THE PAPER DUTY.—RESOLUTION.

HC Deb 21 June 1858 vol 151 cc97-135

Order for Committee (Supply) read.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

MR. MILNER GIBSON

said, he rose to move an Amendment:— That this House is of opinion that the maintenance of the excise on paper, as a permanent source of revenue, would be impolitic, and that such financial arrangements ought to be made as will enable Parliament to dispense with that tax. He thought it might be right for him to say, in order to avoid being misunderstood, that in proposing the Resolution which he had placed upon the paper, it was not his intention to oppose the House going into Committee of Supply. It was immaterial whether his Resolution were carried or negatived, so far as regarded the subsequent going into Committee of Supply, as, he believed, that should it be the pleasure of the House to adopt the Resolution, a Motion could be made immediately afterwards to go into Supply. He was aware, that there was some difficulty with respect to a proposition of this kind, for he knew that many experienced Members entertained an objection to unofficial persons presuming to propose, in the form of a Motion, fiscal changes or remissions of taxation, and thought that such propositions should be left exclusively to financial Ministers. When that objection was urged upon the House on a former occasion he remembered that the present Chancellor of the Exchequer laid down this doctrine—that to hold that unofficial Members were to be precluded from making propositions of this kind was to maintain a very dangerous principle, which the House ought not to sanction. Recollecting well, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman objected altogether to that feeling being entertained against unofficial Members, he approached this question under the present Administration with more than usual confidence. He might be asked why he had not brought forward this proposition as a substantive Motion, instead of connecting it with a Vote in Supply. His reason was that he thought the subject to which his Motion related was intimately connected with the Resolution which was about to be moved in Committee of Supply, which was to the effect that a sum of money should be voted for the purpose of promoting education in England and Wales; for he believed that the repeal of a duty which stood in the way of the diffusion of knowledge was also a proposition for promoting education throughout the country. If he were to say that he had high authorities—many of them Members of that House—in favour of such a Motion as he was about to submit, every one must acknowledge the truth of his statement. In fact, if he were to mention the various distinguished persons who had voted for such a proposition he should trespass too long upon the time of the House. He was overwhelmed, as it were, with authorities in favour of his Motion. But the difficulty which he had always experienced was that, although all expressed themselves in favour of the Motion, he had never been able to induce them to agree to place their opinions in the form of a minute upon the Journals, and thus to take the first step towards carrying their views into practical legislation. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he knew, from previous votes and public statements, to be in favour of the Motion. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford had on many occasions in public also expressed himself in favour of such a proposition. In fact, he really had not found any enemy openly avow himself to be such, except the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (and perhaps the phrase was too strong to apply even to him), who had gone the length of saying that he considered the paper duty to be a good tax in itself, thereby implying that it ought to be continued as a permanent branch of our ordinary revenue, and that financial arrangements ought not to be made to enable Parliament to dispense with it. The House must observe, however, that he was not asking them to vote any repeal of taxation at this moment, and he did not wish them to disturb the financial arrangements of the present year; he only asked them to contradict by a vote the assertion that the paper duty was in itself a good source of taxation, and that its maintenance was consistent with the public welfare. He felt, if such a principle were laid down, that when the proper occasion arrived the Minister of the day—whoever he might be—would deem it to be his duty on general considerations of public policy to make a proposition to Parliament for the repeal of this tax. If he were to bring forward this Motion simply as a financial proposition for relieving the community of a certain amount of a mischievous kind of taxation, he should have a very good case to rest upon, putting aside altogether those important educational views which were connected with the subject. He believed that he could prove by past experience that taxation was one thing and revenue another, and that it was possible to repeal taxes, if it were done judiciously, without permanently injuring the public revenue. No one had more lucidly explained that doctrine to the House than the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford. He remembered the right hon. Gentleman telling the House that the late Sir R. Peel, during a period of eleven years, had repealed many taxes and imposed others, and that, although the balance of the remission of taxes amounted to £7,000,000 per annum, yet that at the end of the eleven years, instead of there being a loss to the public revenue, there had been an absolute gain of £5,000,000 per annum, showing that by a judicious selection of the taxes which were repealed lie had relieved the industry of the country from oppressive burdens without injuring the permanent revenue of the State. In the particular matter of Excise, that eminent Statesman repealed in that period upwards of £1,000,000 of duties, and yet at the end of that time the revenue derived from the Excise was £1,500,000 larger than it had been before, proving incontestably that taxes starved one another, as it were; and, although they might be told that old Arthur Young was in favour of a multiplicity of taxes, experience proved that more money might be obtained with less pressure upon industry, and less injury to trade, commerce, and manufactures, by the levying of a few principal duties only. The paper duty was a most pernicious tax in every point of view in which it could be considered. From the return for which he moved a short time ago, as to the number of paper mills in England, it appeared that during the last twenty years the paper mills in England had diminished from 525 to 393. He had the honour of accompanying a deputation to the Earl of Derby, and when that fact was mentioned to the noble Earl, he said that it was owing to the effects of an advanced civilization, which caused trades and manufactures to be carried on by large capitalists. He spoke also of congestion from advanced civilization, but with all respect to the noble Earl, he (Mr. M. Gibson) thought he was mistaken, because if he were right we ought to see the same effects on the other branches of industry. We did not find that the number of cotton mills, of silk mills, and of other mills carrying on the various branches of manufacture were diminished. On the contrary, those mills were gradually increasing, while the paper manufacture was falling more and more into a few hands, The small paper mills spread over the rural districts were all being ruined, and the whole supply of paper in the United Kingdom must, if this obnoxious Excise system were continued, fall into the hands of a few large capitalists. That was one of the most striking effects of the Excise system, for it undoubtedly did require more capital to carry on the paper manufacture under that. system than if it were free. The paper manufacture was gradually producing that congestion of capital which produced the alarming results set forth in the return which he had moved for. Hon. Gentlemen should recollect that the paper manufacture was a rural manufacture. It was a manufacture that sprung up by the side of pure streams in agricultural districts, that was capable of employing the agricultural population, of diminising poor-rates, and spreading happiness and contentment among the peasantry. But if the paper duty were maintained all these small rural paper mills would be destroyed, the whole of the paper manufacture of the kingdom would be inevitably driven into the manufacturing districts, and placed in the hands of persons who used steam and other power instead of the water power that existed in the rural districts. The immediate object of proposing this Motion was to show to the House the great inconsistency they were guilty of in asking Parliament continually to increase the votes for education, while they maintained a tax which he could prove stood in the way more than anything that could be conceived of the diffusion of knowledge among the great masses of the people. For how did the paper duty press? It did not press upon the large book. It was not to be viewed as something of inappreciable value that might be deducted from the price of some three volume novel. The amount of the paper duty was large just in proportion as the publication to which it was applied was cheap and extensively circulated. Cheap and extensively circulated publications were the very publications that ought to exist if they wished to spread knowledge among the great masses of the community. The paper duty affected precisely those cheap and extensively circulated publications which it should be the object of the Go- vernment, that professed to support education, to encourage. The paper duty arose in the time of Anne, just after newspapers began to be party organs, to reflect upon the Ministers of that time, and to defend the party leaders who were then occupying the attention of the country. Mr. Hallam said, that the vivacity of the press attracted the attention of the Ministers of that day. A message was brought down, which was now upon the Journals of the House, informing the House that the press was too free, that it reflected with two much freedom upon the Ministers of the day and upon the institutions of the country, and calling upon the House to take some steps to put down that great evil. The House in reply to the message, said that they would endeavour to find out a remedy adequate to the mischief. And what was the remedy? Why, in a Committee of Ways and Means it was for the first time suggested that heavy taxation upon the press might have all the effect which a censorship or actual licensing of the press had in other countries, and for the first time taxes on knowledge were invented in a Committee of Ways and Means for the express and avowed purpose of restraining cheap periodicals in this country. The newspaper stamp was one tax and the advertisement duty another. These had been already repealed. The paper duty was the third tax which now remained to be repealed. The position of the House was now reversed; they now professed to be the advocates of education and knowledge, and they ought, if they were consistent, to repeal that third tax, which impeded the diffusion of cheap knowledge throughout the land. When these taxes were imposed there was an opposition, on principle, to the diffusion of knowledge; and therefore, if the Parliament of Anne was consistent in imposing, them, the Parliament of Queen Victoria, which professed to advocate a contrary principle, was bound, in consistency, to repeal the whole of them. The right hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Colonies, in an able and interesting speech delivered by him on the occasion of his recent election for Hertfordshire, made use of the following words:— In my early youth there were two political measures to which I was most warmly attached. One of them was the emancipation of the newspaper press, as the great agent of political knowledge, from all taxes and fiscal imposts. The other was the question of Parliamentary Reform. When the newspaper stamp repeal was proposed I supported it, and said I had such a strong confidence in the good sense and good feeling of the masses of the people of this country that I was persuaded that the change would tend, not to create, but rather to put down and extinguish licentious and revolutionary periodicals. I said that it would prove a great boon to the Conservatives, because then we could have a cheap newspaper which would defend our opinions among the masses. Well, both these predictions have been verified. We have a penny press, on the whole conducted with singular propriety and talent, and the Standard newspaper, which advocates Conservative opinions, has an enormous circulation, and now penetrates large masses of the population which were never approached by a Conservative organ under the old system. Now, this Standard newspaper—which he did not doubt had as large a circulation as was represented—must pay an enormous amount of tax. He believed that if that paper had anything like the circulation that was represented—namely, 50,000 a day—it must pay £50 a day. And if its circulation were only 25,000 a day it must pay £25 a day. Well, what sort of a deduction was that to make from the returns of this cheap Conservative newspaper? Why, it was quite impossible that this or any other cheap paper could live if so large a deduction were to be made from the funds that were to carry it on. For, let them recollect that this cheap Conservative paper could not be sold for a penny and some small fraction of a penny that should reimburse its proprietors the paper duty. The paper must be sold at its round penny, and this deduction must be made from the funds required to conduct the paper. And what was the effect? Why that deduction rendered necessary the printing of the paper on an inferior material. It rendered the conductors unable to employ the best literary talent, and in all respects it prevented their making the paper as good as it otherwise would be. If this paper duty were repealed the £25 or £50 a day would not go into the pockets of the conductors, because there were other penny papers—the Telegraph and the Star—and competition would compel them to apply that remission of the paper duty to the improvement of the periodical, and thus the readers would be benefited. The same argument applied to all cheap periodical literature. The paper duty was a fund withdrawn from those who conducted a paper, and could not be replaced by any additional charge to the consumer. It therefore made cheap literature bad literature. It prevented people from employing on cheap periodicals the most respected and ablest writers in the country. Was it a judicious policy to allow the people to have a cheap press, but at the same time to take care that that press should not be as good as it might be but for the interference of the Excise? Should any paltry consideration of revenue—for a large portion of the revenue was not now in question—stand for a moment in the way of the moral improvement and advancement of the great body of the population of this