. Baronet and the hon. Member might meet in the same lobby on the present occasion for the purpose of supporting the Motion. So much for two of the parties to whom he might, perhaps, look for support: there were two others—the one opposite, and the other which was led by his noble Friend, who occasionally had some unruly disciples. With regard to the first of these parties, he was sure he should receive some support from them, because the proposition was viewed favourably by that side of the House when it was first announced; and now he came to the noble Lord at the head of the Government, and although he could not expect his support, he was sure he would consider that he was only attempting to enforce that which was an act of fair and equal justice, and which he had thus described in this assembly only a few days ago. The noble Lord, in introducing to the consideration of the House the budget for the ensuing year, after having announced the most disagreeable intelligence that there was not to be any remission of taxation, but that the income-tax was to be continued for an almost indefinite time, or at all events for a longer period than had lately been assigned for its duration; the noble Lord then let in one ray of hope that he intended to extend equal laws and equal justice to Ireland. The noble Lord said— Considering that you did not originally, in 1842, impose the income-tax on Ireland, and that a very great struggle is now making in order to adapt the social condition of Ireland to the great change that is now taking place in that country, as regards the working classes and the relations between landlords and tenants—in regard to the landlords, inducing them to improve their lands, and in regard to the farmers, inducing them to pay wages for labour—considering that all classes, both in Ireland and in England, are called upon to take part in this great change, we think that in justice we have a right to impose this tax upon Ireland as well as upon England. Every person hearing that statement had a right to assume that the noble Lord was about to do justice to all parties, and the statement was received with "loud cheers" from all parts of the House; but the hopes entertained were of a very fleeting nature, for the noble Lord added— Admitting fully the justice of that course, we consider that this is not the moment; —an announcement which was received with bursts of laughter, and cries of "Oh, oh!" from different parts of the House. The noble Lord did not then state his reasons for coming to that decision. But a few days after he said— We have shown, I think, our readiness to incur some obloquy by not proposing to extend the income-tax to Ireland, from an opinion that she is unable to bear it at a time when she is called upon to pay what I must call a very large tax of 2,000,000l. for the relief of the poor. He feared, however, that he could not give the noble Lord credit for boldness in incurring any "obloquy." The exemption of Ireland from the tax was proposed at a time when the noble Lord intended to impose upon Great Britain an income-tax of 5 per cent for two years, and to continue at 3 per cent for five years; and the noble Lord must have been well aware that he had no chance of carrying such an extravagant proposition through the House of Commons, unless he was supported unanimously by the Irish Members; and he could only calculate on this support by ex-eluding Ireland from the operation of the tax. So far from incurring any "obloquy," he had only shown to the country that he could reckon upon the support of Irish Members in imposing any amount of taxation upon Great Britain. The people of Great Britain had prevented this increase of the tax; and the proposition had met with such a reception that the noble Lord was obliged to abandon it. The only other reason which the noble Lord had adduced for not extending the tax to Ireland was, that Ireland had now to maintain her own poor, and consequently that it would be unfair to impose it upon that country; but he (Sir B. Hall) contended that this was not a good reason. He asserted that it was full time that Ireland should be made to bear her proper share of the burdens of the State, and that the landowners, and those who derived a beneficial interest from the soil in Ireland, held their property subject to a first charge, and that charge was the maintenance of their own poor, which class of the community they had hitherto made Great Britain support. The principle of a poor-law, as described by Mr. Trevelyan in the "Irish Crisis," was simply this— That rate after rate should be collected for the preservation of life, until the landholders and farmers either enable the people to support themselves by honest industry, or dispose of their property to those who can and will perform this indispensable duty. In the opinion so laid down, be must entirely agree; and it was no reason because the landholders in Ireland had now to maintain their own poor, that they should plead that as an exemption from taxation. But when the noble Lord spoke of two millions a year as the amount levied under the poor-law, he (Sir B. Hall) begged the House not to be led away by such a statement. He would prove to the House that it was wholly erroneous, and that the whole amount was not above half that sum during the past year. [Mr. ROCHE: What is the amount levied?] That had nothing to do with the question: the amount collected, and not the amount levied, was the sum to be arrived at. He had no doubt that Irish landlords would levy a rate for any amount; but they had only to deal with the sum actually paid and collected for the relief and maintenance of the poor, and he found, by a return made to the House, that the whole amount collected in Ireland for the year ending December 31, 1847 (and be it recollected that it was the year of famine), averaged only 1s. 5½d. in the pound. We paid more than that in this country when there was no famine. But it would be said that it was unfair to take the average of the whole of Ireland; for though the general average might be as low as he had stated, yet in some of the unions the rate had been so high as to be ruinous. In order to meet an allegation of this description, he had extracted from an official return a list of the twelve Irish unions which paid the largest poundage in the ten months ending 31st December, 1847, being the latest he could get. In Clonmel the rate was 3s. 4¾d.; Tralee, 2s. 9¼d.; Kanturk, 2s. 6¾d.; Limerick, 2s. 5¼d.; Oldcastle, 2s. 5d.; Carrickmacross, 2s. 4¾d. Killarney, 2s. 4d.; Fermoy, 2s. 3½d.; Nenagh, 2s. 3d.; Dungarvon, 2s. 3d.; Mallow, 2s. 2d.; and Lurgan, 2s. 1½d.; being an average of 2s. 5½d. in the pound. He had next to request the attention of the House to the fact that there was hardly a parish in the United Kingdom that did not complain of an influx of Irish paupers. If he were to cite the case of the parish with which he was best acquainted (Mary- lebone), it would be said that he was taking an extreme case. He would content himself, therefore, with the general assertion that he believed that one-tenth of the whole poor-rate of the country was expended in the support of Irish paupers. He found, from a report of the proceedings of the Glasgow Parochial Board in September last, that the number of Irish paupers landed in Glasgow during the week ending Aug. 3, 1847, was 2,366; in the week ending the 10th of August, 5,875; in the week ending the 17th, 7,495; and the total number from June 15th to Aug. 17th, was 26,335, a great proportion of whom were wholly unable to work. In the new Fever Hospital there were 1,150 patients, 750 of whom were Irish, 15 English, and the rest were Scotch. It might be said—and no doubt it would be said—that this was not exactly the time to bring forward this Motion; he had no doubt that a great many Gentlemen who would follow him in this discussion would say that they approved of the principle he had laid down—that they thought it perfectly just and fair that there should be an equalisation of taxation over the United Kingdom—but that this was not the time to carry that principle into effect. Now, he thought that before this argument was urged, they ought to look at what had taken place in this country last year. We had hoped at that period there would have been an alleviation of the burden of taxation; and yet, in consequence of the distress prevailing in Ireland, there had not been a single petition presented last year, nor a single speech made in that House, urging upon the Government a remission of taxation, because all were desirous of assisting Ireland—the whole mind of the country seemed to be given up to the consideration of the best mode of helping and relieving the suffering people of that country. He therefore contended that this was the time when Great Britain might expect some return for what she had done; but how stood the case? It was impossible for him to avoid noticing the manner in which the conduct of the people of England had been met by some of the representatives of the sister, kingdom. He found, for instance, that Mr. O'Connell received an address from the Roman Catholic youth of Paris, after the ceremonies of Notre Dame. To this address he delivered a reply from which the following is an extract:— I have come from a country which has been, by causes I cannot hero dilate upon, deprived of all means of relieving the miseries of its people; and now is supplicating aid, utterly in vain, from the country to which those miseries are owing I make appeal to you. I make appeal to the world. I appeal to all the nations of the earth; and call on them to cry shame upon the tyrannous avarice of England, which, first plundering us of all means of ourselves ameliorating our condition, and relieving our ever-growing miseries, now answers all our supplications for assistance by atrocious calumnies against our bishops and our clergy, insults to the middle classes, and heartless mockeries of the agonies of our perishing people. And on the 11th of February he wrote to Mr. Ray his hebdomadal abuse of the English, as a people and a nation, to this effect:— Oh, how the contrast struck me when I saw the artisan, the humble mechanic, the poor stall-keeper, thus cheerfully and generously giving to the relief of the Irish (with whom Ma country is bound in no bonds of State connexion)—between the noble conduct of these poor men and the heartlessness of the statesmen and legislators and press writers of wealthy England, who, after plundering us for centuries, refuse us the smallest assistance in the extremity of that misery which has been brought upon us by English misrule. This was the way in which the conduct of the people of England was appreciated by one of the leaders of the Irish people And when did this take place? It took place before twelve months had elapsed since a collection had been made in every parish of England for the relief of the Irish! The hon. Gentleman (Mr. O'Connell) had stated that assistance had been "cheerfully and generously given" by the people of Paris to the relief of the Irish; but he had omitted to state how much he had got, and what he had done with it. How stood the fact with reference to the relief afforded by this country? In July last above 3,000,000 received separate rations. Early in the year the British Association was appointed under the superintendence of Mr. Jones Loyd, Mr. Baring, Baron Rothschild, and others. On the 13th of January a "Queen's Letter" was issued, and contributions were invited for the relief of Irish distress; and Mr. Trevelyan in his account of the Irish crisis says:— A painful and tender sympathy pervaded every class of society—from the Queen on her throne to the convict in the hulks; expenses were curtailed, and privations were endured, in order to swell the Irish subscription. The vibration was felt throughout every nerve of the British empire. Besides the great stream of charity there were a thousand other channels which it is impossible to trace, and of the aggregate result of which no estimate can be formed, and of which no record exists, except on high. Now, he did not mean to say that the people of England had done more than their duty; he did not require thanks nor ask any expressions of gratitude for what they had done; but he did ask, if they were to he censured—if they were to be abused—that that censure should be uttered there (in the House of Commons)—that that abuse should be lavished upon them in that place, in order that they might have an opportunity of replying to it; that, on behalf of the people of England, they might stand up and repel the extraordinary imputations that had been cast upon them, instead of being attacked and abused as they and the people were in places whore they would not enter, and where consequently they could have no opportunity of meeting the authors of such calumnies. He found by a reference to four items of taxation in which the tax was levied in England, but not in Ireland, that for the year ending the 5th of January last, this country paid a sum of 11,577,334l. in taxation of which Ireland was altogether free. It was said that profits were small in Ireland, and could not afford to pay a tax. When an English Member got up to speak on this subject, he was met by the assertion that nothing but a repeal of the Union would do—that he was an Englishman, and knew nothing whatever about Ireland, and that otherwise he must know that there were no incomes in Ireland to be taxed. Now, if that were so, the extension of the income-tax to Ireland could do no harm, because there was nothing to be taxed under it. It would not injure Ireland, and would simply be an act of justice to the oppressed taxpayers of this country. He thought that he could show, however, to the satisfaction of the Committee, that the fact was not so, and that a very large number of the Irish Members had determined that an income-tax could be imposed and collected in Ireland. He found that in the month of November last a great meeting was held at Dublin, at which, among other resolutions, one was agreed to by which it was decided that an income-tax ought to be imposed upon Ireland. That resolution was proposed by Mr. Smith O'Brien, Member for the county of Limerick, and seconded by Mr. John O'Connell, the representative of the city of Limerick; and among those by whom it was approved of he found the names of Mr. Fitzstephen French, who was now in his place; of Major Blackall, who was now sitting opposite; of Mr. Monsell, who sat opposite; of Mr. Moore, who was sitting next to him; of Mr. Scully, of Sir Lucius O'Brien, of Mr. John O'Brien, of Mr. Power, of Mr. Daniel Callaghan, of Mr. Fox, and of the O'Gorman Mahon. The latter hon. Gentleman denied being there, but he found his name included with the others in the newspapers. Now, the question left for the consideration of the House was, that an income-tax should be imposed upon Ireland. He granted that the income-tax recommended by the hon. Gentlemen whose names he had read was to be expended in aid of Irish distress; but his argument was, that after recommending an income-tax for such a purpose, they could not well stand up now in the House and deny that it was possible, under any terms, to collect an income-tax in Ireland. He thought that the fact of the Irish representatives coming forward in such numbers, and almost unanimously agreeing to a resolution in favour of an income-tax for Ireland—for there was but one dissentient, whom he would notice presently—should be taken as a proof that there was property in Ireland that could be taxed. The hon. Member for Cork, who sat near him (Mr. Roche), appeared to have objected strenuously to the resolution. The hon. Gentleman said that he would have nothing whatever to do with an income-tax in Ireland; that it was bad enough in England; and that they might depend upon it if they adopted such means in Ireland for the maintenance of the poor, some Gentleman would be found to get up in the House of Commons, saying that the landlords ought to pay for the poor, and that the Irish income-tax ought to go into the general exchequer. He thought that argument a very fair one, and the hon. Gentleman was certainly quite consistent to have resisted an income-tax for his own country, and to have voted against the Government the other night for imposing that tax on the people of England. He assumed, therefore, on the faith of these hon. Gentlemen, that there was property to be taxed in Ireland. There were two modes of getting money in the shape of an income-tax, either in this country or in Ireland, namely, from the incomes from real property, or from the profits of trades and professions. He wished to put it in plain language, whether these two modes were not as applicable to Ireland as to England. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, why the medical gentleman living in England was to be taxed upon his profits, and why the medical gentleman living in Dublin was not to be taxed on his profits? He wished to ask him why the merchant in Belfast should go free, and the merchant in Bristol have to pay a tax upon his profits? more especially seeing that Belfast was a thriving town, whereas Bristol was, on the contrary, he was sorry to say, in a far different state. The profits of the Belfast merchant were accumulating, while those of the Bristol merchant were falling off here was a description of persons connected with the legal profession in Ireland who did the dirty work of the attorneys, and who were called process servers; and, he asked, ought they to escape being taxed? Ought the fund-holder in Ireland to escape payment of the tax, while the English fund-holder had to pay? The amount of funded property on which the interest was paid in Ireland was 40,187,000l. The interest on this sum was l,182,000l. a year, on which an income-tax of 3 per cent would amount to 35,000l. He found, however, that from 1842 to the 5th of April, 1847, only 13,900l. had been paid in the whole by holders of these funds, which would leave only an average of 2,796l. a year. Now, if land was not able to bear taxation, surely the fundholder was able to bear it; and if the fundholder living in London was to be taxed, he could see no reason why the Irish fundholder should not be taxed also. It was said that many Irish landowners, who lived in this country, paid an income-tax on account of their Irish estates; but then it was a mere optional tax with them, which they could avoid paying by living in Ireland. If an Irish proprietor liked to live in Ireland, he paid no tax; if he liked to spend his money in London, he paid a tax of 3 per cent for doing so. All he asked was, that Irishmen should pay a tax out of their receipts—that if a man received l,000l. or 10,000l. a year in Ireland, he should pay an income-tax on that amount. But there was proof that the payment of rent in Ireland was not as bad as some Irish Members would represent. They had it stated recently by Mr. Guinness, the late Member for Kinsale, that he was a receiver over several estates in Ireland. He instanced three estates, and on one of them, the rental of which was 10,600l. a year, he had in the last ten years received above 100,000l.; that in 1845 he received 1,000l. over and above the rent, on account of arrears; in 1846, a similar sum, and, in 1847—the year of famine and distress—he had received, not only the whole rent, but 600l. on account of former arrears. He would say one word on the question of collection. He begged hon. Members would not be led away by any statement they might hear from Irish representatives that an income-tax could not be collected in Ireland. He had heard that assertion made before, over and over again, whenever any tax was to be collected in Ireland; and he remembered that only last year he was told it would be in vain to impose such a poor-law on Ireland as was then contemplated, because they thought it might lead to a confiscation of property, and it would be impossible in most parts of Ireland to collect any rate whatever. These predictions had not been fulfilled. The property had not been confiscated; and the rate had been very generally collected, notwithstanding all the obstacles put in the way of collection by some of the poor-law guardians themselves and by others, who ought to be ashamed of the conduct they had pursued in opposition to a measure calculated to benefit the poor of their country; but he found, by returns made to the House, the financial account showed that under the head of Customs 2,497,512l. had been collected, and under the head of Excise 1,651,968l., in the last year, and the expense of collection had not been more than 8½ and 9¾ per cent respectively; and he believed the expense of collecting the poor-rate was about the same. He had shown that the Irish Members who met in Dublin, and who, with the exception of the Member for the county of Cork (Mr. Roche), were unanimous in the resolution that an income-tax should be assessed upon Ireland, must have felt convinced that Ireland could not only bear the tax, but that it could be collected, or they would not have agreed to such a resolution. It had been clearly demonstrated by the late divisions that the Irish Members cared not how much Great Britain was taxed, provided their country was allowed to go free. There had been two divisions on the income-tax within the last few nights, and he found on a careful analysis that in the first division sixty-two Irish Members voted that the tax should be imposed upon Great Britain, and eight against it. On the last occasion, when the question was simply whether that tax should endure for three years or for one year, sixty-seven Irish Members voted for the three years, and only nine for one year. If, therefore, they displayed so general a desire for saddling the people of this country with the impost for an extended period, they ought not to be surprised that the English Members should have their constituents demanding of them to extend the same justice to Ireland. He was not one of those who advocated a separate nationality; but he would say that as long as a vast burden of taxation was imposed on England, from which Ireland was altogether free, Irishmen could have no claim to call on the Imperial Treasury for assistance as a right. If the taxation of both countries were put upon an equal footing, then he would admit that the representatives of Mayo, or other distressed districts, would have a right to come to the House and say—"We pay equal taxation with yourselves, but a great affliction has fallen on our country; we are suffering greatly on account of famine; and we claim aid from the Imperial Treasury." Such an appeal could not, he thought, be resisted; but as long as the Irish Members claimed an exemption for themselves, and denied their liability to be put on an equal footing in regard to taxation with England, so long would he, while he had the honour of a seat in that House, raise his voice against the justice of their claim. He thought that a great evil, arising from this inequality of taxation, was, that they had one portion of the United Empire opposed to another. He was satisfied that if Irish Members had to pay the income-tax themselves, they would be more cautious in their advocacy of it for this country. The hon. Member concluded by moving— That towards raising the supply granted to Her Majesty, the respective duties levied on property, profits, professions, trades, and offices, in Great Britain, by Acts passed in the sixth year of the reign of Her present Majesty, and further continued by Acts passed in the eighth year of the reign of Her present Majesty, be levied on property, profits, professions, trades, and offices in Ireland, for a time to be limited.

