INCOME AND PROPERTY TAX COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 8 August 1851)

§ MR. WAKLEY
said, that the division which had taken place on the preceding evening upon the Motion of his hon. Friend (Mr. Hume) for printing the evidence taken before the Income Tax Committee, had ended in so unexpected and unsatisfactory a manner, that he felt himself called upon to renew the Motion. He should therefore move, that the evidence taken by the Income Tax Committee be laid upon the table of the House and printed. He thought it his duty to take the sense of the House upon this Motion, because he understood that evidence of great importance had been laid before the Committee, and he was quite sure that the additional evidence which would be adduced when the Committee met next Session would make a blue book of such enormous size that no one would be able to digest it (whatever their appetite) in time for legislation during the Session.

§ LORD JOHN RUSSELL
said, that though he was not a Member of the 1962 Income and Property Tax Committee, yet he was informed that the Committee had decided by a majority of seven to four against the publishing of the evidence in an incomplete manner, that evidence bearing upon two different questions, neither of which was closed by the Committee. He hoped, therefore, that the subject would be allowed to stand over until the next Session of Parliament.

§ MR. HUME
considered there was no one question of so much interest to the people as the manner in which taxes were raised. The taxes in this country were most unequally distributed. The poor were heavily oppressed, whilst the rich were permitted to escape. Those who prevented the evidence being printed, were those who were opposed to the principle of direct taxation; and they were aided by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who maintained that no amendment could be made in the present mode of collecting the Income Tax. He could not understand upon what ground the noble Lord at the head of the Government was opposed to the printing of the evidence that had been already taken.

§ MR. J. WILSON
said, that the Committee had been unable to proceed, in consequence of the illness of the chairman (Mr. Hume) in the midst of the first branch of the inquiry.

§ MR. HENLEY
hoped that, as a Member of the Committee, the House would be disposed to listen to him, especially as he had given no vote on the occasion when the Committee decided against printing the evidence. Owing to the temporary illness of their chairman (Mr. Hume), the honour had been conferred upon him of placing him in the chair. There were two branches of inquiry before the Committee—one was as to the mode of collecting the tax; and there were several valuable witnesses on that point, summoned from Birmingham and Manchester; but these gentlemen were unable readily to get such information as would render them capable of answering the questions which the Committee desired to put to them. They had not arrived in town when the Committee determined upon closing their labours for the Session. That was one reason that induced the Committee to decide against publishing the evidence. Another reason that led the Committee to the same conclusion was, that some hon. Members of the Committee requested that some gentlemen who were here from the United 1963 States, who had come to visit the Exhibition, and who were competent to give evidence as to the mode of taxing property in the United States, should be examined. The Committee, to suit the convenience of these gentlemen, went out of its way, and heard their evidence. There were, he thought, two gentlemen examined. This was a new branch of inquiry, and consequently opened a new branch of the subject. It was the consideration of these circumstances that led the Committee to decide against the publication of the evidence; and for that decision he would have given his vote if he had had the opportunity of doing so, because he felt it would be only throwing dust in the eyes of the public if the evidence were given in the imperfect form in which it had been collected.

§ MR. J. L. RICARDO
said, that the public were as well able to judge upon the matter of evidence as the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley). The public, he believed, would attach much more value to the evidence if it were now withheld from them, than it possibly might deserve. He did not think that evidence of any great importance in its present imperfect condition; but they might be sure that the public would conclude that there was something in it which the Government did not wish to publish, and in that case the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would find, in proposing his Budget next year, a greater difficulty in obtaining the Income Tax. He hoped the Government would reconsider this matter, as no evil could follow from publishing the evidence, and much evil might be the consequence of withholding it.