country? Mr. Charles Knight in a sentence disposed of the question of cheap literature. Mr. Knight said:— The problem especially necessary to solve upon the principle that 'the bent of civilization is to make good things cheap' cannot be solved in England under the paper duty. All literature is tending to cheapness; taxed literature, to be cheap, must lose some portion of excellence, or involve a loss. A revolution has been effected in which sound literature might have higher encouragement in the many than in the few, if the Government did not stand in the way. That placed in very forcible and clear language the pernicious effect of the paper duty upon the cheap literature of the day. The statesmen of Queen Anne's time had some qualms of conscience even in proposing that tax, for they enacted it with certain exemptions. The Holy Scriptures, Psalm Books, the Scotch Confession of Faith, books printed in the Latin, Greek, or in any of the Northern languages, or in the Oriental languages at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, with the consent of the authorities of those Universities, were exempted from the tax. They thought, perhaps, that the obscurity of a learned language, and the caution of the heads of houses, might justify them in exempting such publications from the tax. Nor could anything be more monstrous than that when the House was voting sums of money for educational purposes, it should at the same time consent to tax a little school book 30 per cent more than those books which, addressed to the richer classes, came within the exemptions. What was a Northern language? Was not English, or at all events Scotch, a northern language, and if so books in the English language, according even to the Act of Parliament which imposed it, were exempted front the tax. The Report of the Society, to which he belonged, for the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge placed the question in a very true and terse way. It set forward that there was no reason why the history of the Calmucks in the Russian language should be entitled to an exemption from a tax to which was subjected the primer of the artisan's child. For his own part, he hoped that if this obnoxious tax were not repealed, the Government would have the decency to apply it fairly to all classes of the community. He remembered the present Secretary for the Treasury endeavouring to obtain a further exemption by asking that school and college books published by the University of Dublin should be exempt from the tax. That application was without success, but he did not wonder at its being made. Now constant applications for exemption from a tax and constant yielding to those applications was, he thought, an augury that the tax was drawing to a close. Now, he objected to all exemptions, for if a tax could not be applied equally to all portions of the community, it ought to be repealed, and some other source of revenue relied upon for the deficiency. He dared say that it had passed through some hon. Gentlemen's minds that before proposing the abolition of a tax he ought to provide a substitute. Now, he begged most respectfully to decline making any suggestion as to a substitute. It was not his duty, and it would be irregular for him to find new taxes, and in point of fact, he believed that no substitute would be required. The tax upon paper produced but 1-64th of the whole revenue of the country, and could any one pretend to say that the country was reduced to such straits that it could not afford to abandon a tax which, while it produced only 1–64th of the revenue of the country operated most mischievously upon industry, trade, and the diffusion of knowledge? No one could maintain a position so indefensible. We were capable of dealing with our financial system, and still maintaining the revenue and credit of the country. He was as ready as any one to admit the extreme caution with which they ought to deal with the public revenue, but they ought not to be afraid to condemn this tax because they might suppose that it was not possible to say what substitute could be found. He believed that the other sixty-three parts of the public revenue would swell out so that they would be very shortly equal to what the whole now was. He believed it might be shown in figures that in the very first year there was an almost certain chance of a very large portion of this duty being replaced. But there were economists in that House, and he was sure that they would not see any difficulty in dealing with so small a revenue. He did not think the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford, and those who thought with him, would find any difficulty, agreeing as they did with Sir R. Peel, and the policy which he carried out with such success. Nor did he think that any difficulties would be thrown in the way by those who preferred direct to indirect taxation. Before he closed this portion of his subject, he wished to refer to one or two other newspapers, in order to show the effects of the tax upon their welfare. He might take the case of The Times. He had no doubt that journal felt the paper duty a very great burden. He recollected having seen in a number of that paper a statement to the effect that they paid some £16,000 or £17,000 a year to the revenue in the shape of paper duty. He believed that at present they paid much more. There was also a paper called the Manchester Examiner and Times. He had a letter from the editor of that journal, who said that during the last year he had paid to the State a revenue of £5,000 in the shape of paper duty for the privilege of giving his cheap newspaper to the public, and that if that £5,000 were not taken from him, he should still sell his paper at a penny, and apply the money now paid for the tax on improvements. The editor of another paper told him that he paid £3,500 a year, and certainly these were very large sums to be deducted from the profits of the proprietary of a small newspaper. In point of fact the cheap press could not flourish and be good and successful unless it were relieved from that most mischievous burden. A correspondence had recently taken place between a gentleman engaged extensively in the manufacture of paper and the Board of Inland Revenue. This gentleman was very anxious to promote education in his immediate neighbourhood. A voluntary subscription had been raised for a school, and he made the following application to the Board of Inland Revenue:—The letter was dated in June, 1858, and was from Mr. Rawlings, of Wrexham Mills, and it said that being about to open a day school in connection with their mills, they had to ask whether they might be permitted to use the cuttings of their paper free of duty for stationary purposes exclusively for the use of the schools; or, if that were not allowed, whether they might receive a drawback on paper rendered unfit for sale by use in the school? And what was the answer? The Commissioners have had before them your application, and I am directed to state that you cannot be allowed to use the cuttings of your paper free of duty, nor to receive a drawback on paper rendered unfit for sale by use in your school. The small boon, it did appear to him, might have been granted without any loss to the revenue, but it was the unfortunate system of Excise regulations that anything new was sure to be rejected. They were guided by old regulations, and every new proposal seemed to them to contain something in disguise dangerous to the revenue. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them that they were going to vote a million, in Committee of Supply, for schools and instruction for the labouring classes. The right hon. Gentleman had also told them that the educational vote was gradually developing itself, and in a very short time would become three or four millions a year. If, then, they had all this growing expenditure in the distance, surely they ought to consider whether they would not remove the obstacles which stood in the way of the diffusion of knowledge, and prevented the people from educating themselves. The repeal of the paper duty, which now yielded little more than a million annually, would do more good to the general interests of the community than the addition of another million to the educational votes. Another branch of this subject was the bearing of the excise system on this important manufacture. What could be more monstrous in a country where so large a mass of the population lived by manufacturing industry than that the manufacture of an article like paper should have to be carried on under an Act of Parliament originally passed in the reign of Queen Anne, and which now remained very much what it was then. The Act consisted of no fewer than sixty-nine clauses, every one of which was open to more than one interpretation; and, though it contained a series of pains and penalties against a particular manufacture, strange to say it did not in any one of its numerous provisions give a difinition of what paper was. At this moment a law-suit with the Government was pending in order to determine what the thing really was to which the tax applied, because a new article, made from new materials, had been discovered, which the manufacturers contendered was not paper within the meaning of the statute. Every petty regulation which might seem nothing in the opinion of the Board of Excise was a very great hindrance to the improvement in manufacture of paper. Mr. Rawlins, the manufacturer to whom he had already referred, asked the Board of Inland Revenue the other day to permit him to use for weighing paper a new machine of great accuracy by which three-fourths of the time now occupied in weighing paper for the duty would be saved, and which was now adopted all over the country. The Board, of course, refused his application, and told him that he must stick to his old beam and scales. This was a sample of the vexatious restrictions of our excise system and their injurious operation. They stood very much in the way of the cheapening of production; and in times when a very trifling impediment turned a foreign trade against us it was of vital importance that our manufacture should be free and unfettered. Freedom, like necessity, was the mother of invention as well as of economical production; and without freedom it was impossible for our paper manufacturers to compete with their rivals in other countries who enjoyed that boon. Mr. Rawlins, to whom he had before alluded, had made a tour some time ago in the United States, in order that he might see with his own eyes how the paper manufacture of America was carried on and compare it with our own. And what was his testimony? [The right hon. Gentleman then read a passage from a letter addressed to him by Mr. Rawlins, in which the writer drew a strong contrast between the position the paper manufacturer in Canada and the United States and that of the British producer, maintaining that owing to their freedom from fiscal restrictions the manufacturers in America were a generation in advance of their English brethren in all the mechanical arrangements of their business.] The result was, that we, who might be supplying the markets of our own Colonies, of India, and of other countries with the product of British industry, were actually, by this stupid system of Excise regulations, throwing this valuable trade which might employ our agricultural peasantry, into the hands of foreigners, and at the same time increasing ignorance, pauperism, and crime at home; and this for the sake of a pitiful amount of revenue, which might easily be raised in a much less pernicious manner. He had been told by an eminent manufacturer, who furnished The Times with a large portion of its paper, that at one period we supplied Monte Video, Buenos Ayres, and other parts of South America with paper; but that now this trade had gone away from us, that the French, Belgian, and German producers had superseded us, and that he was afraid the im- provements made in the manufacture by their foreign rivals, together with the backwardness of our own system, would for many years to come preclude our manufacturers, even if they had the advantages of freedom, from entering into successful competition with those paper-producing countries. The Board of Inland Revenue would, no doubt, say that all this was very true, but they must have all this surveillance for the protection of the public revenue; and that arguments such as he was urging struck at the entire Excise system. He denied, however, that these restrictions prevented or could prevent frauds. In their last report, now on the table of the House, that Board stated, as a proof of the efficiency of their system, that nothing but bribery could beat it. Could anything be more monstrous than to allege, as an argument in favour of excise regulations, that a little bribery on the part of the manufacture towards the exciseman would break up the whole system? An efficient system was a system of checks and counter checks, which set bribery at defiance. And if they admitted that large quantities of paper which had not paid duty might, by the aid of a little bribery, be thrown in the market to compete with paper that had paid duty, that was tantamount to acknowledging the system to be one which ought not to be continued, and one which was conducive neither to the good morals of our public officers nor to the interests of the community. The gross return yielded by this duty last year was about £1,200,000. This year it was less by a considerable amount. No doubt the revenue had very much increased since the paper duty had been reduced by one-half. But the gross quantity of paper assessed did not give quite a correct account of the actual amount of revenue obtained. Why, the State paid the tax upon all the paper it used. A single parliamentary return, printed the other day, consumed no less than thirty four tons of paper, the duty paid upon which by that House was £500. To put down this item and many others like it, first as an addition to their expenditure and next as an addition to their revenue, did not look like the perfection of human wisdom. When, therefore, the amount which the State paid on the paper it consumed, together with the various drawbacks to which he had referred, was deducted from the total sum derived from this tax, the net produce would not be found much to exceed £1,000,00 ster- ling. It might be an evil to have to support a large expenditure, but it was a worse evil, and one against which he must protest, to have the revenue from which they defrayed that expenditure raised in a mischievous manner. He held, that after it had been laid down by a late Minister of the Crown that the paper duty was good in itself as a branch of our permanent and ordinary revenue, the time had come for that House to take the subject into its serious consideration. And though it might be true, as a general principle, that it was not right to condemn a tax which they were not prepared instantly to repeal, yet involving as it did a question of sound fiscal policy, and the advancement of the people in knowledge and morality, the case was one which ought to be made an exception to the rule.