SIR H. W. BARRON

said, that the people of Ireland had a right to be thankful to the hon. Baronet for the constant interest he had manifested in their concerns. The conciliatory style of his philanthropy had so often been brought before the House, that it needed no remark on the present occasion. The hon. Baronet had earned, by his conciliatory treatment of the Irish, the distinction of having his name handed down to the latest posterity. The founder of the illustrious house of the Medici had been honoured by having inscribed upon his tomb the words, Pater patriœ. His illustrious countryman, Burke, had also been honoured by the title of "The Epitome of the Sublime and Beautiful." But the hon. Member for Marylebone (Sir B. Hall) would, for his kind consideration for the Irish, be known to future generations by the more honourable title of "Conciliation" Hall. If any one deserved the title of Conciliator par excellence it was the hon. Baronet. He thought the hon. Baronet had chosen a most unfitting period for his Motion—a period when the people of Ireland were not only in great distress, but in a state of fearful excitement; and when the people of Europe and the whole civilised world were also in a similar uneasy and restless condition. His unfortunate countrymen were starving by thousands; and it was well known that, from the highest down to the humblest peasant, there was scarcely one man, woman, or child, who had not felt the infliction with which they had been visited by Providence. It was somewhat remarkable, too, that the hon. Baronet should have selected, of all days in the year, for his proposition the 17th of March (St. Patrick's day), and it was a still more remarkable fact that he had that morning received a French paper, which contained the following significant paragraph:— On Friday, the Irishmen resident in Paris, are to assemble in the Place de la Concorde—Conciliation-hall—to compliment the republic, and to join it." [Laughter.] The hon. Gentleman opposite might laugh, but a thoughtful man would not consider that the best time to irritate the Irish people. It was notorious that there was a most uneasy spirit in Ireland, not to use a stronger term; and that the Executive had accumulated a large military force in Dublin to keep the peace; and was it not also notorious that most seditious and dangerous writings were openly vended? Would not that discussion, in fact, enable the United Irishman to preach his doctrines with more effect to the Irish people, and excite their sympathies and anger against this country? The hon. Baronet's speech would do more mischief than any speech delivered by the wildest incendiary in Ireland. But what did it really mean? Nothing more than to relieve Marylebone, and take in Skibbereen and Mayo. He would not, however, stand upon time or place, for he had upon his side some of the highest authorities amongst the ablest-statesmen of the past and present generations. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth had said, when he first proposed the income-tax— It is a tax to which Ireland was not subjected during the war. It is a tax for the levying of which no machinery exists in Ireland. I consider it in the highest degree impolitic to lay the tax upon the country. Baron Foster, a high authority on Irish finances, when Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland, said, in the debate for consolidating the two Exchequers in 1816— The taxation in Ireland at the time of the Union amounted to 2,440,000l.; in 1810, it was 4,280,000l.; and in 1816, 5,760,000l.; and, in feet, at this moment, taxation is driven to its ne plus ultra. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goulburn) said— The Union contribution of 2–17ths, it is now allowed on all hands, was more than she was ever able to pay, and it would be monstrous to attempt to keep it up. He then came to an authority even higher than these, for it was that of a Committee of the House, which sat in 1815, 1816, and 1817. It was not an Irish Committee, only five out of twenty-one being from that country. Among the members of that Committee were the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, Mr. Peel, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Grant, Mr. Wilberforce, and Mr. Elliot. From the deliberate and well-considered report of that Committee he would but quote these lines:— But the Committee cannot but remark that for several years Ireland has advanced in permanent taxation more than Great Britain herself, notwithstanding the immense exertions of the latter, including the extraordinary war taxes. He contended that since that period no relaxation of taxation had taken place to alter the relative position of the two countries. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, then the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, remarked on the debate before alluded to:— I hope it will not be said that Ireland has thrown a great burden upon England, with a view of saving herself. We have contracted an expenditure for her which she cannot meet. She paid over 78,000,000l. of national taxes more than her share up to the end of the war. These were not his (Sir H. W. Barron's) words, but those of distinguished statesmen; and yet the hon. Member for Marylebone could put his opinion in the balance against all these Chancellors of the Exchequer, and able and experienced financiers, and a deliberate opinion of the House of Commons. It was monstrous presumption, and he hoped it would not impose on the good sense of the House. Besides all he had quoted, Lord Sydenham had said, in 1830— Taxation in Ireland has gone on to such a pitch that the more taxes we lay on the leas we shall receive. Let the hon. Member for Marylebone put that in his pocket-book. It will be useful for him to study before he again comes down to the House and makes a speech about the taxation of Ireland. England had been relieved, between 1815 and 1842, of 45,000,000l. of taxation, while Ireland had only got rid of 2,100,000l. He was thus amply borne out by the highest authority in his assertion that Ireland was already taxed much beyond her means of meeting it. He conjured the House to consider also the fearful burden cast on Ireland in the shape of the poor-law, which would amount to upwards of 2,000,000l. a year; and that that tax, right or wrong in principle, was a new tax to the people, and felt to be an enormous burden. The hon. Gentleman had said, that there was an income of 11,000,000l. on which the tax might be levied; but that was a gross exaggeration. First, landed property was estimated at 13,000,000l. per annum, and of that full 5,000,000l. must be deducted for Crown rents and quit-rents, all of which was spent in the city of London, and for incomes, which also being spent in this country, were already taxed. The hon. Baronet had not made these deductions, and his calculations were clearly one-sided. They were not the reasons of a statesman, but the assertions of an advocate. Was it fair or just to tell the people of this country that Ireland was paying a smaller portion of taxation, when, in reality, a considerable portion of taxation paid in England ought to be placed to the credit of Ireland? The hon. Gentleman the Member for Marylebone had quoted the article of soap; but was it not well known that a large quantity of English soap was imported into Ireland, and consumed there? [Sir B. HALL: Well, I hope so.] There was only one other point to which he would call attention. Was it not notorious that the Irish people were the best customers of the English market? Go to Leeds, Manchester, or Birmingham, and ask the large manufacturers there who were their best customers, and they would reply—"The people of Ireland." Why, the peasantry of Ireland, from their hats to their shoes, were clothed in the manufactures of Eng- land. He would beg the hon. Gentleman the Member for Marylebone to remember, that if the inhabitants of the large manufacturing towns in England contributed largely to the national Exchequer, that it was their Irish trade which enabled them to do so. Surely Ireland ought to get some credit for that. If the hon. Gentleman the Member for Marylebone would move for an inquiry into the justice and expediency of imposing an income-tax on Ireland, he would cheerfully second the Motion; but he should feel it his duty to oppose the proposition now before the House.

MR. MOORE

observed, that he would have been glad to believe that no other motive than one of justice and a keen regard for the interests of the realm, had induced the hon. Member for Marylebone to bring forward this Motion; for, though he could not have congratulated the hon. Member either upon his good sense, the kindness of his feelings, or the correctness of his information, still the hon. Member would have risen in his estimation if he could have believed that such feelings and motives had actuated the hon. Member in his consideration of Irish policy. But the manner in which he had given notice of his Motion, and the manner in which he had introduced it, rendered it impossible that any such charitable construction could be put upon his motive. Therefore, he could not but regard it except as another shot of that guerilla warfare which it was the hon. Gentleman's pleasure to maintain, and which appeared to have its origin in that peculiar idiosyncrasy of mind which he had ever manifested in his study of the Irish character. It was not to be wondered at that the hon. Gentleman should have devoted so large and so flattering a portion of his valuable attention to the affairs of Ireland, for Ireland had been to him a friend in need. To Ireland the hon. Member owed his seat in Parliament, and Ireland had furnished him with the one idea which alone had shed a flickering light upon the barren waste of his understanding. The Irish question had been the making of him. If not his first political love, it was at least his first successful one. It was the one bonne fortune of his political life, and he clung to it with natural though tiresome infatuation. But the hon. Gentleman's love for Ireland not only furnished him with material for ambition and senatorial distinction, but furnished him with a moral and an inspiration. Alas! however, it was to be regretted that the hon. Gentleman's solitary idea could not even lay claim to originality. The principles communicated by him had long been cultivated by the lowest and most prejudiced anti-Irish classes of society; and upon those feelings, with willing talent, the hon. Gentleman had profitably traded. If ever there was a question which ought to be judged exclusively upon its merits—if ever there was a question, the consideration of which ought to be divested of prejudice or passion—it was the question which involved the imposition of heavy taxation upon a burdened and impoverished country. He confessed that when he heard the hon. Gentleman, on giving notice of his Motion, declare, with a quiet sneer which it was impossible not to interpret, that he should defer the consideration of his Motion till the Irish Members had recorded their vote on the proposal of the Government; and when he had heard another hon. Gentleman hold out the Motion in terrorem over the Irish Members, as a judgment which might be inflicted upon them if they failed to follow a minority of the House into the lobby; and when he heard another hon. Gentleman declare that his vote upon this question should be determined by the vote of the Irish Members on another question—he protested that he felt inclined to coincide in opinion with those who thought that the House could not form a just opinion upon Irish affairs. What would be thought of the feeling of Irish Members if they were to propose a Bill for the introduction of every monstrous and oppressive clause of the Irish poor-law into the poor-law of this country, merely because the income-tax was extended to Ireland, and because the House had lately refused an inquiry into the working of the poor-law in that country? Yet such a course would be less absurd and ridiculous than the system of recrimination which the House had avowed. With regard to the discovery which the hon. Member for Marylebone had made, that there was one bad thing which did not exist in Ireland; and with regard to his extraordinary anxiety to supply that deficiency, he admitted that he agreed with the hon. Member in thinking that property in Ireland ought to be amenable to income-tax. He thought it was just to the people of this country, and necessary for the welfare of the people of Ireland, that every man, and every description of property, should be made to bear his share of the national burdens. Whilst the tradesmen of England were contributing to the necessities of Ireland, and whilst the former was endeavouring to bear up against an impossible experiment, was it not monstrous that the man who received twenty times the income of either, should be allowed to sneak out of the difficulty and escape free? So far from thinking that the present circumstances of Ireland exonerated her people from the payment of an income-tax, he was of opinion that the present condition of the country was the very reason why they should be taxed. It had been his intention to propose au Amendment as a modification of the hon. Gentleman's resolution, but, as he was informed, he could not now put it. As he could not vote for the resolution without the modifications which he thought were necessary, and as he could not vote for the raising of funds the application of which he could not control, he should be reluctantly compelled to vote against the proposition. He would not now moot the question as to whether Ireland was able or unable to bear an income-tax, or whether it was expedient to inflict one. If that country was to be doomed to support its own poor out of its resources, let the result of the experiment be the test of the policy, and let the future be the judge. It was unreasonable that Ireland should vote money for foreign purposes, when the people of the country were in a state of destitution; but it was outrageous to suppose that its resources should be carried to swell the wealth of another country, while the population were actually starving. What was the condition of the poor, and what were the resources of the country? A petition had been sent to him for presentation within the last three months, from the inhabitants of the united parishes of Ballintubber and Burriscarra, in the county of Mayo, which presented a faithful picture not only of the condition of the parish, but of the condition of the whole country. The petition declared that the petitioners were compelled to submit to the House that, under the present circumstances of the country, the poor-law in the county of Mayo afforded no adequate provision for the wants of the people— Either as an available fund or as a wise provision, inasmuch as any amount of money collected from those who are themselves on the verge of pauperism is necessarily insufficient to save from destruction the immense numbers of human beings now suffering all the horrors of famine through the country: and as the greater part of those who are liable to pay have been found unable to meet their debts, hundreds of the poor in these parishes, who have been compelled to give up their holdings and throw down their houses in order to obtain relief, congregate together in crowds in the narrow filthy cabins which survive the general devastation, or perish in the ditches to which they have fled for temporary shelter from cold, hunger or disease. Lest this might be considered but a picture of partial distress he felt it his duty to read to the House a more subsequent statement, contained in a letter which he had received from Mr. J. Browne, the Catholic clergyman of the parish of Ballintubber. In that letter the rev gentleman (whose statement was most worthy of credit) gave a list of the persons who had died of starvation, many of them in the ditches by the way side—men, women, and children all had died of starvation. He stated— Since Sunday last the following persons have died of hunger:—Walter Burke, Anthony Roache, Michael Joyce, Thomas Byrne, Mary and Kitty M'Nulty, James Lally's wife, Bridget Walsh, Anne Barnicle. Ned Burke, the son of a widow, applied for relief three times, nine in family; offered to give up house and land for one quart of meal; refused relief without a certificate from the middleman landlord; refused unless applicant threw down his house: applied to the agent of the head landlord. Lord Erne; would not interfere. When relief came at length, the man was a corpse; this occurred at. Melton-hill, in Ballintubber. In the same village Michael Connor was starved to death; offered to give up his land; not accepted. Mary Tuaghy, John Donnelan, and Peggy Morrin were found dead in a ditch. They applied for relief, and were refused. We are now three days without food; the guardians say they can't get in their rates, and the lives of thousands are thus hanging on the prospects of relief, only to be dragged at the point of the bayonet from wretches themselves not many degrees from starvation. But this statement was exceeded in horrors by that of a gentleman who, writing from the county of Galway, and speaking of Clifton, stated that the union was a waste and unprofitable desert—not one fourth of the tenants trying to pay their rent. This gentleman further stated that the workhouse, which was built to contain 300 persons, had now 700 within its walls, and that the hospital, which was built to contain forty patients, was now in the occupation of one hundred and sixty dying persons. The workhouse had become a murderous bastile, the deaths being thirty-six in a week; yet hundreds of wretched creatures were wandering about the streets, stretched by the walls, or squatting beneath doors. The writer declared that he had seen deaths resulting from starvation, but that he had never seen anything half so appalling as the scenes which he witnessed at Clifton. He had seen one woman, who had died in the streets, with her breast eaten out by dogs! Other letters to the same effect had been forwarded to him; but the details were so loathsome and disgusting—so painful to the feelings and so degrading and humiliating to human nature—that he would throw a pall over them, and refrain from making known their ghastly realities. From such a state of things the hon. Gentleman the Member for Marylebone proposed to extract his income-tax. The circumstances of Ireland were now identical with the circumstances of the Carnatic, as adverted to by Mr. Burke; but when addressing the House on the occasion of the memorable oration on that subject, that distinguished philosopher pointed out that, in order to prepare a people who had passed through a period of distress for future submission to taxation, a Government must commence by maintaining them; and his words were, that, in such a case, the road to economy lay not through receipts but through expenditure. The maxim applied not to one country, but to all lands and through all time; and if hon. Gentlemen now could not effect a satisfactory compromise of the conceptions of Mr. Burke and of the impulses of the hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone, he begged of them by their votes that evening to indicate their acknowledgment of the wisdom of the former policy by rejecting altogether the proposition of increasing the burdens of a people who already bore more than their share of taxation.

