§ The following is the PROTEST of LORD MONTEAGLE, against the Third Beading of the EXCISE DUTIES ON SPIRITS BILL, July 4, 1853, page 1161.
§
DISSENTIENT—
Because the increased duty upon Irish spirits imposed by this Bill is contrary to the reason of the case, contrary to the highest authorities which have considered and reported on the question, and contrary to the experience of the last thirty years. It is against the reason of the case:
Because the low price of grain in Ireland, the abundance of fuel, the cheapness of the utensils used for illicit distillation, and the profit which can be realised by the smuggler, create motives to violate the law which have not been counteracted even by the severe injustice of the still-fine system and the employment of the troops, which dangerously affected military discipline, without suppressing frauds upon the revenue. — The increased duty upon Irish spirits is in contradiction to the highest authorities:
Because the Revenue Commission issued by the late Lord Liverpool's Government, and over which Lord Wallace presided, reported after full inquiry, "That if a higher duty than from 2s. 6d. to 3s. was put upon Irish spirits the licensed distiller could not enter into competition successfully with the illicit distiller;" and the Commissioners, therefore, recommended a reduction to that amount.
Because this opinion was confirmed by the Report of Sir Henry Parnell's Excise Commission, after a further experience of ten years. "There is a complete concurrence of opinion," it is stated in the Report, "that the practice of illicit distillation has almost uniformly kept pace with the advance of duty; that in 1823, when the great reduction of duty took place, the habits of the smuggler were nearly annihilated, and that the renewal and subsequent increase of these practices had been contemporaneous with the consecutive increases of duty in 1826 and 1830."The Commissioners proceed to express" their firm conviction of the necessity of retracing the steps taken in increasing
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the spirit duties, anticipating, from the reduction of duty, a general suppression of illicit distillation and a full compensation to the revenue.
Because the opinion thus given by eminent and impartial men, freed from political or party bias, has been confirmed by Members of successive Governments, acting under immediate Parliamentary responsibility—Lord Spencer, in proposing a reduction of the duty imposed in 1880, having stated, "That the Government in which he acted as Chancellor of the Exchequer had felt it their duty to consider the question with a view of ascertaining whether it might not be advisable by a diminution of duty to prevent illicit distillation, without exposing the revenue to much loss, while in future years the revenue would suffer no loss whatever.
Mr. Goulburn, in 1840, when resisting a proposal for augmenting the spirit duties to an amount 50 per cent below what is proposed by the present Bill, stated in like manner, that "he believed it had been established that, in proportion to the reduction of duty which had taken place, the amount of duty paid had augmented, and that the effect of increasing the duty had been to diminish consumption, and, consequently, to diminish revenue." With still greater authority, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1848, when proposing the repeal of an increased spirit duty, adopted on his own suggestion the previous year, the same statesman, referring to his original belief that, "with the means of prevention at the command of the Government, no great increase of illicit distillation would have taken place," admitted, likewise, "that the additional duty had led to a progressive increase of offences against the revenue, and that, on the ground of this increased immorality, he felt bound to recommend a repeal of the additional duty on Irish spirits.
Because these opinions, given by judicial officers, as well as by practical politicians, are confirmed by experience and the statistics of the case—the reduction of duty made in 1823 having increased the amount of duty-paid spirits from 3,300,000 gallons to 6,690,000 gallons, and the reduction of 1834 having in like manner produced
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a rise from 8,000,000 to 12,000,000; while the additional duty imposed in 1842 had acted in a contrary manner to the extent of 1,100,000 gallons, shown in a diminished receipt of revenue to the Treasury in a case where an augmentation of 250,000l. had been anticipated by the Government.
Because, in addition to these financial considerations, the increase of crime has been uniformly found to be the result of an increase of duty, the additional charge of 1s. imposed in 1842 having, within a single year, produced the following calamitous consequences:—
| Increase of detections from | 942 to 2,805 |
| Increase of prosecutions from | 331 to 1,239 |
| Increase of convictions from | 244 to 803 |
| Increase of prisoners in gaol (April 5) from | 84 to 368 |
§ Because the demoralisation accompanying so extensive a violation of the law was the more fatal when the smugglers thus convicted and imprisoned were necessarily brought into contact with convicts guilty of moral offences of a much deeper dye, and when it appears that in the county gaols of Leitrim, Donegal, and Mayo, provided with single cells for the reception of 79, 85, and 128 prisoners, 52, 57, and 76 prisoners have been confined at the same time for breaches of the revenue laws.
§ Because, while, as in 1830, the increased duty on Irish spirits was imposed and vindicated as a consequence of the repeal of the oppressive window tax, and while in 1842 it Was adopted as a substitute for a duty on income, on the present occasion it is combined both with an income tax and with a tax upon successions, pressing with peculiar force on Ireland, which is now only recovering from the effect of a famine unexampled in modern times, whereby in one single year an actual loss of 16,000,000l. accrued on a rated valuation of 18,000,000l.—a calamity which renders it the duty of the State to foster and encourage all the means of productive industry and improvement, and to avoid whatever may tend to create a disregard or violation of the law.
§ MONTEAGLE OF BRANDON.