Amendment proposed,— To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House is of opinion that the maintenance of the Excise on paper, as a permanent source of Revenue, would be impolitic, and that such financial arrangements ought to be made as will enable Parliament to dispense with that Tax," instead thereof,—

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. INGRAM

Sir, I shall, with permission of the House, make a few observations on the Resolution proposed for adoption by the right hon. the Member for Ashton. I consider the country is greatly indebted to him for persevering in bringing to the notice of the House the injurious effect of the paper duty to our manufactures, and in its operation as a tax upon knowledge and education. The paper duty is a tax levied of 1½d. per lb., with an additional 5 per cent on all paper manufactured in the empire. There is a Custom House duty of 3d. per lb. on all paper imported into the United Kingdom, which may be said to be protective duty, and this fact, we suppose, may account for the circumstance that so few manufacturers of paper join in the agitation for its repeal. I believe, however, that those gentlemen are somewhat short-sighted in their views, but after all they have only followed the example set years ago by all the manufacturers of silk and printed cotton goods, who considered Custom House duties as protecting their trade, and therefore of advantage to them. It may be remarked that manufacturers were protectionists long before the agriculturists; and we have now a rag of protection left with the paper manufacturers under which they imagine they find security. Printing paper only pays 1½d. per lb., which cannot be considered as any protection to the printer. As I stand in the double position of manufacturer of paper as well as a consumer, I think I shall be able to show the injurious effects of the paper duty on the public generally, and that the only possible defence for its continuance is the revenue derived therefrom. But, in my opinion, the net revenue is so small as to make it wholly unimportant to the Exchequer when weighed with the many evils that the impost necessarily entails upon society. On this point it is, in my opinion, the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to find a better tax as a substitute, if a substitute be necessary; and, if called upon, I think I could propose a much better tax. In the condemnation of this tax we are supported by the opinions expressed by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, the noble Lord the President of the Board of Control, the right hon. Baronet the head of the Colonies, the right hon. the Member for the University of Oxford, the noble Lord the Member for London, and by many other distinguished statesmen and sound political economists. This objectionable tax, therefore, cannot long continue; it has no defenders of its principle, and is inevitably doomed. When this tax was first proposed it was considered to be a war tax; but it has, nevertheless, continued in existence for a century and a half. At first the more rumour of such a tax being in contemplation caused great agitation in the country, and the House of Commons passed the following Resolution in the Stuart Parliament:— Aspersions had been cast by malignant persons on the House of Commons that they intended to introduce excises—the House for its vindication therein doth declare that these rumours are false and scandalous, and that the authors should be apprehended and brought to condign punishment. The British Parliament, however, soon afterwards passed Excise laws, and the paper Excise among the rest. It has varied in amount per lb. since it was first proposed, and up to 1832 was 3d. per lb. on printed paper. Immediately on the reduction from 3d. to 1½d. the lb. the consumption of the article doubled, and the price of it was considerably reduced. Paper with a duty of 3d. per lb. was charged 1s. to the public; the same quality with a duty of 1½d., may now be bought for 8d. per lb. This decrease of duty has had a marvellous effect on the publications issued from the press, and has been the means of diffusing considerable information to the people. We may, therefore, fairly conclude that the entire abolition of the duty would produce proportionally beneficial results. I have here, Sir, a publication circulated among the working people amounting to nearly half a million per week, paying a duty of 30 per cent on its cost of production. If this publication paid no duty it would be considerably improved in its character of usefulness, and produce greatly increased benefit to the population. [An Hon. MEMBER: What is it?] The London Journal. The duty paid on a three-volume novel is not 1 per cent. It will thus be seen how unjustly this law acts on all cheap publications and periodicals. Lord Stanley, while addressing his constituents at King's Lynn, on Wednesday, May 14th, 1856, referred to this subject in the following language:— The paper duty was vexatious in collection, checked improvement in manufacture, tended to raise the price of an article of which the demand already exceeded the supply, and hindered the diffusion of cheap literature and news. I will now read also a communication from a gentleman who has recently effected an extraordinary change in the newspaper world:— "Standard Office, 129, Fleet Street, June 19, 1858. Sir,—Seeing that it is intended to bring forward the question of the paper duty on Monday next, and as you are likely to take part in the discussion, I beg leave to send you a few facts which I think will go far to convince the House of the necessity of repealing that duty. In the first place, the tax acts most injuriously on the progress of education. Taking the duty itself, and the obstructions occasioned by the impost, it may be reasonably calculated that paper from the time it leaves the mill to its being circulated amongst the people is increased 50 per cent on its original cost. In our case the duty paid by the Standard, we being consumers of upwards of two tons daily, amounts to no less a sum than £29 per day. Now, if that duty were repealed, we could not only print upon better paper, but we should be enabled to expend at least £20 a day of the duty saved in additional literary talent. We should be at the same time not only reaping a benefit ourselves of nearly £10, but we should be also effecting a saving of at least £10 more in being relieved from the necessity of wetting the paper ourselves, an operation that requires the employment of a considerable number of hands. The large quantity of paper that is constantly spoiled by this practice would be likewise a great addition to our profits, because, if the duty were abolished, we could have our paper conveyed direct from the mill in its normal state, that is, sufficiently damp for printing. We cannot enjoy that advantage at present, inasmuch as the weight of the paper must be taken before it leaves the mill, and the amount of water with which it must be saturated before it is fit for printing on would weigh as much as the article itself in its original state, and therefore the duty would be considerably increased if taken after the paper had passed through this process. In order further to show the enormity of this tax, I may mention, that since I reduced the price of the Standard to 1d., on the 4th of February last, we have been paying at the rate of £10,000 a year duty! If the paper duty were repealed, I feel confident that the already enormous circulation of the Standard would be at least doubled, and the profits arising therefrom would enable us to give employment to a considerable number of extra hands in the various departments of the establishment, thereby creating more labour for the unemployed. Those results would, of necessity, lead to the greatly-increased consumption of exciseable articles, and thus, in a great measure, the deficit caused by the abrogation of this duty would be very soon made up. In addition to the Standard, the office I have the management of issues two other daily papers, and two weekly papers, all of them having a very large circulation. I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, F. T. FOWLER, Manager of the Standard. Herbert Ingram, Esq., M.P." &c. Such are the evil effects of the paper duty on cheap publications. I trust I may be pardoned if I say a word about its effects on a publication higher in price and extensively calculated—a publication with engravings—the Illustrated London News:— Loudwater Mills, near Rickmansworth, Herts, April 28, 1856. Dear Sir,—I enclose a statement of cost of finishing paper as at present incurred through Excise regulations, also cost of same if it had not to go through exciseman's hands. There is no doubt that the paper would arrive in town in much better condition, and with less loss from damage, if it were put in boxes, than by the present mode. There are many circumstances attending excise rules which are troublesome and inconvenient; for instance, the paper must be in reams of a certain number of sheets, or parcels of not less than a certain weight, nor more than a certain number of sheets less than a ream. We cannot pack two reams together, nor be above or below the estimated weight, under risk of forfeiture. We cannot send the paper from the mill for more than fifty hours after it is made, however urgently it may be required; thus we must give forty-eight hours' notice of the intention to charge, and keep it at least two hours after charging, besides the time actually occupied in charging, to give the supervisor an opportunity to reweigh, the trader finding the men for such reweigh. The supervisor also is to test the weights used on the premises, the trader again finding men for that purpose; and, as we have about eighty half-hundred weights in use, it is a very great loss of time. The paper in stock also must be so stacked that the officer or supervisor can see every ream and label, causing a great loss of room, a fact of great importance in a finishing room. These and other minor matters taken separately may appear trifling, but collectively are a source of great loss of time, extra labour, and harshly carried out by the officers, as they may be, very great annoyance. Paper mills should certainly have as little impediment in their working as possible, for they make a great difference to the poor. The expenditure by the relieving officer of this parish was, for the two years while the mills were still, £1,400 per annum; it is now only £650 per annum. The rates paid by ratepayers of this parish are just the same as when the mills were still; but that is because it is in the Watford union, consisting of, I believe, five parishes. I enclose declaration of the churchwarden and relieving officer as to the benefit of paper mills. With respect to envelopes, I have not yet succeeded in gaining any authentic details, the business being carried on with great secrecy. I think, however, in a day or two I shall have information that may be relied on. There is one class of tradesmen who, though not often considered, are great sufferers by the excise duties on paper; I mean the makers of boxes, and cartons for drapers, fan manufacturers, &c. I believe the trade, though now very extensive, to be very much cramped, from the obnoxious duties. There are already seine thousands of women and boys engaged in the trade, and were the excise duty repealed, I have no doubt that it would be so extended as to employ six or eight times the number, a great consideration, when we reflect on the multitude of females who are obliged to work so many hours together for just keeping soul and body together. In that trade the plainer the article the greater is the demand, and the more oppressive and crushing is the effect of the duty. It is also very unequal in its pressure, for while the more expensive and highly decorated articles, such as boxes to contain handkerchiefs, fruit, &c., do not pay a duty of more than 5 per cent, from the small quantity