MR. FAGAN

had risen when the hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone resumed his seat; but he did not regret not succeeding in catching the Chairman's eye, as the hon. Baronet was followed by one far more competent to reply to his statements, and who was so thoroughly master of the subject—he meant the hon. Member for Waterford (Sir H. W. Barron). He would confine himself to the task of replying to a few points in the hon. Member for Marylebone's speech, which were not touched on in the able address of the hon. Member for Waterford. But, first, he must express his astonishment at the inconsistent course adopted by the hon. Member for Marylebone. He voted last week on all the divisions against the income-tax, because it was unjust, unequal, and inquisitorial; and yet he came forward that night to put such a tax, without amendment or alteration, on Ireland. This was inconsistent, and not a course he should have expected the hon. Baronet would have pursued; for there was much in his character he admired. He (Mr. Fagan) had the advantage of him in consistency; for he voted against the income-tax for England, because it was unequal and inquisitorial; and he would record his vote against it that evening, for the same reasons. The hon. Member occupied a large portion of his speech in speaking of the new poor-law for Ireland. He read a list of unions where the rates paid did not average more than one shilling in the pound. Now he (Mr. Fagan) must say that it was not fair to take the payments made before November, 1847, when those returns were made, as the collection of poor-rates for Ireland, as it was notorious that since that period three times that poundage had been paid; and the rate now amounted, according to the statement of Her Majesty's First Minister, to over 2,000,000l. a year. But he could not see what connexion the poor-rates, nor the present impoverished state of Ireland, had to do with the question. He would take much higher ground than a mere argument ad misericordiam, and say that the tax should not be imposed upon Ireland, because she already paid more than her just contribution to the imperial expenditure. But before he dwelt on that question under debate, he could not pass over some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Marylebone on somewhat too irrelevant a subject. The hon. Member had spoken of the desire evinced last year by Parliament and the English people of assisting Ireland in its destitution; and then he turned round and asked how it had been appreciated by the Irish Members and the Irish nation? Now, he (Mr. Fagan) would repeat what he had stated more than once before in that House, that the people of Ireland were deeply grateful for the exertions, the generosity, the good feeling exhibited last year by the English people in their voluntary contributions, and to the Parliament for its unanimous vote for its relief. It was, therefore, not fair of hon. Members who knew nothing of Ireland to taunt its people so repeatedly with ingratitude, when the contrary was the case, as stated by those who knew the country well. But the hon. Baronet had singled out as the special object of his attack his hon. Friend the Member for Limerick (Mr. John O'Connell), who, he regretted, was not then in his place to defend himself, which he could do so effectually, and with much more ability than he (Mr. Fagan) could. But it never was his habit to allow an absent Friend to be attacked without coming to his aid with the little ability he possessed. It appeared that one cause of the attack on the Member for Limerick was, that, in replying to an address presented to him in Paris, he stated that the Irish had been supplicating in vain for relief from the English in the hour of their destitution. Now, he (Mr. Fagan) was in a position to say confidently that the Member for Limerick never meant in this statement to allude to the transactions of last year. He referred to the refusal of the Government to give aid from the imperial resources during the present year, when the distress was as great as last year, employment less, and deaths by famine quite as numerous. Again, the hon. Member spoke of a paragraph in the same address about "the atrocious calumnies" which were uttered in that House against the religion of the Irish people. Who could fairly blame the Member for Limerick for that? There was nothing men were more sensitive of than about the religion to which they were attached; and it was surprising with what patience the Roman Catholic Members of that House submitted to the insults occasionally put upon the religion they professed. But a few nights ago, the learned Recorder of London called the religion of the Roman Catholic Members of that House, and of nine millions of his fellow-subjects, and many millions of his fellow-men "superstitious mummery;" and yet the Roman Catholic Members, satisfied with the mild yet telling reproof of the noble Lord the Member for Arundel, submitted to the insult on the holy religion to which they were attached. [Sir JOHN TYRELL rose to order. He did not think the hon. Member could allude to a former debate, and which had no connexion with the present discussion.] He admitted that in point of order he could not refer to a former debate. He would therefore dismiss the subject with this observation, that these remarks were drawn from him by the comments of the Member for Marylebone on the words "atrocious calumnies on our religion," which he quoted from the reply of his hon. Friend the Member for Limerick; and he could not, as one sincerely attached to the holy religion of which he was a follower, pass by these comments. But to come to the subject-matter under debate. The hon. Member stated that England paid, including the income-tax, twelve millions assessed taxes from which Ireland was free. The Member for Waterford said that this was an enormous exaggeration. Now he was not disposed to concur in that view. The Member for Marylebone was too acute and intelligent to put forward a statement which was not accurate. He therefore took the figures to be correct. But let it be remembered that before the Union England owed 420,000,000l.—the interest of which amounting to sixteen millions she had every right exclusively to pay. Ireland had nothing to say to it. It was most unjust that she should, as she did, pay any share of it. Therefore, when England paid twelve millions exclusive taxation, she paid four millions less than she ought. So much for that argument. The Member for Marylebone stated that Ireland paid no part of the income-tax. Now, he would simply reply to that—that the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth, in 1842, imposed the additional stamp duty and one shilling a gallon on whiskey, which he estimated at,410,000l., distinctly as an equivalent to her proportion of the income-tax according to her ability. The hon. Baronet then referred to the resolution passed at the council in Dublin last November, in favour of an income-tax. He was present at that meeting, and seconded on that occasion the first resolution proposed by his hon. Friend the Member for Longford (Major Blackall). The second resolution, having reference to the income-tax, was passed from a feeling that the Irish proprietary would prefer to preserve the lives of the people at their own cost, rather than seek aid again from England. Anxiety for the destitute suggested that resolution; but he must say, that the universal feeling was opposed to the tax as unequal and inquisitorial. The case alluded to was no justification for the present proposition, imposing a permanent income-tax on Ireland. The Member for Marylebone next impugned the conduct of the Irish Members who voted for the income-tax in all its odiousness on England. Now, he must say that it was not fair to single out the Irish Members from the others who so voted. So long as it was an Imperial Parliament all Members were alike—there was no distinction, and there should be no distinction. For his part, he made it a rule never to attribute motives for conduct to any one unless they were patent as day. He as readily admitted their motives were pure, as he claimed the same admission for himself. He would say in reference to a remark which fell from the Member for Mayo (Mr. Moore), that his vote was not given against the income-tax, in order to weaken the arm of the Government. He never gave a vote in that House which he could not conscientiously account for; and he would account for his votes on the budget and income-tax. He voted against the Government, because he believed they were wrong; he voted in accordance with the wishes of the English people, because he believed these wishes were based on justice. He voted for his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose's Motion, to reduce the expenditure, because he had seen in time of peace—since 1835—that expenditure was annually increasing by millions. And he felt convinced if a stop were not put to it that it would inevitably bring the income-tax on Ireland. He did not see at that time, neither did he see at the present moment any danger of peace being disturbed. There was no longer any danger from the Spanish marriage question. France and Europe had enough to do in their internal affairs; and, therefore, he believed there was no fear of war and no necessity for war establishments. Therefore he voted for diminished expenditure. He voted, too, for the hon. Member for Cockermouth's Motion, because he knew how unequal was the income-tax—an inequality admitted by the hon. Member for Westbury, who in a most powerful speech showed the necessity for a revision of the tax, though his vote was for its imposition for three years. Lastly, he (Mr. Fagan) voted for its imposition for only one year; for he felt convinced that in one year that revision could take place; and it was, therefore, unjust to continue the tax with all its deformities for three years. These were his motives for the votes he gave. The hon. Member for Marylebone asked why a merchant in Belfast was exempted from the tax, while the merchant in Bristol paid it—why the doctor in Dublin was exempted, while the London practitioner paid—why the Irish fundholder escaped, while on the English it was levied? His simple answer to these questions was, that Ireland received no benefit from the income-tax—England did. The hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Wilson) stated that England gained twenty times more than she paid by the income-tax. Why? Because it enabled the Government to let free the springs of industry—because it gave an impulse to her manufactures Of the 7,600,000l. of indirect taxation taken off by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth, nearly 2,000,000l. was taken in toto off articles, many of which were the raw materials for manufactures. Without the imposition and continuance of the income-tax, it was admitted this could not be done. Now, Ireland could not participate in these advantages, if an income-tax were imposed on her, because she was not a manufacturing country. He received a few days ago a letter in which was given a statement of the comparative exports of manufactures from England and Ireland in 1844. The precise year was of no consequence in the argument. He would read the return that the House might see at a glance how Ire land stood as regards manufactures beside England:—

Articles.	Great Britain.	Ireland.
	£.	£.
Of apparel, in value, imported	613,671	1,488
Brass and copper manufactures	644,048	200
Hardware	1,745,260	259
Iron and steel	2,586,136	4,697
Cotton manufactures	16,249,268	4,782
Cotton yarn	7,193,771	443
Linen manufactures	2,783,629	19,594
Linen yarn	819,450	79,380
Silk manufactures	667,938	14
Woollen manufacture	6,789,943	289

This return showed how utterly profitless, as an impulse to manufacturing industry, would be an income-tax for Ireland. Again, the increased expenditure caused the continuance of the income-tax. Now, Ireland was not benefited by that excess of expenditure. For instance, in the colonies the Army cost 3,000,000l. a year, without taking any account of the Navy and Ordnance departments. The colonies were useful to England, because they were markets for her manufactures. To Ireland they were of no value. Even the provision trade she had with the West Indies free-trade had taken away altogether. Canada could not be said to be of value to Ireland, for emigration was no benefit to her. Her soil, if her social condition were improved, could maintain double her present population in contentment, and emigration would not be required. What she required was, measures of justice and amelioration. But the hon. Baronet said that Ireland did not sufficiently contribute to the general expenditure. Now, let it be remembered that the financial basis of the Union was, that Ireland should not contribute beyond her ability. It was admitted that two-seventeenths was far beyond her ability. By a return of the payments made by Ireland into the Exchequer from 1800 to 1844, it was proved that one-twelfth was the proportion she was able to contribute. If that or even one-tenth were the proportion instead of two-seventeenths, which she was made to pay by the Act of Union, the exchequers would never have been consolidated, for the Irish debt would never have come within one-tenth of that of England. Well, if the exchequers were separated, the two debts would be separated. Now let us suppose the two countries so circumstanced relatively to each other, and let us suppose the general expenditure to be what it was estimated for next year, for which an additional 2 per cent income-tax was required—that is, 54,000,000l. Deduct from that the interest payable before the Union—17,000,000l.—that leaves 37,000,000l., one-tenth of which would be Ireland's proportion—that is, 3,700,000l., to which add the interest of her own debt, 1,300,000l, and there would be 5,000,000l. as Ireland's share of the payment. Now, there were Parliamentary returns showing that the average acknowledged receipts from Ireland from 1801 to 1844 was 4,500,000l., and the unacknowledged taxes—teas, for instance—amounted, at the least computation, to 1,000,000l.; that would give 5,500,000l. as Ireland's annual payments, while her liability would be but 5,000,000l., supposing the general expenditure 54,000,000l., which was 6,000,000l. more than it was a few years ago. He was aware that of late, under the Warehousing Act, the teas and other articles were now taken in bond, and that the unacknowledged taxes were not so great; but it came to the same thing, and the gross acknowledged payments would be found to have increased in proportion as the unacknowledged diminished. The hon. Member for Waterford had very ably referred to the question—how could the tax be raised in Ireland if imposed on it? Judging from the past, that was a most judicious inquiry. In 1807 the taxes imposed upon Ireland amounted to 4,500,000l. Sometime after, additional taxes were imposed to the amount of 3,000,000l. What was the consequence? Why, the receipts into the Exchequer were immediately, in consequence, reduced below the original 4,500,000l.; showing that if a country is burdened beyond her ability the Exchequer was rather injured than served. There was but one other observation, and he was done. The hon. Baronet spoke of the danger of his visiting Ireland as a foreigner, insinuating that he might be assassinated. He deeply regretted to observe so often those taunts and insinuations vaguely thrown out in that House against the Irish people. It did really more in creating discontent, irritation, and estrangement, than hon. Members were aware. The Irish were remarkable for their kindness and hospitality to the stranger. True it was that various causes produced agrarian crimes in that country. No one more deeply deplored it than himself—no one was more pleased at the result of the special commission. But he boldly asserted, putting aside these agrarian outrages, that there was not on the earth a people more free from crime than the Irish. Do the people justice, improve their condition, and the agrarian outrage would also disappear. The hon. Member concluded by thanking the House for the attention with which they heard him.