of material, in comparison with labour, the cheaper and snore extensively used sorts, to contain gloves, ribbons, nets, &c., actually pay a duty of 30 per cent from the very reverse of the causes quoted above. These are fusels which I can prove. There are also the bookbinders who are affected similarly as the boxmakers, though not to the same extent, the highly embossed and tooled Church Service and Bible not being taxed in anything like the same proportion as the plain homely copy used by the workman and cottager. Stiff cardboard or paper is also, as you are doubtless aware, used very extensively by the lacemakers of Nottingham, the duty on the cards used by them amounting to 25 per cent. Again, with button-makers, Birmingham houses, who use plain card or paper, the duty will amount to 25 to 35 per cent. There are many other trades which will occur to you as being extensive consumers of low-class papers, the rule being that the lower the paper the higher is the percentage of duty. Trusting I have complied with your wishes in the foregoing remarks, I remain, dear Sir, yours respectfully, II. Ingram, Esq. "W. D. STANSELL. The regulations of the Excise involve an extra expense of at least £2,000 per annum, besides decreasing the quality of the publication. I now come to a higher authority—the Commissioners of the Excise—respecting the paper duty. Here is a blue-book lately placed in the hands of all the Members of this House, in which the Commissioners state the increase of trade caused by their new regulations respecting drawbacks on pieces of waste paper cut from envelopes. Here, no doubt, was a great increase of trade created by the means alluded to, but they must recollect that it was only after considerable agitation and speeches from myself and others, that they consented to take such a step. In the United States of America there are 750 paper mills, worked by 2000 steam-engines, producing 270,000,000 lb. In England only 166,000,000 lb. were made, and only 150,000,000 lb. for home consumption, only about one-half the product of the United States. England only has 400 mills, and many disappear every year. If the Commissioners think they give such facilities to get the drawback, and do so much to increase the trade, let us hear what the trade say upon the question generally. The following letter is from Messrs. Ward and Lock:— Sir,—Some time since I took the liberty of writing you a letter upon the subject of drawbacks upon books, paper, &c. At the risk of being intrusive, I repeat something of what I previously said, and you will clearly see that in many instances the pretended boon of a drawback absolutely comes to nothing, as the process is far too troublesome for the small advantage received. Find ship to port. Write to officer, and beg him as a favour to attend, say at ten o'clock in the morning; but in consequence, perhaps, of half a dozen other appointments, he cannot attend until, say, twelve o'clock. All this time packers, carpenter, and solderer have been waiting, and consequently the fore part of their day is wasted. The officer attends, and at length you consider all is arranged, and the packing goes on; but before it is finished he most likely has to go elsewhere to witness the completion of some other shipment; thus another serious delay is occasioned. And here let me mark the consequences of this apparently slight delay. Very likely the merchant loses his ship; and all the trouble which he has to incur by attendance, &c., at the office in Tower Bill, has to be gone over a second time. A shipper must attend personally, perhaps at great inconvenience, to sign a bond, which must be attested by a householder, and also make a declaration that the books about to be shipped have not been before sold to any person exercising the trade or profession of a bookseller. The shipper must now attend the Custom House to find when the ship is entered outwards, and get the shipping bill signed by the clerk. You have now to proceed to the docks and enter on a ticket-paper the case or cases of books, and give in your shipping bills to the searcher of Customs, and wait perhaps for some time until all is ascertained to be right. But the trouble does not end here; and you must wait six weeks before you can obtain the drawback, and even this must be applied for and received by the shipper, as he is not allowed to send his clerk for it, as there is another debenture to sign. Each shipment, however small, requires a separate stamp, varying in amount and price according to the amount of drawback claimed. As the whole of this procedure in the shipment of books entails so much trouble, whether it is large or small, it must be obvious that a large amount of paper in the form of books never recovers the drawback, because the merchant cannot attend personally to watch such small matters. I am a shipper of books, and speak of my own personal trouble and annoyance, but it is well known that many stationers in England refuse colonial orders for paper because the time and trouble of shipping for drawback small parcels is not worth their while. Under these circumstances many orders for paper, stationary, &c., find their way to the Continent instead of coming to Great Britain, as the English merchant is obliged to add on to his wholesale prices the 1½d. per lb., rather than waste his time in obtaining drawback. This sum, small as it may appear, is quite sufficient in this sharp age of competition to divert the orders which otherwise he would be glad to execute. I will now trouble the House with a letter from Messrs. Chambers, who have done so much to give instruction to the people:— Edinburgh, May 15, 1856. Dear Sir,—Along with this we hand you a short statement respecting the pressure of the paper duties on our publications. You will observe that during 1855 we used 378,350 lbs. of paper, costing £11,780 11s. 3d., and that in this price was included an excise duty of £2,482 18s., such duty being about a fifth of the actual cost of the paper. Nearly all our publications are of a cheap class, designed for popular instruction and improvement; and the price of paper is by far the haviest item in producing works of this kind. Although the duty is 1½d. per lb. weight, with 5 per cent, additional, it is our belief that practically the price of paper is enhanced fully 2d. per pound weight, by reason of the duty and attendant excise regulations. This is upwards of a fifth in the price of most printing papers. So heavy an increase on the price of paper acts discouragingly on all our operations. We are constantly prevented from entering upon schemes for issuing cheap publications of an improving tendency, from no other cause than the pressure of the paper duties. Some years ago we issued a series of instructive and entertaining tracts at a penny and a halfpenny each. The sale was enormous, and we should hope some good was done. After issuing as many as twenty volumes of these tracts, we found that the State had received £5,000 of paper duty, while our profits were nothing, and we accordingly were compelled to drop the work, although the sales at the time were 80,000 weekly. It is chiefly from such facts that an adequate idea can be obtained of the damage done to literature through the pressure of the excise duty on paper. Of the injury done to trade enerally by this tax on production it is not necessary for us to say anything. We are, Sir, your obedient servants, W. and R. CHAMBERS. Herbert Ingram, Esq., M.P. I will here remark that the quantity of paper distributed by these gentlemen and by the proprietors of the London Journal is considerably greater than all the Bibles and Prayer Books distributed by the clergy and the Bible and other religious societies put together, and, be it observed, the amount of the latter publications is decreasing. Nearly six parts out of seven of all paper made is printed paper, and the paper used for Bibles and Prayers is not inure than 1½ per cent. of the printed paper used—showing, I think, a great remissness somewhere in the Church. No drawback is allowed on the A B C book for the poor child, or the spelling-book; without the duty, those books would be decreased in price one half. I state my full conviction that you would do more good for the education of the people by a repeal of the paper duty than by granting the large amount placed on the Estimates, which will no doubt be voted this evening. Let us look at the question as a manufacturing question only. In doing this, let us take a glance at other branches of industry formerly subjected to excise duties. We will take, for instance, the printed calico duty, repealed thirty years ago. At that time it was objected the tax was so small that a printed gown was scarcely affected in its price by the extra duty for printing. Now, what is the result? Why, that a printed gown sells, for considerably less money than the duty formerly paid. The manufacturers and the printers at the time defended the duty; what has been the effect on our commerce in this repeal of the excise? Why, our trade has increased by millions, and we have so improved in our manufactures that we beat the whole world in our printed goods. The last manufacture freed from excise duty was the duty on glass. Now, the repeal of this duty has exhibited in a marvellous way the advantage of freeing our manufactures from the depressing influence of the exciseman. The quantity manufactured increases enormously every year, and our export trade increases in proportion. Without the repeal of this duty we should not have seen the Crystal Palace of 1851, and the great trade now done in tins country in every description of glass manufacture, and the employment of many thousands extra of the population. If this House should agree to a repeal of the paper duty, I have no doubt many more manufactories will spring up; and it is peculiarly an employment suited for the rural districts. I also think that vegetable fibre produced from the land will be extensively used in the manufacture of paper. Lately a mill for the manufacture of paper from twitch was established in the county of Lincoln. I will take the liberty of reading a letter from the manager on the subject:— We have now collected about 1,200 tons of twitch, and our doing so has tended to promote the interests both of landowners and landholders: 1. By stimulating the farmer to clean his land, and as far as possible to eradicate from it a weed of most extraordinary rapidity of growth, and which, while it exhausts the land in a corresponding degree, often chokes and kills the young corn plant. 2. By enabling the farmer, with the money paid him for his twitch, to buy a really serviceable manure, as a substitute for the small and oftentimes very questionable amount of benefit derived front the ashes of burnt twitch—abundance of ashes (when required for turnip sowing, &c.) being producible from the burning of other weeds, sedge, parings, and rubbish. By these two operations (thus stimulated) of cleaning and manuring, the land will be gradually and greatly improved, at small (if any) cost to the farmer, at the same time that the value of his crops will increase. My time being very fully occupied, I have very hastily and imperfectly replied to your queries; but I hope what I have written is sufficient to answer the purpose you had in view when you wrote. I am, Sir, yours obediently, SAMUEL SHARP. II. Ingram, Esq., M.P. Paper is an article used in almost all other manufactures; in wrapping up articles, and in boxes, it forms a serious amount in the expense to which trade generally is subject. Many of our goods can scarcely compete with French manufactures on account of the freedom from paper duty in France. This grievance is complained of in all our manufacturing towns. Now, let us consider the paper duty as a source of revenue:— Amount of Excise duties in the three first years of the century, the three last years of the old duties, the three first years of the new duties, and the three last years of which we have any account.

AMOUNT OF GROSS DUTY.—OLD DUTIES.
1803	£394,572
1804	359,278
1805	452,926
	3)1,206,776
Average	402,258

1834	£833,822
1835	868,437
1836	790,775
	3)2,403,034
Average	831,011
NEW DUTIES.
1837	£555,942
1838	584,162
1839	610,289
	3)1,750,393
Average	583,464
THREE LAST YEARS.
1855	£1,145,572
1856	1,123,561
1857	1,244,142
	3)3,513,275
Average	£1,171,091

From this it appears that under the old duties the revenue from paper was a little more than doubled between 1804 and 1835, or in thirty-one years, while under the new duties the revenue doubled in eighteen years, or from 1838 to 1856. So much more advantageous are low than high duties, and so much more rapidly would the consumption of paper increase were there no duties at all. In conclusion I would observe, that as the question of revenue is really the only thing under consideration, and as we have no advocates for the paper duty except on these grounds, I do say, with the greatest conviction of the truth, that the increased trade, the increased employment, the increased consumption of taxable articles which would necessarily follow from an abrogation of this duty, would compensate for the amount levied by the Excise on paper. I do hope, therefore, that the House will have the courage and the justice at once to pronounce its opinion that this tax is doomed, and that we shall not stand in the world as the exception in levying taxes on the intelligence, the literature, and the industry of the nation.