MR. GEORGE A. HAMILTON

said, that however strongly he might differ from the hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone, as to the justice and policy of the proposition submitted to the House, he felt bound to say that he by no means agreed in the strong animadversions which his hon. Friends the Members for Water-ford and Mayo had used in reference to the manner in which the proposition had been brought forward by the hon. Baronet. There was nothing, he thought, in the speech of the hon. Baronet on this occasion to call for such severe animadversions. With respect to the question itself, he was quite sure there was no Member connected with Ireland who would not at once admit, that if the circumstances of the two countries were equal, or even approximating to an equality, the application of taxation should he equal also; and for himself, he could assure the House that he was greatly disinclined to advocate peculiar exemptions—the exemption of peculiar classes from taxation. Considering the nature and origin of the national burdens, he was ready to admit that it was most desirable it should be felt that they rested equally and justly upon all classes of Her Majesty's subjects, according to their different means and ability to bear them. But he was equally certain, that no Englishman would deny, that in the application of taxation to the two countries, it was just, and rea- sonable, and expedient, that the ability of each to bear that taxation, should be the groundwork of their deliberations on the subject. This was a proposition too self-evident to require argument in support of it. It was quite obvious, that the effect of overburdening a country with taxation beyond its ability, would be to paralyse its industry, to diminish or destroy its power of creating wealth, and to defeat the very object for which that taxation was imposed. This, of course, was one reason, amongst others, why the colonies and dependencies were exempt from direct taxation. But if this was a self-evident proposition in its general import, it was maintainable as regards Ireland, not merely on the ordinary grounds, but as a matter of express compact. The 7th article of the Union, he (Mr. Hamilton) maintained, was founded upon the express stipulation that in future fiscal arrangements between the two countries, the relative ability of each should be made the standard of taxation. The 7th article provides— That at the expiration of twenty years after the Union, the expenditure of the United Kingdom shall be defrayed in such proportions as Parliament shall deem just and reasonable, upon a comparison of the real value of the exports and imports of the two countries, or on comparison of the value of the quantities of certain articles therein named—beer, spirits, sugar, wine, tea, tobacco, and malt—consumed within the respective countries; or on the comparison of the amount of income in each country, estimated on the produce of a general tax, or on an average of three years. And the same article provides subsequently, that— If it shall appear to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, that the respective circumstances of the two countries will henceforth admit of their contributing indiscriminately by equal taxes,"— it shall be competent to Parliament to declare that all future expenses shall be borne by equal taxes, subject only to such peculiar exemptions or abatements in Ireland or Scotland as circumstances may appear from time to time to demand. He was quite aware that the, particular arrangements made in the 7th article, may be said to have been superseded by the consolidation of the exchequers, and the Acts of 1816 and 1817; but he had referred to that article of the Union, not for the purpose of raising any argument as to the arrangements then made for distributing the burdens of the two countries, or as to their justice or injustice, or as to their fulfilment or non-fulfilment, or as to the alterations made by the consolidation of the exchequers, or since, though much might be said on these subjects; and they had been adverted to by the hon. Member for Cork; but for the purpose of proving—and he thought the proof conclusive—that the relative ability of each country to bear taxation—the circumstances of each country, were made, by express stipulation, the groundwork and principle of future taxation. The question, therefore, he thought, resolved itself into one of fact; namely, whether the circumstances of the two countries were or were not such as to admit, without injustice, of the application of equal taxation; and the observations with which he should trouble the Committee should be directed exclusively to that one point. He believed it was impossible, in consequence of the custom-house regulations which now existed, to ascertain accurately the ability of the two countries by the several standards proposed in the 7th article of the Union; but still there were means of comparing them in some points; and if it should appear that wherever you can institute a comparison, there is not only no proximate proportion between the two countries in point of ability to bear taxation, but a disproportion in most things so great as to be scarcely capable of estimation, why he thought he would have a right to deny that it was either just or expedient to impose the same taxes upon Ireland as upon England. He supposed it would not be denied that in instituting a comparison between two countries, as regarded their ability to bear taxation, the population of each must be taken as the basis; and the ability of each to bear taxation must depend upon the proportion which wealth, in all its ramifications and channels of circulation, in one of those two countries, bore to wealth in the other as compared with their population: that is to say, supposing the population of the two countries to be equal, in order to their possessing equal ability to bear taxation, the wealth of the one should be equal to that of the other; and supposing the population unequal, in order to their possessing equal ability to bear taxation, the wealth of the one should be to the wealth of the other in the same ratio or proportion as the populations respectively. These were simple propositions; but he thought the deductions he should draw from them would appear not unimportant. Now, he would ask the Committee in what manner could the wealth of a country be measured, and a comparison instituted with the wealth of another country? Why, in the first place, he would say the comparatire value of landed property, and property generally, would he a measure—then the quantity of other realised property—then the trade, commerce, and manufactures, represented by the exports, imports, number of vessels belonging to each, or trading to each, customs and excise receipts, postage and other receipts, supposing the duties equal. These, in their relation to population, appeared to him to constitute both the ingredients and the measure of national wealth. He would endeavour now to institute a comparison between Great Britain and Ireland on these principles, and in some of these particulars. The population of Great Britain, in round numbers, was eighteen millions, that of Ireland eight millions; the basis, therefore, was a proportion of 2¼ to 1; and wherever a comparison could be instituted between the countries. Great Britain should be to Ireland in respect of wealth in the proportion of 2¼ to 1. If this were the case, an equal amount of wealth would be distributed among the population of each, and their ability to bear taxation would be equal. He would now compare the two countries, first, as far as he could in respect of trade. If hon. Members would turn to the tables of trade for the year ending January, 1846, they would find under No. 14, an account of the imports and exports of the united Kingdom. The exports of the two countries, calculated at the official rates of valuation during the year ending January, 1846, according to that table were as follows:—Great Britain 150,645,018l., Ireland 234,968l.; thus, at the very outset, in these figures—which he supposed represented, at least, the foreign trade of the two countries, and, to a great extent, the manufactures also—there was the enormous disproportion of more than 600 to 1. The imports, as set forth in the same table, were as follows:—Great Britain, 8,330,609l.; Ireland, l,951,349l., a disproportion of about forty to one. The Committee, of course, would understand that he adduced these figures not as a measure of the quantity of imports consumed in Ireland—for he was well aware that the imports consumed in Ireland were, for the most part, imported into Bristol and Liverpool—but as a measure of the trade of the two countries comparatively. The next item he would take were the customs receipts, which would be found in table 17; the amount was not added up in the table; but he had done this roughly, and he believed the result would be found nearly as follows:—Great Britain, 18,900,000l.; Ireland—2,332,000l., a disproportion of nearly nine to one. Turn now to the number and tonnage of steamers, table 50:—Great Britain, 833 vessels, 100,071 tonnage; Ireland, 79 vessels, 18,069 tonnage—a disproportion in respect of tonnage of five to one. Take postage, table 32:—Great Britain (not including London), 1,506,991l.; Ireland, 158,312l.—a disproportion of nearly ten to one. But it was scarcely necessary to proceed further under this head; for every one, he supposed, would admit that Ireland had neither commerce, nor foreign trade, nor manufactures, to compare with Great Britain, nor wealth so employed. But land, it might be said, was the staple of Ireland. He recollected that when Mr. Roebuck, in 1845, proposed to extend the income-tax to Ireland, he felt so strongly pressed by the considerations connected with trade, manufactures, and professional incomes in that country, that he had only ventured to propose that the tax should be extended to incomes from land. The hon. Baronet was not so generous. By his Motion, the tax would be extended to every species of property. But land being the staple of Ireland, he would now take up the case of the land of Ireland. Before making a comparison between Great Britain and Ireland in that respect, it was necessary he should advert to the charges—the public charges—to which land in Ireland was now subject. He knew the dislike which the House had for figures; and although he held in his hand a statement of all the particulars, he could enumerate them only under the heads, and as briefly as possible—under the heads of advances to grand juries, labour relief, and food relief; the expenditure, in fact, of the last year and the year before, after deducting all sums converted into grants by Parliament. The land of Ireland was liable during the present year, not including compensation for damages or land taken under the Labour Rate Act, to repay no less a sum than 1,283,000l. The poor-rate, he could easily show, would amount, at the very least, to 2,000,000l.—the grand-jury rate to more than 1,000,000l. He had the particulars in his hand, but would not trouble the Committee by going through them. The sum total of these charges would be at least 4,300,000l., or nearly 33 per cent on the valuation of land in Ireland. Besides this, there was local taxation for other purposes in towns, amounting to about 200,000l.; and it should also be borne in mind that the charge was assumed to be equal over the whole country, whereas it would be highest where the poverty was greatest. He was now in a condition to compare the land of Ireland with the land of England in respect of the charges upon each, and their ability to bear those charges. The Committee of the Lords, in 1846, had gone very fully into the subject of the burdens on land in England, and they made the following statement in their report:— The intensity of the pressure of a burden must be measured by the relative ability to support it, and the Committee therefore place before the House an estimate of the rateable value of real property on which the enumerated burdens are assessed. According to a return made to the House of Lords, the annual value of the real property assessed to the poor-rate in England and Wales, in the year ending Lady Day, 1841, amounted to 62,540,000l.—the land-tax, highway, church and poor-rates alone, amounting to 9,687,950l.—would thus be equivalent to an income-tax of above 15 per cent on the annual value of real property in England and Wales. If to the above sum of 9,687,950l. is added the tithe rent-charge not merged in the land, 4,500,000/., making a total of 14,187,950l., the contribution levied annually on real property for the public service under the five heads of tithes, land-tax, poor, highway, and church rates, is equivalent to an income-tax of nearly 23 per cent on 62,540,030l., the rateable value of the real property in England and Wales. Now he would just remark, that he was not disposed to admit that either land-tax or tithe rent-charge form what is properly called a burden on land; but he would assume for the present that they were; and he must also remark that the valuation of real property in England and Wales, as derivable from the income-tax, appears to be nearly 85,000,000l.; but inasmuch as the poor-law valuation of Ireland might be said also to be under the real value, he would take both at the rateable value for poor-law purposes. Well, then, how stood the case? The charges in England and Wales, as enumerated, amounted to 14,187,950l, add to that the amount of income and property-tax for the year ending April, 1846, Schedule A, 2,268,868l, and they had the charges on land in England and Wales, including property-tax, 16,456,818l.; being as nearly as possible 30 per cent on the valuation of 62,540,000l. Now, turn again to land in Ireland. He had already stated and proved that on the lowest calculation the charges on land in Ireland under the heads of labour-rate instalments, relief instalments, poor-rates, and grand-jury rates, must be taken at 4,300,000l. In order to make the comparison complete, it would be necessary to add to those charges the tithe rent-charge. The tithe rent-charge of every description, lay and ecclesiastical, was about 486,000l., so that the burdens upon land in Ireland, corresponding with those in England, enumerated in the Lords' report, would be 4,786,000?, being more than 36 per cent on the valuation of 13,204,214l., so that while the burdens on land in England and Wales, including the property-tax, were 30 per cent, the burdens on land in Ireland, without any property-tax, were more than 36 per cent. He would not enter now upon the question of the liability of all absentees to the income-tax. It was generally supposed that between three and four millions a year of the rents of Ireland were transmitted to this country; and it was also a fact, that a large amount of the interest payable to mortgagees and creditors was transmitted to this country. To that extent, therefore, Ireland was at present liable to the income-tax. Neither would he go into the subject of the justice or expediency of taxing legal professional incomes, or incomes derived from trade in Ireland. With respect to those, it might perhaps be difficult to maintain, upon abstract principles of justice, that they ought not to be taxed in Ireland, when they were taxed in England; but he would remind the Committee how important it was as a matter of policy, considering the poverty of Ireland as compared with England, to encourage and foster every means of adding to the wealth of the former country: and he recollected last year the noble Lord at the head of the Government had urged very frequently the necessity of giving every encouragement to the small merchants in different parts of Ireland—a class which, in the altered state of that country, would be essential to supply the wants of the population. The income-tax, it was obvious, would operate as a discouragement to them. He was anxious, before concluding, to take the opportunity of stating that, notwithstanding the present position of affairs in Ireland, he was far from despairing of the fortunes of that country. Ireland had been exposed, during the last two years, to an extent of distress which was unparalleled; but he hoped and believed the trial in its result would prove beneficial—he hoped and believed that all classes would be induced henceforth to rely more upon themselves than they had done hitherto—to confide more in their own energies than in legislative measures. And he felt bound to say, in conclusion, that he had the greatest confidence in the noble Lord the present Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He admired the manner in which that noble Lord had applied himself to the Government. By the capacity of mind and knowledge he had displayed—by the anxiety he had evinced to encourage the development of the industrial resources of Ireland—by his firm, temperate, and impartial administration—punishing and repressing crime, and discouraging agitation, he had secured for himself the confidence of all the well-affected of all parties in that country; and he felt assured that this confidence in the Lord Lieutenant would assist materially in raising Ireland from her present prostrate position. Entertaining these the opinions he had expressed—being convinced that such an equality, in respect to the ability to bear taxation, did not at present subsist between the two countries, as would make it just or expedient to add to the taxation of Ireland—he should feel it his duty, not only as an Irishman, but as a Member of the Imperial Parliament, to offer all the opposition in his power to the Motion of the hon. Baronet.