MR. SALISBURY

said, he was prepared to corroborate the statements of his hon. Friend the Member for Boston. He had been connected some years ago with the Art Journal, a publication which he believed had done more than any other to educate the people in a knowledge of art. The proprietors of that journal had paid £1,200 a year for eight years in paper duty alone, during which time they had derived no profit whatever from the publication. Personally, therefore, he felt a strong desire to see the duty abolished. He had, however, other reasons for the support of the Motion, for he had ascertained during his canvass for a seat in that House that the working classes felt a deep interest in the subject. The working men of Chester had in fact made him give a pledge that he would vote for the abolition of the duty, and he gave it cheerfully, because he felt that it evidenced a desire on the part of the working man to leave the public house in favour of more elevated pursuits. He hoped, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would assure the House that in the course of next year he would make arrangements to get rid of the duty altogether.

MR. AYRTON

observed, that the paper duty was a tax which all parties appeared to agree in condemning; and, that in advocating its abolition it was extremely desirable to anticipate the financial arrangements of the coming year, for if they waited until the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought forward his Budget, they would then be told that they were too late, that all the financial arrangements had been made, and that it was impossible that they should be disturbed. He was also of opinion that the subject was one which might be fairly disdiscussed in connection with education, because education was not to be confined to the efforts made in normal schools, or to the subsidising of establishments in which the elements of education might be picked up. This tax, then, pressed heavily upon the means of education, not only as regarded the instruction given in normal and ordinary schools—in some of which, owing to the great cost of copy-books, children were only taught to write upon slates—but also as concerned that after instruction which was needed even by men who had gone through a University training, and was still more required by those humbler classes who left school merely with a knowledge of reading, writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic. The cheap publications which were daily issued were the real means by which the education of the people was advanced, and it was upon these that the paper duty most heavily pressed. He confessed that in former times he was one of those who thought the repeal of the paper duty a question rather of dilitante legislation, but, on the repeal of the stamp duty, his attention was first called to the importance of the subject in consequence of his desiring, with some other gentlemen, to establich a penny newspaper. He then made the discovery that the whole question of whether it would be profitable or not turned upon the very question they were discussing—the paper duty—and that unless the circulation was enormously large, or the paper was conducted under the most favourable circumstances, it would be impossible to carry it on without loss. This fact applied to all the cheap publications, for it was found practically that the profit derivable from them was dependent in a large degree on the price of the paper as enhanced by the duty itself; and if the duty were removed, the difference would be so great as to enable the proprietor of a publication to employ a degree of talent he could not otherwise command, and to carry on his enterprise to an extent which it was now utterly impossible for him to achieve. A remarkable proof of the oppressive character of the duty appeared in the Report of the Commissioners of Excise; which stated, that so much did the trade in paper depend on the price, that when the price of raw material rose from 15s. in 1852 to 19s. in 1854, the production of paper remained stationary, and that in 1855 it actually diminished. It was at the following rate—154,000,000 lb. in 1852, when the price of the raw material was 15s.; 177,000,000 lb. when it was 16s., and rising from 16s. to 19s.; but 166,000,000 lb. only in 1855, when it was 19s. But, when the price of the raw material fell to 14s. the production of paper increased to 187,000,000 lb., and in 1857 to 191,000,000 lb. It was, therefore, found that the increase of 5s. in the price of the raw material actually resulted in a diminution of production. The amount of the duty was 14s., and from that single fact they could estimate what must be its depressing effect and oppressive character; for if an increase of 5s. in the price of the raw material produced such results, what must be the effect of an impost of 14s., and what the benefit produced by its total extinction? What would be the effect of taking off this duty? In America the consumption of paper was triple that of this country, and there could be no doubt that this difference was solely caused by the amount of the duty. If that duty were remitted it was obvious that the manufacture and consumption of paper in this country would quite equal what was experienced in America. Surely that was a consideration which ought to have great weight with the Chancellor of the Exche- quer in any future financial arrangement that he might be called on to make. He would not go into detail on the inconveniences that were experienced under the present system of excise, but he might observe that if there were no excise regulations it would be possible to print on paper as it came from the mill, without allowing it to dry and then submitting it again to the process of wetting, by which a considerable saving both of time and expense would be effected. There was no commodity that entered more largely into the general purposes connected with trade than paper. In the statute to which his right hon. Friend had referred there was but one exception allowed to the payment of duty, and that was on paper used for pressing woollen cloth. Now, it was difficult to see on what principle an exception was allowed in the case of paper used for pressing woollen cloth, and not in others. Last Session he moved for a return of the applications made to the Commissioners for a remission of the paper duty, with the names which accompanied those applications, and he must say that the return was a very extraordinary one both as regarded the applications made on the one hand and the concessions of the Commissioners on the other. A remission was made in favour of millboards and papier maché because, as was stated, "the existing regulations proved injurious to trade." A manufacturer asked for a remission of the duty on paper used in making buttons, and the Commissioners declared that the duty ought to be remitted; another sought for it on paper used in making patterns for jacquard looms; and so with regard to other articles of manufacture—as, for example, the cuttings of paper envelopes, to which reference had already been made. It seemed, indeed, that whenever a person was sufficiently persevering he succeeded in obtaining from the Treasury a remission of duty on the paper which he used as a manufacturer. But what good reason could be given for such practical anomalies? Why should the duty be remitted in the case of papier machié, or on the paper used in pressing cloth, and not on the paper employed in other kinds of manufacture? If equal justice was done, every manufacturer in Manchester was entitled to have the duty taken off all the paper he made use of for packing goods. And he would particularly ask, if the claim for exemption was admitted for commercial and manufacturing reasons, on what ground could they consistently insist upon the duty being levied upon paper which was used in the highest, the best, and the most righteous employment to which it could be devoted—the education of the people? Again, why should prayer-books printed in one form be exempt from the paper duty, while prayer-books printed in another form were charged? The exemption in favour of Bibles and prayer-books no doubt was originally made because at that time they were the principal means of education; and now, when the means of education were so largely extended, why should not the exemption be extended in the same proportion? Why should not every man be allowed to have his form of prayer free of this tax, and why should not all religious professions be put on the same level? Then, if they got quit of the tax, as far as education and manufactures were concerned, what remained of it? There seemed to him to be nothing left but waste paper, and surely the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not keep up an Excise for that? They had no alternative, therefore, but to repeal the entire duty. But there remained the question, how were they to find the Ways and Means to carry on the Government of the country. His answer to that was, reduce the expenditure of the country within reasonable limits. There were a great many causes that led to the late change of Government, some severely felt and some only expressed; and if there was one cause felt that more than any other led to the change, it it was the growing extravagant expenditure of the country. He could not, however, imagine that that expenditure would continue year after year to offer an obstacle to the removal of this and other pernicious taxes. Why, for example, should they not return to the average expenditure for the Army and Navy that existed between 1843 and 1853, when the Russian war was commenced? All his right hon. Friend asked was, that when they could reduce taxation the first tax taken off should be this inconvenient and oppressive paper duty. He hoped the subject would receive the serious attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He knew this tax to be one of the most vexatious, burthensome, and unjust, that pressed upon the community, and he hoped he would arrive at the conclusion that it was one which, before all others, should be made the subject of remission.