MR. NAPIER

said, that notwithstanding the vote he had given on a former night he was prepared to vote against the extension of this tax to Ireland. When he entered the House he was determined that every vote he should give should be without any reference to party questions, but should be given purely on conscientious principles; and, finding no substitute proposed for the diminution in the revenue, he had certainly thought it his duty to give his support to the Government, that they should in no respect be crippled in their resources. But he opposed the Motion of the hon. Baronet on the present occasion on the ground on which it was so ably put by his hon. Colleague, viz., that the circumstances of the two countries required a difference in the legislation; and he did not find that upon other occasions it had been sought to carry out the principle of assimilation so perfectly as to prevent any difference. As to the fact that when the tax was first laid on in 1842, Ireland was exempted, he took it for granted there was good reason for that exemption. At that time a great plan was proposed as to free trade, and this income-tax was supplemental to the great experiment. On that experiment he was not about to give an opinion; but it was acknowledged on all hands that Ireland would not be benefited by the experiment to the same extent as England, because it was a measure rather of a commercial than of an agricultural policy. That, however, was no ground why the income-tax should not be applied to Ireland; but in 1845, when the general question came on, Ireland was again excepted, and the matter was brought specially under the notice of the House by the Motion of the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Roebuck), who pressed the House to include Ireland. The same reasons were produced again: the circumstances of the two countries were considered; and the same conclusion was come to by a very large majority of the House—a majority of upwards of 250 negativing the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Bath, who merely proposed the application of the income-tax to property, and did not profess to extend it to professions or trades. If, in 1842 and 1845, when the matter was so fully debated and considered upon the grounds of justice, and upon the grounds of policy and reason, it was thought fit not to include Ireland in this tax, and if the income-tax never had been applied to Ireland, why should it occur now to the minds of any persons that in point of justice that which was considered right then, should now be considered wrong? Had anything occurred in the interval which rendered it especially necessary now to include Ireland? He put the case fairly, because he admitted, in regard to the vote of the other night, that if it should have the effect of extending the tax to Ireland, he did not regret that vote; he gave that vote on its own merits. He wished to put the case of his country on principles of fairness and justice. If it was just to impose this tax, he should be delighted to join in imposing it; if it was not just, he should be delighted in resisting it. If it was not just in 1845, what had occurred since? In 1846 the calamitous visitation of Providence fell upon his unhappy land, and consequently all the additional burdens which did not exist in 1845 were cast upon the land. Why should the House think it necessary to do more now than reverse the decision af 1845? for it was then admitted on all hands that the tax should only be imposed on land; but now they sought to put it not only on the land, but on trades and professions. The tradespeople had materially suffered, in consequence of the pressure upon land. The prosperity of the shopkeepers most materially depended on the prosperity of the landed proprietors. It was idle to suppose that any class could isolate itself. Every class was affected by the prosperity of the other class. The conduct of the clergy of Ireland was exemplary. No greater efforts could have been made than had been made by the clergy of Ireland. Many of the clergy had lived from week to week, during the famine, on the simplest fare, in order that they might be able, as far as possible, to assist the poor. As to the medical profession, he need not remind the House that it had suffered greatly, and that the loss of life had been most serious. His own profession, that of the law, had not been injured to the same extent. In reference, however, to the gentry of Ireland generally, he asked whether it would be wise, in order to obtain a small amount, to impose on them so galling a tax, and thus entirely break their spirit? In the mode in which this question had been brought forward, he saw no just ground of complaint; but that did not weaken his objection to the proposition itself. The two countries could not be fairly compared. There were many inequalities in their present position. As an illustration of this fact, he would remind the House that upwards of 1,500 of the clergy of Ireland conscientiously objected to the established system of education, and did not feel at liberty to receive the assistance provided for them. Before the two countries were burdened with the same liabilities, they must be placed in all respects on a more equal footing.

COLONEL CONOLLY

thought this the most inopportune and inauspicious occasion that could be conceived for bringing forward such a Motion as that before the House. The hon. Baronet had chosen the very time when Ireland was most depressed, and in the greatest difficulty, to place upon her this additional burden. When the tax was introduced in this country it was under impression, whether right or wrong, that England would be benefited by another measure which accompanied it; but as no advantage had been conferred upon Ireland, he contended that the tax ought not to be imposed on that country. On the part of his constituents and himself, he thanked the English people for the generous, liberal, and boundless charity they had manifested towards the Irish; and he repelled the insinuation of the hon. Baronet that the Irish were ungrateful for English favours. He spoke with gratitude of the generosity of England; and he would also speak in just commendation of the disposition with which the people in that part of Ireland with which he was connected received the bounty of their English brethren, and acknowledged their benefactions. The right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that Ireland stood indebted to England in the sum of 4,650,000l., being half of the money lent to Ireland. Was it the intention of the hon. Member for Marylebone to superadd to that debt this charge upon the Irish people? He would take upon himself to say that either the 4,000,000l. due or the income-tax must remain unpaid. He was sorry to be obliged to state that all legislation that had taken place in that House for a number of years had had the effect of increasing the charges and burdens on Ireland. He was ready to admit that Ireland should maintain its own poor. Whilst Ireland, in addition to the great calamities which had befallen her in the shape of a famine, was labouring under the burden of a great experiment, the poor-law, he did not think it would be fair to oppress her still further by the income-tax. As an Irish landlord, he himself had no great reason to complain; but he knew numbers of that class who were at present in very, very great distress. Some of them had not even obtained what would pay off the interest due to the mortgagees of their estates, and they were living under the menace of having their mortgages foreclosed. He admitted that this was an argument ad misericordiam; whilst, at the same time, he denied that there was analogy between the circumstances or capabilities of England and those of Ireland. He also denied that the hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone had laid any reasonable foundation for his proposition. Indeed, if the House acceded to the hon. Baronet's proposition, there was no possibility of anything being received from Ireland. He hoped, then, that the House would not think of extending to Ireland this tax, which, even with regard to England had been denounced as oppressive and unjust. He hoped that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would follow the example which had been given him by his predecessors, and that, with them, he would admit that the extension of the tax to Ireland would well nigh terminate in the utter destruction of that country. He hoped he would resist this unjust proposition, and take his humble assurance that it would not be worth his while to impose an income-tax upon Ireland. It was not many years since it was found advisable to take off the assessed taxes from Ireland; and for what reason? Because of the 112,000l. that was collected scarcely anything went into the Exchequer; the whole of it was lost in the expense of collection. He had no doubt that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would find the income-tax to be as unproductive as the assessed taxes. Besides, there were various circumstances in existence which made the present a singularly inauspicious moment in which to propose that such a tax as this should be imposed upon Ireland. He hoped he might say with confidence that the Government would resist this Motion.

SIR J. TYRELL

, having been one of those who took an humble part in the discussion on the income-tax on a former occasion, hoped that the Committee would bear with him whilst he ventured to contrast some of the arguments that were used upon that occasion, and which induced the then Chancellor of the Exchequer to resist a proposition for extending a property and income-tax to Ireland, and endeavoured to compare some of those circumstances that had been glanced at by the hon. Members who had preceded him, and state the reasons which induced him to support the proposition of the hon. Member for Marylebone. He regretted his inability to distinguish between the disinterestedness and generosity of hon. Gentlemen who represented the various counties and boroughs of Ireland, in the course which they had taken on this occasion. The hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin resisted this Motion, because of some clause in the Treaty of Limerick—he begged pardon—of the Union, the seventh article of which, he said, provided that this tax should not be extended to Ireland; but he begged to remind the House that when this subject was discussed in 1815, the Father of the present Member for Dorsetshire (Mr. Bankes) moved that the clerk at the table should read the 7th article of the Act of Union; and that hon. Gentleman showed that it was perfectly competent to the House to entertain the question of applying the income-tax to Ireland, and very strongly urged that it should be extended to that country. He maintained, then, that there was nothing in the Act of Union which could cramp the perfect freedom of action of the English Members on this question. He lamented that some Member of Her Majesty's Government had not yet risen in this debate. He thought he had a perfect right to express his regret with respect to the conduct of the Government on this occasion. It would have been more decorous to the House, and to the country, if some Member of the Government had stated what were their views on this question. He was quite well aware of the uniformity of action between the late and the present Governments. The argument relied upon the last occasion when this measure was discussed for not extending an income-tax to Ireland, was the expense that would attend the collection of such a tax. On such grounds, then, it was decided that it would be a most inexpedient thing to extend the income-tax to Ireland. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Donegal (Col. Conolly), who had used that argument, appeared to forget that new machinery—that of the poor-law—had been introduced into Ireland since the assessed taxes had been abolished in consequence of the expense of their collection, which new machinery could be made available for the collection of an income-tax. That tax could now be collected without any great stretch of ingenuity or ability on the part of the Executive; its collection now would be but trifling. The unanimity of Irish Members, so divided on other questions, was most extraordinary and wonderful on this. They all decried an income-tax for Ireland. Now, in his opinion, circumstances had lately arisen which ought to justify the House in altering the vote which they gave when this question was last before them. Her Majesty's late and present Governments had thought proper to cut from under us all the old sources of revenue that formed the main timbers, the mainstays, the sinews and the nerves of this country. Although the hon. Member for Donegal had addressed to them an argument ad misericordiam, he thought the House should pause before they suffered themselves to he induced by such arguments to reject the Motion of the hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone. From some of the evidence taken before the Committee of the House to inquire into the expenses of the sugar cultivation, it was evident that the Government, rather than check the progress of their free-trade principles, would contentedly suffer the destruction of our colonies and commerce. Such had been the conduct of the free-trade administration of affairs in this country, that it required a bold man at the present moment to declare that he was a merchant. All mercantile enterprise had been absolutely destroyed for the purpose of trying the great experiment of free trade. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, though he had opposed a proposal for endeavouring to render the income and property-tax more palatable to the country, had shown his sagacity by giving this qualification to his opposition—"Mind, I don't say that it may not be right and proper for the House to inquire whether the property-tax may not be made more just and equal." But hon. Gentlemen who had had the advantage or disadvantage of sitting in that House for several successive Parliaments would not attach much weight to that declaration, for they knew that nothing was more common than for Chancellors of the Exchequer to "hocus" the public in this way, in order to disguise the real intentions of the Government. The late Mr. O'Connell opposed a similar Motion to the present, on the ground that it would have the effect of drying up the sources of charity in Ireland. He was sorry to say, that those sources had been dried up to a considerable extent, and that many Gentlemen who had been in the habit of giving large sums to the poor were obliged, in consequence of the system of legal relief which had been established in Ireland, to withdraw their names from the charitable institutions to which they had been accustomed to give their support. He did not say anything against the Irish poor-law; on the contrary, he thought that its adoption was but an act of justice to the poor of Ireland. At the same time, it must be recollected that none would be subject to this tax whose incomes were below 150l. He confessed it would have been more palatable to him if the proposition of the hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone had provided that the tax should not commence in Ireland until the expiration of a twelvemonth from the present time. They all knew that Ireland had undergone a great crisis—that it had suffered much from the recent famine; and, under those circumstances, it would be but fair to postpone the extension of the income-tax to Ireland for a year. When it did commence to operate, it would, no doubt, yield a permanent sum of 150,000l. to the resources of this country. With reference to the expense of collection of taxes in Ireland, he must do the hon. Member for Donegal the justice to say, that his country had always distinguished itself for the trouble and expense to which they put the country in the collection of taxes; for it appeared, that in 1815 the expense of collecting the taxes there was 14l. 13s. per cent, whilst in other places it was but 6l. 3s. 11d. But there was one very serious matter in connexion with the present taxation, to which he begged to call the attention of the House and the country, viz., that Ireland, since they required so large a military force to preserve the peace, ought to be called upon to contribute her due proportion for the extra expenditure which the orators of Conciliation Hall and others occasioned the empire. He admired the declaration of the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) the other day on this subject. He (Sir J. Tyrell) hoped he might infer from that declaration that it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to have Conciliation Hall shut up. If that was done, and if the Irish Members and the Irish people combined in endeavouring to induce persons of capital to expend their money in the cultivation of the soil of Ireland, the expense now incurred for maintaining an enormous army in that country might be very considerably reduced, and the necessity for an income-tax might be in a great measure obviated. But we must look at all the existing circumstances, and among them at the annual deficiencies that might present themselves in the budget, and the declaration of the right hon. Baronet that no consideration upon earth would induce him, though changeable upon other subjects, to agree to allow a deficit. We must look at that prospect of a deficiency, notwithstanding the smiling countenance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of whom certainly we must say, to do him justice, that he was not in the habit of putting the gloomiest aspect upon affairs. What with his hilarity, and the "wonderful unanimity" of Gentlemen from Ireland, it was difficult to tell what support the Motion might have after the dinner which was taking place elsewhere; this being a happy day for Ireland, it would be to be regretted if the harmony should be interrupted.

The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

thanked his hon. Friend opposite for the fairness with which he had treated this subject, and also for having given him an opportunity of expressing his opinion upon it; for every hon. Gentleman who Lad spoken, except his hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Marylebone, had taken the side which he himself was about to take. He should commence by stating, that he should resist this Motion, and he would then state the reasons which, in his opinion, rendered it inexpedient that the operation of the income-tax should at the present time be extended to Ireland. His hon. Friend had asked him one or two questions on this subject; the first one being whether he conceived it just that the income-tax should not be imposed in Ireland as well as in this country? Upon the strict principle of justice, he could not deny that the tax ought to be equally imposed in both countries, and that a landed proprietor or a merchant, or professional man in Ireland receiving 3,000l. or 4,000l. per year should, upon the strict principle of justice, pay the same proportion of tax upon that income as a person receiving the same amount in England. It was, however, very different when, laying aside the strict principle, the question of the benefit to be derived from the extension of this tax to Ireland came to be argued; and the House had to consider whether it were at this particular time expedient or wise to impose the same taxes on both countries. It never had been thought—as was well known to the House—indispensably necessary that identically the same taxes should be imposed on England and Ireland. There was no reason, in point of justice, why spirits in Ireland and Scotland should not pay the same amount of duty as in England; but when the Government made the attempt practically to carry out that principle, they found it perfectly impossible to exact the same amount of duty on Scotch and Irish spirits as on English. The experiment had been tried more than once, and had been found impracticable. An additional shilling duty had been imposed on Irish spirits in 1842; but in a very short time the increase was found to produce no additional revenue. This would show that it was impossible to have precisely and identically the same taxes in both countries. The grounds on which he thought it inexpedient that the income-tax should be imposed on Ireland as well as on this country were precisely the same as those stated on a former occasion by his noble Friend. His noble Friend stated that after they had for four or five years abstained from imposing an income-tax on Ireland, and that, too, when she was in reasonably prosperous circumstances, it would be hardly justifiable to impose, for the first time, an income-tax when she was suffering so fearfully under calamities of no ordinary nature. Everybody in that House knew the dreadful distress under which that country had so lately laboured, and from the effects of which she still suffered; and everybody knew that the greatest exertions were being made to obviate those evils as much as possible. It was quite true, as he had heard it argued in the course of former debates on this subject, that the property of Ireland should be made to support the poverty of that country; but they must admit that a new and heavy burden had been imposed on Ireland for that purpose. A tax had been imposed on the proprietors in Ireland to an extent which had been truly described as a burden which a year or two before they could scarcely have thought possible. The poor's rate was now levied in Ireland at the rate of nearly 2,000,000l. per annum. The amount of poor-rates levied in Ireland during the last few months showed a great excess over the amounts levied in the corresponding period of the preceding year. He would compare the returns of the last four months with those of the corresponding period of the former year for which he had an account. In October, 1846, the amount of poor-rates collected in Ireland amounted to 26,000l., and in October, 1847, it amounted to 121,000l. In November, 1846, the amount was 36,000l., and in last November it was 151,000l. In December, 1846, it was 46,000l., and in last December it was 168,000l. In January, 1847, it was 52,000l., and in January, 1848, it was 194,000l. [An Hon. MEMBER: Perhaps that was for arrears.] It signified very little to his present argument, whether it were or were not for arrears—the increased sum shown in the return was taken out of the pockets of the ratepayers in the space of four months. He apprehended that it made very little difference to the persons who paid the money, whether it was due for previous rates or not; their incomes were equally diminished by the payment. Taking the two periods to which he had referred, he found that the four months of 1846–1847 yielded 162,000l. for poor-rates, while the last four months showed a total of 635,000l., or an increase to nearly three times the amount of the preceding year. It might be said that this increased payment for poor-rates ought not to exempt Ireland from the income-tax; but when so heavy an additional claim was made upon the ratepayers, proprietors, and occupiers—a claim to the extent he had stated—it would be to inflict a great hardship on them were the Government to impose an income-tax at the present moment. And he believed, moreover, that on a merely selfish principle, it would be impolitic and adverse to the best interests of the country. They were perfectly aware that at the commencement of the late calamities, the whole of that country was at first paralysed by apprehension; but latterly many of the proprietors in Ireland had exerted themselves in various ways, alleviating the miseries of the peasantry, improving their own estates—thus giving employment to the labouring population—and doing what they could for the permanent benefit of their country. He thought it would discourage and check these exertions, on which the welfare of the country so much depended, if an additional burden was imposed upon them at the present moment. He thought even if they went no further than the experience of last year, they must be convinced that the interests of the two countries were permanently bound up together, and it was impossible that any evil could fall upon Ireland without also entailing evil upon this country. The hon. Member for Marylebone stated very fairly the evil which the enormous immigration of diseased persons into some of the seaport towns inflicted upon the ratepayers of this country. By enabling the Irish proprietors to devote all their energies to the improvement of their estates and the condition of the peasantry, and the finding of employment for their poor, they would be saving this country the infliction of disease, and the many evils which would be entailed upon us by the extensive immigration of a starving people. The Irish proprietors were, he believed, finding employment for their poor to a very considerable extent; and at the present moment, when they were barely recovering from the infliction of the last year, and were exerting themselves to promote the future prosperity of their country by an outlay of money in giving employment, he thought that if they imposed this tax on Ireland, they would discourage those efforts, they would leave the evil of pauperism in Ireland without even the commencement of an effectual remedy; and in the end they themselves would suffer that which the hon. Member for Marylebone had stated as the grievous burden imposed upon the ratepayers of this country by the efforts made for the relief of the Irish pauper immigrants. These were the grounds on which his noble Friend had stated that he was prepared to resist the imposition of an income-tax on Ireland at the present time, and these were the grounds which he had on a former occasion stated to the House. He thought that they were quite sufficient to justify the Government in refraining from the imposition of the proposed tax, so far as regarded Ireland this year; and having thus briefly stated them to the House, he would not go into any further reasons for the course the Government intended to pursue. He would not go into the reasons derived from the articles of Union, to which he did not attach any importance. He believed it was perfectly competent to Parliament to impose that or any other tax upon Ireland, without the slightest infringement of the articles of Union, or of the treaty to which his hen. Friend seemed to attach as much importance—the Treaty of Limerick. Neither did he think it necessary to go into the subject of the expense of collection, or the amount that would be produced by the tax. In the circumstances in which Ireland was at present placed, it would be a hardship to inflict this additional burden upon her; and it would be prejudicial to the interests of the empire at large, because we should discourage that enterprise and improvement from which alone we could hope to see that country placed in a situation to bear those burdens which, he fully admitted, one year with another, she ought to bear.