MR. COWAN

said, that from long experience as a paper manufacturer, he could confirm the statement of his right hon. Friend as to the injurious effects of the present duty. Many years ago he had exported paper to Monte Video, and hoped soon again to have that large market opened to him, but had been obliged to discontinue doing so by reason of the operation of the excise duty. He was glad to say that the Excise no longer interfered with the manufacture of paper, properly so called; but there was still a most cruel detention caused by the system of labelling. So great had been the recent changes in papermaking, that it would soon be absolutely necessary to introduce a new law or to repeal the duty altogether. Indeed it was difficult now to say what was paper. Three or four years ago a gentleman took out a patent for an improved parchment, but the Excise interfered, and insisted that the manufacture was paper and liable to the duty. The question came on for trial in the Court of Exchequer; but, after a long investigation, it was impossible to say whether the article was paper or not; and a verdict having passed for the Crown, a new trial was granted on account of the doubt in which the matter was involved. The question, however, was still unsettled. In the first trial the counsel for the defendant produced in court a number of untaxed articles used as paper, and amongst others a spelling-book, the material being cloth so closely woven that few persons were able to detect whether it was the produce of the loom or the paper mill. Was it not, too, an anomaly that cotton waste, which was formerly carted away as refuse, now that it was employed in the making of paper, should be subject to a duty six times the amount of that which was charged upon the cotton as it came originally from America? He would not advocate any measure that should endanger the public credit, but he could not forget that, if they were under an engagement to the public creditor, they were also under a long standing engagement to the paper manufacturers and the public in reference to this tax, which ought to be discharged. The paper tax and the soap tax were imposed together, as war taxes, in the time of Queen Anne. A few years ago the soap duty was remitted, and he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be prepared to carry out the remainder of the pledge of the Government of Queen Anne by abolishing the paper duty also.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

Sir, while I by no means overlook or underrate the importance of the proposition contained in the Resolution proposed by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashton, I would remind the House that have had an opportunity of expressing my opinion on this tax to the House before, and I have even given a vote in indication of it. I again take this opportunity of stating that I look upon the tax upon paper as one of those particular taxes which, when a favourable opportunity arises, I shall be very glad to see remitted and erased from our fiscal system. As well in a commercial as in a moral, literary, and educational point of view, I should be very glad if I felt it was consistent with my duty at this juncture to propose a remission of that tax. These are the opinions that I have always expressed upon that tax, as on all others of course, with due deference to my position as a Minister responsible for the state of the finances of the country and the condition of the public credit. I cannot, however, give my assent to the Resolution proposed by the right hon. Member for Ashton. There is a portion of it to which I would willingly find no objection, although I do not see the use of pressing such a declaration upon the House. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman "that the maintenance of the excise on paper as a permanent source of revenue would be impolitic;" but I cannot agree with him "that such financial arrangements ought to be made as will enable Parliament to dispense with that tax." I think that if a Resolution such as that contained in the latter portion of the Motion is carried, you will only cripple and hamper the Government, and I do not think it is fair to hamper the Government with any such declaratory Resolution on this particular tax, as we entertain very little difference of opinion on the topic with the right hon. Gentleman who proposes this Resolution. The paper tax alone, however, is not the only tax forming one of the great sources of revenue derived from indirect taxation that requires our consideration. Whether we look at the revenue derived from our Customs, or at the various branches of our inland revenue, there is no doubt that, notwithstanding the great changes and the great improvements which have occurred with respect to the mode of raising the revenue in these two particular departments during the last ten years, or, I might say, generally speaking, during the last twenty-five years, still there is a great deal that de- serves our consideration, and still there is great room for improvement in both these branches. Now, there are many duties in our Customs that really do not pay the cost of collecting and receiving them. That is a state of affairs which, in my opinion, it is not at all desirable should be maintained. When the cost of collection is not really paid by the duties that are levied, then I think it is quite clear that such an item should disappear from the schedule of taxation. Then there are a great many regulations in our Customs with reference to bonding, which require consideration and revision; and no doubt, in connection with the sister branch of revenue—namely, that derived from inland revenue—there are many subjects a consideration of which is very much required. The whole question of drawbacks and of credits is one which really ought not to be overlooked, and I admit that the regulations with regard to the production of paper are open to very serious objections, and that they ought to be considered, I am not prepared to say that the tax upon paper itself is not one which requires, if not immediate, yet early consideration; but the subjects are so numerous, both in the Customs and in the Excise, that I think it is the duty of the Government to submit both these branches of the revenue to an early and severe revision. It will be the duty of the Government, during the recess, to take all these subjects and heads of inquiry into consideration; and I trust that when the House meets again I shall be able to offer some suggestions worthy of its acceptance, and which may very considerably affect the state of the Treasury; but I hope that the House will not, by passing the Resolution proposed, hamper the course proposed to be taken by the Government, or cripple those efforts they desire to make in the way of improving that portion of the revenue which is derived from indirect taxation. Although an hon. Member who has spoken on this subject could not maintain that the present state of the Exchequer was one that would justify a proposition of this kind, he has yet indicated means by which further resources might be placed at our disposal in the reduction of our expenditure and public establishments. I would urge on time House, as I have formerly done, when they consider such subjects as the present, the importance of remembering that a reduction of the public establishments is not a thing that can be accom- plished in a moment. A proposition for the reduction of our public establishments, and especially of our naval and military establishments, requires long preparation—a preparation arising from circumstances that are not mere circumstances of routine. Public expenditure, as I have frequently felt it to be my duty to impress on the consideration of this House—public expenditure depends on public policy; and it is only by a change in that policy that you can ultimately and considerably affect the expenditure either way. Now, I hope that the policy pursued by Her Majesty's Government with respect to their foreign arrangements and relations has not been of a character that would give the House any reason to believe that we are anxious to encourage a wasteful expenditure in our military or naval establishments, or that, on the other hand, we are not open to the great advantage that would accrue to the country—taking a more selfish and contracted view of the question—from a reasonable and economical administration of financial affairs, and a fair and well-considered reduction of public expenditure. In this way we should have more means at our command for a reduction of taxation, and when, in due course, we can effect a reduction of expenditure no one will be more glad to hail such a state of affairs than myself, and no one will be more happy to propose a reduction in expenditure or a remission in taxation, which will be the natural consequence of such a state of affairs. But I must repeat, I hope the House will not hamper the Government by passing Resolutions respecting taxes on which the House cannot act. It is quite impossible at the present moment that you can take off the paper duty, and why should you bind any Government to remit that particular tax, when you are aware at this moment of the various considerations, and seeing that the question of additional taxation must come on in the course of a year hence, that must act on the Government before they can come to a decision on this question. I say, therefore, that under the circumstances it appears to me to be highly impolitic and inexpedient to pass any Resolution on the subject, and that it would be particularly unfair to a Government which, on the subject of this particular tax, does not wish to conceal its general opinion that it is a tax that ought not to form a permanent source of revenue. I trust, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman will be satisfied with having brought forward this important question before the House and the country, and that he will not press to a division the Resolution he has proposed.