MR. HORSMAN

was perfectly willing, considering the permanent poverty of Ireland, and the nature of its recent temporary distressed condition, to make any allowance which could reasonably be asked for that country. He could not but agree with his right hon. Friend in the statement made at the commencement of his speech, that it was on no principle of justice, if the question were taken upon that basis alone, that the Government could impose an income-tax upon England, and refuse to impose it upon Ireland. He had felt that this was really the case when this subject was before the House on a previous occasion, and he should now give a vote similar to the one he then gave; but he could not help feeling that, after all, the arguments of his right hon. Friend had been condensed into two words by the hon. Member for Donegal, when he said that the whole appeal on this occasion was an appeal ad misericordiam. He regretted that when the hon. Member for Marylebone spoke of the Irish Members and turned the attention of the House to Irish affairs, any single syllable should have fallen from him reflecting on those whose position was one of very great difficulty. Knowing the generosity of the Irish character, he felt that they acted on the principle of doing to others as they would be done by themselves; and, knowing the acuteness of the Irish character, he felt confident that, entertaining that principle, they could not but feel, on a question on which public opinion in Ireland was so united, that it would be impossible for them to come down there, in a compact and united body, to support the Minister merely on a tax on income with regard to which there was not much difference of opinion in England. There was great injustice in this tax, which the great majority of the Irish Members had assisted to impose on them, though they did not feel the annoyance themselves. He entirely condemned any feeling tending towards retaliation; but he thought that, in that respect at least, the House was placed in a difficult position. He thought that if any of their constituencies were to say to them, "We have heard that a large body of Irish Members came down to assist the Minister in the imposition of a tax upon us, and our only possible chance now of discontinuing this impost or making it now good, is to make it the interest of those Gentlemen to get rid of the injustice by imposing it upon themselves;"—as Ireland was exempted from the operation of the tax, he confessed that if such an appeal were made to him by his constituency, he could not resist it; and it would not appear to him as a matter of retaliation, but of self-defence. The Irish Members did not upon this question remain inactive at a distance, as many of them had done on other questions during the present Session (he did not say that as a reproach to them); but when the tax was proposed, they all swarmed together in the House a compact and united body. [An Hon. MEMBER: Not all united.] Not altogether united, for he believed that seven of their number had voted against the tax, whilst sixty-three of them voted for it. He did not wish to see it imposed on them as a retaliation for that, but merely as a matter of self-defence; and in order to obtain justice for themselves, they must cry out first for justice to Ireland. He thought that they ought not to be allowed to continue an impost by the support of Gentlemen who were themselves exempted from its operation. He confessed that he thought the present time afforded an admirable opportunity of carrying into effect the principle of taxation broached the other night by the right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge. When the House was discussing the question of the income-tax with its inequality and injustice, the right hon. Gentleman broached the theory that all taxation of any kind was unjust, and that the manner of remedying one injustice was to balance it by another, so that, according to the theory of the right hon. Gentleman, if they had an immense injustice pressing on the people of England, the best way of remedying that injustice would be to impose a similar one on the people of Ireland. According to the right hon. Gentleman, the system of taxation being altogether one of injustice, which was relieved by further acts of injustice, it was clear that the greater the extent of injustice the more perfect the system became, and the taxation would be most equally balanced when injustice was most fully extended. The present occasion was most admirably adapted for carrying that principle into effect, and the example would have a much more salutary effect than the precept. He did own that there were some grounds on which he regretted extremely the vote he was about to give. He knew well the difficulties which the Government of Ireland imposed not only on the Ministers of the Crown, but also on that particular part of the Government which might be said to be resident in Ireland. He knew the admirable manner in which the present Lord Lieutenant of Ireland fulfilled the duties of his painful position. He knew that his Government was as moderate and conciliatory as it was firm, and it was gaining popularity as much by its wisdom as its conciliation. He knew the advantage taken of every vote given in Parliament, and every speech made in Parliament by certain disaffected parties, who endeavoured to arouse the hostility of the Irish people, by telling them that the Government of England showed a determination to oppress and injure them. He knew that if they succeeded in extending this tax to Ireland, it would very much increase the difficulties of the Irish Government. The difficulty which presented itself to him was, that the system of tranquillity preserved in Ireland was, to a certain extent, dependent on an individual, and that it was so far superficial as to give merely present tranquillity instead of a permanent peace. It was on the administration of the Government of the day that this advantage depended, and not on such a system of permanent legislation as would ensure the uninterrupted maintenance of tranquillity. But he must also say, that in giving this vote he gave it not upon the principle of the income-tax, but upon a point which he considered to be purely one of detail. In doing so he did not think he was taking a part of which the Government had the right to take the view which the noble Lord at the head of the Government had propounded the other night. In that clear and manly speech which the noble Lord had made on Monday night, in which he carried with him the feelings and sympathies of the House, he did put a construction upon the votes of the minority which he, as one of that minority, did not feel had been rightly applied. If their vote had been on the principle of the tax, upon the question of allowing the Government to impose that tax; and if, when it was felt that the finances of the country required that aid; if they had, under such circumstances, voted against the Government, then, he admitted, that would have been a hostile vote, amounting to a declaration of want of confidence in the Government, and the noble Lord would have been right in the view he took. But on a question of detail as to whether the great inequality of the tax could be remedied, and on the consideration of whether the tax should be continued for one or for three years, he felt that, it being entirely a question of detail, it was one upon which he might vote, as any other Member would vote on a question before the House, without its being imputed to him that he and his friends were hostile to the Government, which he and others were far from feeling. So far from any such feeling influencing his vote on that occasion, he agreed with what had been said by an hon. Gentleman in that discussion—that the time had arrived which required on the part of every man the exercise of great forbearance, for if they looked at home they found our finances deranged with a deficient Exchequer and an increasing expenditure, our commerce depressed, the cost of our armaments increased since 1835 by 7,000,000l. or 8,000,000l., our Army increased by 60,000 men, our general expenditure and burdens increased to such an extent as to require to be defrayed by the imposition of a war tax. If we looked abroad, we saw one country, the nearest to us, in a state of disturbance; those disturbances were gradually spreading, and the prospect was darkening rather than brightening. He did not agree with the hon. Baronet, who seemed to think that the late events might prove dangerous to this country, because for his own part he believed that for many years there had never been a period when our relations with France were so little likely to be disturbed. He believed that, so far from danger being apprehended from the spread of French principles, we were in this country more safe from them. He believed that we had two safeguards—first, in the feelings of the masses themselves, who had more freedom, with a better Government, than was to be found in any other country in Europe—the expression of opinion was more free. Another safeguard was, that in France there were the perpetual divisions of property, always creating a popular democracy, which was deprived of that high conservative character which distinguished the system of England. Still, he admitted, that we had great difficulties to meet. He admitted they ought to do their utmost to make the Government as strong as possible; but the time had come when the Government should well consider the relation between the governing and the governed body. The people should be led to the conviction that in respect to everything relating to the impost of additional burdens, every measure was brought forward in a well-considered spirit, and would not lightly be withdrawn. He agreed with the hon. Member for West-bury, that not only were the people at one time ready to submit to the income-tax for three years, but he believed at the commencement of the Parliament, this Session, there were few Gentlemen who did not believe it would be increased to 5 per cent. There were few who were not prepared for that increase.

COLONEL MURE

said: The opinion which I have long entertained, and which has frequently been advocated by very eminent authorities in this House, is, that the only effectual basis of real or permanent amelioration in the condition of Ireland, must be to place that country, in all practical and essential respects, both as to constitu- tional privileges and constitutional liabilities on an equal footing with the other portions of the kingdom to which it is united. In respect to constitutional privileges, I am not aware that there now remains any substantial ground of complaint to the people of Ireland; or, if there be, I shall always, in my humble capacity, be most ready to contribute to its removal. But in regard to financial liabilities, I feel sure that there exists in the exemptions adverted to in the Motion of the hon. Member for Marylebone, a very serious cause of complaint to the people of England and Scotland, and one, moreover, at least as detrimental to the real interests of Ireland herself as of the rest of the empire. I believe that all such exemptions, accorded to one portion of a nation, from the ordinary burdens to which the remainder of the nation is subjected, are as injurious to those who appear to be favoured, as to those on whom the additional charge of taxation is thrown. On the one hand, a sense of the injustice committed tends to create a feeling of sourness and ill-will incompatible with that national unity which must always be indispensable to national prosperity; on the other, the boon itself, however specious in appearance, produces in the long run little other effect than that of fostering and encouraging the spirit of indolence and improvidence, which has long proved a main obstacle to the welfare and improvement of Ireland. Had Ireland, from the first period of her union with Great Britain, been taxed as England and Scotland are taxed, Irishmen would have exerted themselves with the same industry and enterprise as Englishmen and Scotchmen, to provide the means of payment. And had she, under such circumstances, been visited by any great calamity, such as that which recently afflicted her—and had a proposal been made by the Government to relieve her for a time of a portion of those burdens which pressed most severely on her population, there can be little doubt but that such a proposal would have been both readily and graciously responded to by Parliament. But the reverse has lately been the case. The additional prominence which has been given, through the medium of that very calamity, to this most unpopular privilege, has had the effect of holding it up to the public view in a still more odious light than that in which it has hitherto been contemplated; and although it did not dry up the sources of public charity, has most effectually chilled the hand by which it was bestowed. And I can speak from my own experience, as can probably other Members who have had opportunity of sounding the feelings of a numerous constituency on this subject, that this grievance has proved—and unless a remedy be provided will continue to prove—an insuperable bar, not only to the spread of all genuine sympathy on the part of the British public with the distresses of Ireland, but to all cordial co-operation in the means for their alleviating or removing them. But it has been said, that the resources of Ireland are completely dried up by the late agricultural crisis—that the proprietors of that country have not the means of paying the tax, even if imposed—and that it would therefore be as impolitic as ungenerous to select this particular juncture for its imposition. There are, however, several considerations which indispose me to admit this plea of inability to pay in consequence of the late potato famine. I would beg to remind the House, that that calamity was not confined to Ireland, but spread also over a great part of the Highlands and northern districts of Scotland. I, at least, as a Scotch Member of this House, cannot forget that the population of those districts were subjected to quite as severe a share of the common affliction as any part of Ireland. I cannot forget that numbers of public spirited proprietors in those districts were reduced to the verge of ruin, or even to actual ruin, by their patriotic efforts to administer to the necessities of their suffering fellow-citizens. I cannot forget, that while no portion of the subsidies so lavishly voted by this House for the relief of the famine found its way to Scotland, no Motion was ever made for a remission of the income-tax to the suffering proprietors of that country. In the midst of their distress, they were taxed to the full amount of their unpaid rentals for their share in the relief which was sent to their untaxed neighbours on the other side of the Channel. Their assessment was not only levied, but paid; and if they were able to pay during the very acme and climax of their misfortune, how can the excuse of inability be admitted in favour of Ireland, now that the pressure of the distress has subsided? But besides, there seems to be some misapprehension as to the meaning of the term Irish property. People seem to think that Irish property consists merely of a certain number of distressed landed estates, ill-managed and mortgaged to the last shilling. It seems to be forgotten, that Ireland contains not only various rich and thriving manufacturing and commercial towns, but a splendid capital, full of wealthy fundholders, bankers, merchants, and public functionaries, drawing large salaries out of the public treasury of the empire. What possible reason can be assigned why these persons should not be subjected to the same charges as the same classes in this country? Although, therefore, I should upon the whole have preferred that the Motion of the hon. Member for Marylebone should have been so worded as to take effect after the lapse of another year's interval, yet, in a division upon the present question, were I to vote for exempting either the landed proprietors of Ireland, or the wealthy citizens of Dublin and Belfast, from those obligations which have been so rigorously enforced in the case of my own immediate fellow-citizens, under such painful circumstances, I should consider myself guilty of an act of treachery, both towards those fellow-citizens, and to the principles of justice and sound financial policy.

MR. E. B. ROCHE

had heard, with considerable regret, the speech of the hon. Member for Cockermouth, who complained of a certain number of Irish Members who had voted for imposing upon the people of England this unjust, unfair, and iniquitous tax. It was not for him to express an opinion upon the conduct of the Irish Members, because he had differed from them, and voted with the hon. Member for Cockermouth. But, if it was unjust and unfair in those Gentlemen to impose this tax upon the people of England, let him ask his hon. Friend if it would not be much more unjust and unfair in him now to turn round and vote for imposing upon the people of Ireland that tax which he admitted to be unjust when imposed on the people of England? His hon. Friend the Member for Cockermouth, as well as the hon. Baronet the Member for Essex, had been very smart in commenting upon the conduct of certain parties in Ireland; but let him tell them that, no matter how eloquently Mr. Mitchell might write, and Mr. Dillon might speak, they might depend upon it that such acts as they and the hon. Member for Marylebone were about to perform that night would cause more disaffection and lasting discontent than all the writings or the speeches of Young Ireland. If this tax was unjust towards England, it was doubly unjust towards Ireland. By the articles of Union it was laid down that Ireland should be taxed only in fair proportion to England; whereas now, in point of fact, Ireland paid more than its fair proportion of taxation. The hon. Member for Marylebone, in pointing out the parties who ought to be called upon to pay this tax in Ireland, had spoken of cotter agents. Now, with all his knowledge of Ireland, he confessed he had never heard this term before; but he supposed the hon. Member meant process servers. But could the hon. Member suppose that these men were paid 150l. a year? Why, he would venture to say that 20l. a year was the highest salary any of them received. Then the hon. Baronet the Member for Essex had talked of the Treaty of Limerick and the Treaty of Union as if they meant the same thing. That was a specimen of English knowledge and English legislation with regard to Ireland. He wished to say a word or two upon the subject of the Irish Government, because the noble Lord at the head of the Government, in his speech the other night, misrepresented—he was sure unintentionally—what he had said previously. The noble Lord had said that he (Mr. Roche) accused the Irish Government of gagging the press. He never said anything of the kind, for he too well knew the fact was quite the contrary. He admitted that he spoke under feelings of strong excitement; but what he meant to say was, that he understood from the public prints that the Irish Government was about to take measures for the suppression of public opinion, and he wished to express his disapprobation of that course as both unwise and imprudent. He was happy to say, that up to this time he never had any reason to find fault with the conduct of Lord Clarendon in Ireland. He had occasion once before to speak in terms of praise of the noble Lord, and he would still do so; but at the same time he must deplore what he thought was a change of policy in the Irish Government—a disposition to resort to and depend upon physical force, and not upon public opinion—for his deliberate opinion was, that the Government which did that would not be based upon a safe or sure foundation. But while he deplored this on the one hand, he equally deplored the strong and exciting language which had been used in Ireland on the other. The noble Lord at the head of the Government had maintained that no country could be in a flourishing condition which did not contain free institutions. Now, would any man say that Ireland enjoyed the same extent of free institutions that England did? Look at their corporation reform—what a miserable instalment it was! Look at the county of Cork, which he had the honour to represent, with a population of 800,000, and only 3,000 voters. When, therefore, the hon. Baronet the Member for Essex called upon them to shut up Conciliation Hall, he would say, for one, that he was ready to join with the hon. Baronet in pacifying the country, and in turning attention to the development of the industrial resources of Ireland; but then it must be upon one condition—they must be prepared to grant to the people of Ireland a full and free representation—they must concede to them a direct control over their own funds, and their own taxation—or, in other words, to use the words of the hon. Member for Cockermouth—"English Members must be prepared to do to Ireland as they would wish others to do to them."

MR. BANKES

admitted, that the hon. Member who had just spoken was in a different position from that of most of the other Irish Members; and if all the others had acted as he had done, there would have been a greater difficulty on his mind as to the course which he ought to pursue. He might then have been prepared to say, with the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that, taking into account the present circumstances of Ireland, it would not be expedient to impose this tax for the present year. But as the majority in the division of the other evening was largely composed of Irish Members, and, as the tax was now likely to be permanent, or at least certainly for the next three years, they were compelled now to decide the question, one way or the other, shall this tax, or shall it not, be chargeable over the whole British empire? It might have been reasonably supposed, from what was stated by the noble Lord at the head of the Government, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in reference to the finding of a substitute for the annual vote on the sugar duties, that the proposal to vote the income-tax for one year might have been accepted. The noble Lord, upon being asked what annual tax he proposed to substitute in lieu of the sugar duties, said— I do not propose to vary in any respect the constitutional practice of having a large and considerable amount of yearly income subject to an annual vote, and I shall, therefore, propose some other source of revenue, which I shall state before the resolutions are formed into a Bill. Looking at that declaration, he thought he had a right to entertain a feeling of surprise, and right to express it, at hearing the other night the noble Lord declare that he would stake his continuance in office (involving, perhaps, the safety of the country) if he did not carry the income-tax, not as an income-tax, but as one for three years, nay, probably as a permanent tax. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was equally implicated with the noble Lord. When speaking of the sugar duties, he said— I take the opportunity of answering a question put to me early in the Session, as to whether I intend to propose an annual tax in lieu of the sugar duties. Hon. Gentlemen will recollect that we have now a duty which must be renewed next year, namely, the income-tax, and therefore that will confer the full advantage of an annual duty, and it is not my intention to propose to substitute, at present, any annual tax in lieu of the sugar duties. And why did the hon. Gentleman adopt that course? For this reason, that the income-tax would require to be renewed in a year, thus giving all the advantage which was understood to arise from voting an annual tax. Well, that period has come round, and a proposal has been made to vote the tax for a year; but the noble Lord at the head of the Government, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, declare, that if the proposal be carried, they will resign their offices. That was the position in which matters stood—a position inconvenient to the country, inconvenient to the House, and, above all, inconvenient to the hon. Members for Ireland, as giving rise to the present question. He could assure the hon. Gentleman who represented the large constituency of the county of Cork, that he and those who coincided with him in opinion, were as much the friends of Ireland as he himself was, and regretted as much as he could the necessity which existed for raising the question. It was no fault of theirs. The permanency of the income-tax was freely spoken of. In fact, it followed as a necessary consequence from the declarations of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth. What did that right hon. Gentleman say? Something to this effect—"Until my system of taxation succeed, which is the free-trade system—it may succeed sooner or later—but until it does succeed, we must go on with this system of taxation, and you must bide your time for deliverance from it." For his part, he was not willing to bide his time, for he had not confidence in the free-trade system. The hon. Member for Montrose did not seem to be full of confidence himself; for, instead of biding his time in patience and in hope, he moved that the tax should only be renewed for a year, and he was happy to vote with him. He could assure the House that that vote was mainly given with reference to Ireland, for he new that the present question must inevitably arise from the proposal which Ministers had made in reference to the renewal of the tax. The question had been forced upon the House by the Government, and the conclusion at which he had arrived was to vote for the proposition of the hon. Baronet. He felt that the tax was of such a kind that it could not with justice be placed upon England and Scotland while Ireland was exempted.

COLONEL DUNNE

, in reference to what had been said about the inconsistency of the Irish Members voting for the continuance of the income-tax as regarded England and Scotland, while they opposed its extension to Ireland, begged to say that he did not regard himself as an Irish Member merely, but as a Member of the Imperial Parliament. He did not consider it to be his duty to consult the wishes of the majority of the English Members, but to decide for himself. The hon. and gallant Member then proceeded to adduce instances to show that English Members did not, on all occasions, consult the wishes of Irish Members, when called upon to deal with Irish questions. He dwelt particularly upon the hostile spirit displayed in connexion with the passing of the poor-law, and the recent resistance to the proposal which was made for a Committee to inquire into the working of that law. It was impossible that Ireland could support now, or for a long time to come, the burden of the income-tax. But there were other reasons besides inability which gave Ireland a good claim to exemption. The corn law was repealed mainly with the view of conferring a benefit upon the manufacturing interests of England. He did not pass any opinion as to whether that hope was likely to be realised; but he knew that that repeal had caused a balance of loss of three millions to Ireland, and that, he thought, ought to be taken as an equivalent for the income-tax. Mr. O'Connell and the great majority of the Irish Members assisted in bringing about free trade in corn, not because the change was likely to benefit Ireland, but because it was understood to be for the benefit of England. The hon. and gallant Member adduced a number of figures to show that Ireland derived comparatively little benefit from the great items of expenditure incurred in maintaining the colonies, paying for the wars undertaken to protect and promote English commerce, &c., and concluded by remarking that he denied the right of English Members to get up in their places and say that Irish Members had inflicted an injury upon their country because they had voted honestly.

MR. NEWDEGATE

, who spoke amidst interruption, was understood to say that trade was prosperous in 1845, but it was the reverse in 1848. On all occasions where the interests of Ireland were involved, he had voted with the sincere desire of promoting those interests. With this view he had opposed the repeal of the corn law, believing that Ireland derived benefit from its existence; and he was not prepared to continue to press for the payment of the advances which had been made if an easier adjustment could be effected. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when speaking of the cruelty which would be inflicted upon Ireland by the extension of the income-tax, ought to have recollected that he was demanding payment of the advances which had been made to aid that country in the hour of her distress. His own opinion was that, if the income-tax was taken in lieu of the payment of the advances, great relief would be the consequence, because the burden would not fall exclusively upon land, but would extend over all other interests. The necessities of Ireland had thrown her upon the resources of the empire; but he thought it would be for her benefit to submit to a tax which would fall upon the classes best able to pay, than to exact money from the weakest, the poorest, the most distressed, and, he must say, the most miserable classes in Ireland. The hon. and gallant Member (Col. Dunne) had spoken of free trade having been adopted for the benefit of the manufacturing interests of England; but what had been the result? He stood there as the representative of an interest which had suffered from the operation of free trade; and he begged to toll the hon. and gallant Member that if the Irish people had been under the necessity of living on charity, the population of Coventry had been equally de- pendent on charity for the means of preserving life. He had voted for the imposition of the income-tax for three years on the people of that town; and such being the case, he would not hesitate to vote for the extension of the same tax to Ireland.

MR. WAKLEY

next rose to address the House, but was for some time unable to proceed from the impatience of hon. Members who were anxious to go to a division. In 1845, the hon. Member said, he voted against the proposition to impose an income-tax upon Ireland, but in 1848 he was prepared to vote for it, and he would state to the House why. They were placed in a very different position now than what they were in in 1845. At that period it was determined that it should only he a temporary tax; but now they heard from the chiefs of all parties that it was to he a permanent tax. Now, he could not go before his constituents as an honest representative and say to them that he thought it was just that they should be taxed for the purpose of relieving the landed property of Ireland. The gallant Colonel (Colonel Conolly) said in 1845— He would state the grounds on which he approved the continuance of the income-tax—not for Ireland, but for England. The income-tax had the effect of greatly improving public credit, and the consequence was, that not only had the nation been relieved from the payment of a large amount of interest on the public debt, but the general rate of interest had been greatly reduced. He felt himself particularly called on to state that great benefit had been conferred on the country whence he came by that tax, for the effect had been greatly to relieve the distressed landed interest. Numbers of landed proprietors in Ireland had been enabled to relieve their estates. No doubt of it. Why should a man who had l,000l. a year in England pay the tax, and a man who had the same income in Ireland be exempted? Why should a poor widow having 150l. in England be liable, and a man having 10,000l. in Ireland not be taxed at all? The tradesman who had the greatest difficulty in paying his way, the professional man who could not dispose of a life-interest in his income, had in England to pay the tax which did not touch the landed proprietor in Ireland. They must endeavour to fasten it on Ireland, that the Irish Members might make common cause with them against its permanent imposition. The hon. Baronet the Member for Waterford (Sir H. W. Barron), voted with the majority for fastening the blister upon them; he would apply it to the hon. Baronet, who, he hoped, would smart under the application. It was unjust to subject the industrious people of this country to a tax of which it could be said that it had "greatly relieved the landed interest of Ireland." The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1845, said, also— He remembered that the right hon. Gentleman stated that it was a tax only to be imposed in time of war or great necessity; and, if imposed, it would be unjust if not imposed on Ireland as well as England. He had never been able to discover any reason why an Irish gentleman of 5,000l. a year should not pay this tax as well as an English gentleman with 5,000l. a year. And then the right hon. Gentleman went on— The rich Irish were exempt from the assessed taxes. If there be any one country in the world in which it is desirable that taxes imposed should rest exclusively on the rich, and not on the poor, it was in Ireland. As the tax was to be permanent, and there was no chance of getting rid of it without the aid of the Irish Members, he felt bound, in discharge of his duty to his constituents and the country, to give his vote for the Motion of the hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone. The people of England would be most indignant at the conduct of hon. Members if they imposed a tax on industrious people here while they exempted idle people in Ireland. Hon. Gentlemen might talk of poor-rates in Ireland amounting to 2s. or 2s. 6d. in the pound. Were they aware that in England there were parishes where the rates were 10s. in the pound? He had a letter from a gentleman residing at Honiton, in Devonshire, which stated that he paid 68l. of direct taxes, and his rates were 6s. in the pound. He sincerely hoped the Motion would be carried, notwithstanding the feeling evinced by hon. Members from the sister kingdom.

COLONEL CONOLLY

observed, that allusion had been made to a speech of his in 1845. But the hon. Gentleman had chosen to stop where he pleased, in the middle of the speech, so that the meaning was perverted.

The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

must say a few words. What he had said was not precisely what the hon. Gentleman had imputed to him. The hon. Gentleman had given the House a lecture on the organ of justice. He had to make the same remark as the hon. Gentleman opposite, that the hon. Member for Finsbury had stopped where he chose and where it suited his purpose, omitting a portion of what had been said, and so conveying an impression opposite to that which he intended to convey. He was arguing against the position of the right hon. Gentleman then Member for Newark, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth, that the tax was one pressing exclusively on the rich, and not on the poor; and his statement was, that it seemed inconsistent with that position to impose the tax upon England and exempt Ireland, because, if there was a country where taxes should rest entirely on the rich, it was Ireland. He urged that the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman in exempting Ireland was not very consistent. That such was a correct representation of the circumstances would appear from the fact that, when the Motion was proposed for imposing the tax on Ireland, he voted against it.

MR. MONSELL

wished to say a very few words, in the hope of showing that the arguments in favour of the non-imposition of this tax upon Ireland at this moment were not unjust. When the tax was imposed upon England in 1842 and 1845, certain boons were simultaneously conferred upon her productive industry, as was stated by the right hon. Baronet who introduced the tax; and the proofs that were given at the time that those boons were far more to the advantage of England than of Ireland, and that therefore the income-tax could not then be fairly placed upon Ireland, were stronger now than they were then. The hon. Gentleman illustrated this by a reference to the comparative duties on auctions, glass, and cottons; and, in reference to the repeal of the corn laws, observed, that England, being an importing country, necessarily derived greater benefits from their repeal than Ireland could, which was an exporting country. Ireland, too, in comparison with England, derived but very little advantage from the expenditure, in wages and so forth, under the naval and ordnance establishments. But there was one point which, he thought, had not been referred to, in connexion with this subject, viz., the probable amount that an income-tax would produce in Ireland—for he felt that if the House were to deal unjustly with Ireland in this matter, it would be doing very great injury to the interests of that part of the united Kingdom. Taking into account the great number of incomes in Ireland below 150l., and considering, into the bargain, the severe distress that weighed upon that country, it could not be calculated that the gross amount of the produce of an income-tax in Ireland would exceed 350,000l. a year; a very great portion of which, too, would be spent in the collection of the impost. In conclusion, he would only observe that he sincerely believed that it was for the interest of England to raise the condition of the people of Ireland, and in not pressing upon her a tax of this description. He should, therefore, vote in opposition to the Motion of the hon. Baronet.

MR. HUME

said, that whereas it had been the object of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down to show that Ireland had derived no benefit from the remission of the duties to which he had referred, yet what he had said went to show that she had had her proportionate advantage from such remission. Ireland, too, had made no more sacrifices than had the people of Scotland; it would be injustice of the worst description if one portion of the people of the empire were to be saddled with a tax in order to relieve the other from it. They ought to make the Irish pay all the taxes which they made England and Scotland pay, and then they would have a still stronger claim, with equal taxation, for an equal share of the privileges they asked for.

MR. REYNOLDS

rose and said, that, as the hon. Member for Montrose had claimed the privilege of speaking for Scotland, he claimed the privilege of saying a few words for Ireland. He had listened to all the speeches on the other side of the question, and he confessed that he had heard no argument in favour of the extension of an income-tax to Ireland, except that which was founded on the principle of uniformity. But he was surprised that a constitutional Member like the hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose, should say, "we cannot give you equality of rights, unless you will take at the same time equality of taxation." That, he must say, was a new doctrine in that House. When the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth first introduced the income-tax, he said that be exempted Ireland from its provisions because of her inability to pay it. That was his opinion in 1842; was it his opinion still? He wanted to ascertain whether Ireland had increased in prosperity since 1842? But Ireland was not quite so exempt from the payment of this tax as some imagined; for when the tax was imposed upon England, they had put an ingredient into the measure by means of which they increased the stamp duties in Ireland to 600,000l. They had, therefore, placed an income-tax on Ireland to that extent, to say nothing of the great amount in the shape of rents and mortgages that came from Ireland into this country, as well as of income-tax that was paid by Irish proprietors resident in England. But he wanted to know, after all, what there was that they had to tax in Ireland? If the fundholders, all he could say was that that money was held in such minute quantities that they could not get much in the shape of taxation out of that. But why not tax her commerce? She had none. Why not tax her manufactures? The answer was the same—she had none. The hon. Member for Montrose was a living monument of figures; but he defied him, nevertheless, to find any available property to tax in Ireland. Then they were told that the Irish had a right to be taxed; and so they were indirectly in the same degree as the English. The Irish people consumed 12,000,000l. of English manufacture's per annum. Who set the English looms and mines, and other branches of industrial employment, in motion but the Irish? Then, again, it was said that the Irish ought to be taxed, because they were an integral part of the British nation; but they were only so by name. The theory was excellent, but the practice most inharmonious; and, even up to this day, if the word "colony" were applied to Ireland it would be more applicable. Indeed, he would prefer her being a colony, than that she should be treated as she now was, under the pretence of her being an integral part of the British empire. Then, again, the hon. Member for Essex had charged it upon the Irish Members as a crime that they were unanimous on this question. He (Mr. Reynolds) could assure the hon. Baronet that their unanimity was almost perfect, and that the House would probably have more specimens of it before long. It was said in Ireland that misfortune made a man acquainted with strange bedfellows; but their misfortunes also taught them to forgive and to forget, and to combine for the good of their own country. But while they did that, he trusted that they would never combine to achieve a detriment to England, or to any other part of the empire. Out of the whole 105 Irish Members, there were few indeed that he felt he could not answer for on this point; and he therefore believed sincerely that the hon. Baronet had nothing to fear from this combination. But he had been asked why he voted the other evening for the extension of the tax to three years? and he would answer that question by putting another, "Why did 280 of the representatives of England set us the example?" That example was set; and the Irish Members followed it, upon the principle of man being an imitative animal. Besides that, he was in favour of direct taxation, in order to lighten the indirect burdens which pressed upon his poor countrymen, and to cheapen their tea, their sugar, their soap, and other articles of prime necessity. In conclusion, he expressed a belief that in giving his vote on the former occasion, and in giving the one he was about to give, he was acting in perfect consistency.

MR. MUNTZ

said, that no one had been more liberal in his sentiments towards Ireland than he had. In a court of law, the man who knew nothing of the matter in dispute was, of course, not heard; and the Irish Members in the recent division were the very last persons who should have ventured to vote. He would not have approved of extending the income-tax to Ireland, had such a proposal been made in the first instance; but, after the course taken by the Gentlemen from the other side of the water, he felt that he could not do otherwise than support the Motion of the hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone.

SIR A. BROOKE

rose only to rebut the charge which had been brought against the Irish Members by the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz), of having combined with the Government to throw on England a tax in which they were themselves in no way concerned. Now, he (Sir A. Brooke) had been a Member of the House when the income-tax was originally proposed by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth, and he had then abstained from voting. He had taken the same course on each occasion when the subject was brought forward; and he should not have voted on Monday evening but for the observations of the hon. Member for Birmingham, and the threat, as it might be termed, of the hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone. It appeared to him to be a most unjustifiable, as it was a most unconstitutional, doctrine, to declare that Irish Members were not entitled to vote freely on English questions. This, in point of fact, was the strongest possible argument that English Members could assert in favour of the repeal of the Union. He had not voted in the majority, because he was anxious that Her Majesty's Government should remain where they were, though he believed it would be difficult to find a better Administration at present; but on the division that night had depended the continuance of the present Lord Lieutenant for Ireland in that office; and such was his opinion of the eminent services of Lord Clarendon, if the alternative were to be chosen, he would prefer submitting to a 3 or even a 5 per cent income-tax for Ireland rather than that the country should lose the ability and energy with which it was now governed. He would leave it to the good sense of English Gentlemen to reject the Motion of the hon. Baronet, and to refuse, at such a moment, to burden Ireland with fresh taxation.

MR. MUNTZ

explained: He had not meant to say that Irish Members were not entitled to vote on English questions; only that they ought not to have voted on this particular question.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 138; Noes 218: Majority 80.

List of the AYES.
Adair, H. E.	Deedes, W.
Adderley, C. B.	Deering, J.
Aglionby, H. A.	Denison, W. J.
Alcock, T.	D'Eyncourt, rt. hn. CT
Arkwright, G.	Disraeli, B.
Bagge, W.	Douglas, Sir C. E.
Bankes, G.	Drummond, H. H.
Barkly, H.	Duff, G. S.
Benett, J.	Duke, Sir J.
Bennet, P.	Duncan, Visct.
Bentinck, Lord G.	Duncan, G.
Beresford, W.	Duncombe, hon. O.
Birch, Sir T. B.	Duncuft, J.
Boldero, H. G.	Dundas, G.
Bouverie, hon. E. P.	East, Sir J. B.
Bowring, Dr.	Fergus, J.
Bramston, T. W.	Floyer, J.
Bright, J.	Forster, M.
Brisco, M.	Fox, W. J.
Brooke, Lord	Fuller, A. E.
Brothertod, J.	Gardner, R.
Bruce, Lord E.	Gaskell, J. M.
Buck, L. W.	Glyn, G. C.
Bulkeley, Sir R. B. W.	Gordon, Adm.
Busfeild, W.	Greenall, G.
Carew, W. H. P.	Grenfell, C. P.
Cholmeley, Sir M.	Grenfell, C. W.
Christy, S.	Hastie, A.
Clay, J.	Heald, J.
Clay, Sir W.	Henley, J. W.
Cobbold, J. C.	Hervey, Lord A.
Codrington, Sir W.	Hildyard, T. B. T.
Coke, hon. E. K.	Hollond, R.
Coles, H. B.	Hope, Sir J.
Colvile, C. R.	Hornby, J.
Compton, H. C.	Horsman, E.
Copeland, Ald.	Houldsworth, T.
Cowan, C.	Hudson, G.
Crawford, W. S.	Hume, J.

Humphery, Ald.	Salwey, Col.
Kershaw, J.	Sandars, G.
Knox, Col.	Scholefield, W.
Langston, J. H.	Sibthorp, Col.
Law, hon. C. E.	Sidney, Ald.
Lockhart, A. E.	Smith, rt. hon. R. V.
Lowther, H.	Smith, J. B.
Lushington, C.	Smollett, A.
Mackenzie, W. F.	Spooner, R.
M'Gregor, J.	Stansfield, W. R. C.
Masterman, J.	Strickland, Sir G.
Matheson, A.	Stuart, Lord D.
Matheson, Col.	Stuart, H.
Mitchell, T. A.	Stuart, J.
Moffatt, G.	Sturt, H. G.
Morris, D.	Tancred, H. W.
Mowatt, F.	Thicknesse, R. A.
Muntz, G. F.	Thompson, Col.
Mure, Col.	Thornely, T.
Newdegate, C. N.	Tollemache, J.
Pattison, T.	Trelawny, J. S.
Pearson, C.	Vivian, J. E.
Pechell, Capt.	Vyse, R. H. R. H.
Peel, Col.	Waddington, D.
Pigot, Sir R.	Wakley, T.
Pilkington, J.	Wawn, J. T.
Pinney, W.	Williams, J.
Powell, Col.	Wilson, J.
Renton, J. C.	Yorke, hon. E. T.
Ricardo, O.	TELLERS.
Rice, E. R.	Hall, Sir B.
Robinson, G. R.	Tyrell, Sir J. T.

List of the NOES.
Abdy, T. N.	Cavendish, hon. C. C.
Adair, R. A. S.	Cavendish, hon. G. H.
Adare, Visct.	Charteris, hon. F.
Alexander, N.	Chichester, Lord J. L.
Anson, Visct.	Childers, J. W.
Anstey, T. C.	Clements, hon. C. S.
Archdall, Capt, M.	Clerk, rt. hon. Sir G.
Armstrong, Sir A.	Cocks, T. S.
Armstrong, R. B.	Cole, hon. H. A.
Arundel, and Surrey, Earl of	Conolly, Col.
	Corbally, M. E.
Ashley, Lord	Corry, rt. hon. H. L.
Bagshaw, J.	Cowper, bon. W. F.
Baillie, H. J.	Craig, W. G.
Baring, rt. hon. F. T.	Damer, hon. Col.
Baring, T.	Davie, Sir H. R. F.
Barnard, E. G.	Dawson, hon. T. V.
Barron, Sir H. W.	Denison, J. E.
Bellew, R. M.	Devereux, J. T.
Berkeley, hon. Capt.	Dod, J. W.
Berkeley, hon. H. F.	Drumlanrig, Visct.
Blackall, S. W.	Drummond, H.
Blake, M. J.	Duckworth, Sir J. T. B.
Bourke, R. S.	Dundas, Adm.
Bowles, Adm.	Dundas, Sir D.
Boyle, hon. Col.	Dunne, F. P.
Brockman, E. D.	Ebrington, Visct.
Brooke, Sir A. B.	Edwards, H.
Browne, R. D.	Elliot, hon. J. E.
Bruce, C. L. C.	Emlyn, Visct.
Buller, Sir J. Y.	Evans, W.
Buller, C.	Fagan, W.
Bunbury, W. M.	Fagan, J.
Bunbury, E. H.	Ferguson, Sir R. A.
Callaghan, D.	Ffolliott, J.
Campbell, hon. W. F.	Filmer, Sir E.
Cardwell, E.	FitzPatrick, rt. hon. J.
Carter, J. B.	Fitzwilliam, hon. G. W.

Foley, J. H. H.	O'Brien, J.
Fortescue, C.	O'Brien, Sir L.
Fortescue hon. J. W.	O'Brien, T.
Fox, R. M.	O'Connell, M. J.
Fox, S. W. L.	Ord, W.
Gibson, rt. hon. T. M.	Owen, Sir J.
Gladstone, rt. hon. W. E.	Paget, Lord A.
Gooch, E. S.	Paget, Lord C.
Gore, W. R. O.	Paget, Lord G.
Goulburn, rt. hon. H.	Palmerston, Visct.
Gower, hon. F. L.	Parker, J.
Graham, rt. hon. Sir J.	Patten, J. W.
Greene, J.	Perfect, R.
Greene, T.	Peto, S. M.
Grey, rt. hon. Sir G.	Philips, Sir G. R.
Grey, R. W.	Pigott, F.
Grogan, E.	Plowden, W. H. C.
Grosvenor, Lord R.	Power, Dr.
Haggitt, F. R.	Power, N.
Hallyburton, Lord J. F.	Price, Sir R.
Hamilton, G. A.	Pusey, P.
Hamilton, J. H.	Raphael, A.
Hamilton, Lord C.	Rawdon, Col.
Hardcastle, J. A.	Repton, G. W. J.
Hay, Lord J.	Reynolds, J.
Hayes, Sir E.	Robartes, T. J. A.
Hayter, W. G.	Roche, E. B.
Heathcote, J.	Russell, F. C. H.
Heneage, G. H. W.	Rutherford, A.
Hodges, T. L.	Sadleir, J.
Hogg, Sir J. W.	Seymer, H. K.
Hood, Sir A.	Seymour, Sir H.
Howard, hon. C. W. G.	Shafto, R. D.
Ingestre, Visct.	Shelburne, Earl of
Inglis, Sir R. H.	Shirley, E. J.
Jermyn, Earl	Simeon, J.
Jervis, J.	Somerville, rt. hn. Sir W.
Jones, Capt.	Spearman, H. J.
Keogh, W.	Stanley, hon. E. J.
Keppel, hon. G. T.	Stanton, W. H.
Ker, R.	Staunton, Sir G. T.
Kildare, Marq of	Strutt, rt. hon. E.
Labouchere, rt. hon. H.	Stuart, Lord J.
Lascelles, hon. W. S.	Sullivan, M.
Lemon, Sir C.	Talbot, J. H.
Lewis, G. C.	Taylor, T. E.
Lindsay, hon. Col.	Tenison, E. K.
Littleton, hon. E. R.	Tennent, R. J.
Loch, J.	Trevor, hon. G. R.
Macnamara, Maj.	Turner, G. J.
M'Naghten, Sir E.	Tynte, Col. C. J. K.
M'Taggart, Sir J.	Urquhart, D.
Magan, W. H.	Vane, Lord H.
Meagher, T.	Verner, Sir W.
Mahon, The O'Gorman	Verney, Sir H.
Maitland, T.	Vesey, hon. T.
Manners, Lord G.	Walmsley, Sir J.
March, Earl of	Walpole, S. H.
Marshall, J. G.	Ward, H. G.
Marshall, W.	Watkins, Col. L.
Matheson, J.	Wellesley, Lord C.
Maule, rt, hon. F.	West, F. R.
Maxwell, hon. J. P.	Westhead, J. P.
Melgund, Visct.	Whitmore, T. C.
Milnes, R. M.	Williamson, Sir H.
Monsell, W.	Wilson, M.
Moore, G. H.	Wood, rt. hon. Sir C.
Morpeth, Visct.	Wood, W. P.
Mulgrave, Earl of	Wyld, J.
Napier, J.	Wyvill, M.
Norreys, Lord	TELLERS.
Norreys, Sir D. J.	Tufnell, H.
Nugent, Sir P.	Hill, Lord M.

House resumed.

House adjourned at half-past Twelve o'clock.