MR. BRIGHT

said, the speech which they had just heard was much the sort of one which they might have expected any Chancellor of the Exchequer to make on such a subject; but his right hon. Friend (Mr. M. Gibson) might feel satisfied that his case was so good that no Member of that House had attempted to make any reply to it, and the friends out of doors by whom he was supported might take courage when they knew that the paper tax was so bad that no one in that assembly was prepared to make the smallest defence of it. He thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer took too serious a view of what he called the danger of hampering a Government. If the right hon. Gentleman would look back only a few years to the questions connected with this question, which had been already satisfactorily settled, he would remember that his (Mr. Bright's) right hon. Friend induced him (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) on one occasion to vote in favour of a Resolution which had reference to the newspaper stamp; and he believed the effect of passing that Resolution was very much to bring about the abolition of that stamp. He believed the object of his right hon. Friend in bringing forward this Resolution was merely to put on the records of the House the opinions of hon. Members on both sides, so that whenever the condition of the Treasury should be such as to permit the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consent to the abolition of this tax, the right hon. Gentleman would select it as the very first for remission, and so get rid of it. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to certain other taxes, particularly the Customs duties; but he would undertake to say that the right hon. Gentleman was not more anxious than he (Mr. Bright) or his right hon. Friend (Mr. M. Gibson) was to get rid of the obnoxious and unproductive Customs duties to which he had referred. He thought, however, it would be very easy to show that the abolition of a Customs duty of an equal amount in money would not afford anything like the relief to the public which would result from the abolition of this particular Excise upon paper. It was first of all a tax which operated as a code of pains and penalties upon a considerable number of persons engaged in this country in carrying on a useful and meritorious occupation, and upon different important branches of industry. He did not believe it was possible for any person not engaged in a trade which was brought under the cognizance of the Excise to form any fair idea of the intolerable nuisances which arose from having an exciseman about one's premises. We lived in a free country—at least we boastingly told people so abroad—and we had a certain amount of freedom, but we had not the freedom to manufacture paper. Every exciseman was necessarily a spy. He might dress very well, and be very civil; but he had an awkward habit of coming in and out of people's premises at times when they did not want him. He trusted nothing to people's word, he examined everything they did, and insisted that they should give a particular statement about everything they did or contemplated doing in regard to their trade. Now, inhabitants of a free country ought not to be subjected to this sort of inquisition, and on that ground alone persons engaged in that trade had a right to ask for relief. Another important point was, that the duty was a tax upon the raw material of another important manufacture—of books and newspapers. He, as a cotton manufacturer, had been relieved from a small tax which was felt to be injurious, but those who were engaged in the manufacture of books were exposed to a tax of a most onerous character, the grievance of which none but those engaged in that manufacture could rightly comprehend. An eminent publisher had stated that in twenty years he had paid £80,000 to writers and authors, and in the same period had paid £50,000 to Government for paper duty. Other facts of a similar character had been narrated to the house that evening. Those were circumstances which pressed upon a trade more than could be measured by the mere amount of money levied upon it, and £1,000,000 of taxation remitted upon tea or sugar would not afford one-fourth the relief which the remission of the £1,000,000 paper duty would afford. One respectable paper manufacturer in the neighbourhood of Birmingham had told him that he paid £120 a year in wages to men whose sole occupation it was to attend upon the exciseman upon his premises. With regard to school books, the right hon. Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. G. Hamilton) would tell the House that of every 1,000 books published by that University—and some of the best school books were published there—not less than 250 were seized by the exciseman for the Excise duty upon paper. There was one other fact he wished to mention. His right hon. Friend (Mr. M. Gibson) had referred to the deputation which waited upon the Earl of Derby. He (Mr. Bright) was present upon that occasion and heard one paper manufacturer from Yorkshire state that when the commercial panic broke out he had entered into a contract to supply a quantity of paper. the original cost of which at the mill was £400, while the duty was another £400. He had to pay the duty in six weeks, but he had to receive payment in a bill at four months, at a period when the commercial hurricane was sweeping over the country. It really was astonishing that a trader could subsist at all under such circumstances, and it was not exactly a fair argument for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to put £1,0000,000 of tea or sugar duties in comparison with the same amount raised by the paper duty, which interfered with trade in a most offensive and ruinous manner. He would remind the representatives of Ireland that they were interested in this matter, for when the paper duty should be abolished a larger quantity of that article would be required, which would be made doubtless from straw, and especially from oat straw, which was best adapted for that purpose Ireland possessed that material in abundance, water power at command, and a good supply of labour. Ireland, therefore, offered an admirable field for the extension of the paper trade, and consequently there could be no doubt that that country would be benefited by the abolition of this impost. The agricultural districts of England, too, would see revived their ancient paper-mills, which, under the operation of the present Excise duty, had ceased to exist, and he would recommend the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, upon his next visit to Buckinghamshire, to ask of any papermaker there, if one should be left, and he would then learn how much that industry had been thwarted and garotted—how much capital had been lost under the influence of this obnoxious tax. His right hon. Friend was justified in asking the House to say that a duty was bad for which no defence had been made, and respecting which there was so universal an admission of its in jurious effects, and therefore had a right to ask them to say "that the maintenance of the Excise on paper as a permanent source of revenue would he impolitic." The Chancellor of the Exchequer wished his right hon. Friend to stop there, and so far was willing to agree to the Motion. It was true that as to the other portion of the Motion there might be two opinions as to the expediency of passing a Resolution pressing the Government to act in a particular way, when it could hardly act in any way, and, therefore, he thought that his right hon. Friend might fairly be asked to confine his Resolution to the words he had just read, and if that were agreed to the House would be merely doing what, in fact, all speakers had done, expressing a complete condemnation of this tax. He agreed that it was not desirable to hamper the Government, and if the House declared that it regarded the paper duty as impolitic as a permanent source of revenue, they would have made a step in the direction in which he wished them to travel, and towards freeing the paper trade and all those instruments by which knowledge was mainly diffused throughout the country from the pressure of a tax which was alike destructive to industry and an impediment to education.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS

said, he should not have added anything in prolongation of this debate, had not the right hon. Gentleman who made the Motion attributed to him opinions he did not entertain, and expressions which he had not used. The right hon. Gentleman had described him as regarding the paper duty abstractedly as an excellent tax, which ought to be maintained at all hazards.

MR. MILNER GIBSON

denied that he had used the words "at all hazards." He said the right hon. Baronet expressed an opinion that it was a good tax.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS

remembered that what he said upon a former occasion when making a financial statement was, that comparing the paper duty with other taxes, there being a necessity for raising a certain amount of revenue, it did not appear to him that in the circumstances of the country it was expedient to abolish that duty. He had a distinct recollection that he said no more than that, comparing it with other duties there was no reason for placing it before others which it was expedient to repeal. When the right hon. Gentleman accused him of calling it a good duty, he would ask, would any one point out among the whole list of duties levied a single "good duty?" There was not a single duty to which solid and valid objections could not be raised. Every duty was attended by its own peculiar disadvantages and was productive of inconvenience to the community. But what the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to do was, to select those duties which compared with others were productive of the least amount of inconvenience. He objected that, upon a mere abstract proposition, without reference to any particular amount of expenditure or revenue, they should be called upon to lay down the proposition that this particular duty should be abolished. They were told that in a particular year the income tax was to be abolished. That announcement was received with approbation by many hon. Members of that House, but it must be remembered that it involved the fact that in three years we should abandon £5,000,000 of taxation. The question then arose, under those circumstances, not whether any other tax could be remitted, but whether some new one must not be created. When the proposition was made as to the prospective abolition of the income tax he made the same observation as he now did, that it was objectionable for the House to bind itself down by an abstract proposition with respect to the prospective reduction of a particular tax. When they knew that they had a surplus revenue and the means of diminishing the taxation of the country, then was the proper time to consider what, under existing circumstances, were the taxes which had the first claim to reduction. He saw no advantage in the House binding itself down by prospective Resolutions of this kind, which it might subsequently find inapplicable to the circumstances of the case.

MR. DRUMMOND

was understood to say that he was always glad to listen to the honest and direct statements of the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright). The hon. Gentleman had called on Gentlemen on that (the Ministerial) side of the House to defend this tax. The hon. Gentleman must not suppose that he (Mr. Drummond) would defend any tax. He had heard with delight what the hon. Gentleman had said about the exciseman in a man's house, but he only wondered that the hon. Gentleman had expended his indignation on that subject in connection with this miserable tax of one million, and never said a word about the malt tax. This motion was, after all, only a flattering of newspapers—that was the only end with which this annual Motion was made. It was the newspapers which supported hon. Gentlemen opposite that it was sought to catch in this trap. Yet he did not believe that constituents were as green as hon. Members of that House thought they were. He suspected that they saw through speeches, and motions, and votes in that House in a way hon. Members little thought. But he must say, that simply repealing a tax, without pointing out the way of raising the same amount of revenue, was only, in other words, robbing the public. The words might be different, but the thing was the same. The repeal of all taxes must stand or fall together; and, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said, that was in effect a question of policy. If he (Mr. Drummond) had his way, he should like to double and quadruple that tax which was called the tax on knowledge.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL,

who was indistinctly heard, was understood to say, that he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he said that this tax was one of the few remaining Excise duties which, as being vexatious, ought not to be kept up as a permanent source of revenue. With regard to several Excise duties, it had been found that after their abolition the revenue continued as large as before, and he believed that their abolition gave a spring and an impulse to the general revenue. But as to the exact time for repealing this or that tax, great latitude should be given to a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He thought that this was not the exact moment for such a step. When a Chancellor of the Exchequer was called on to repeal a tax, he ought to have before him the whole of the Customs and Excise duties, and on a review of them all, to ascertain which would cause the most benefit to the public by its repeal. There was a question which had been touched on by the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) with regard to which he (Lord J. Russell) differed in opinion with that hon. Member. The House would recollect that last year the then Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed that the income tax should be kept up at 7d. in the pound, and that, instead of 1s. 3d., the duty on tea would be 1s. 5d.; and that there should be a proportionate increase in the duty on sugar. This year they had allowed the income tax to fall from 7d. to 5d. in the pound; but they had kept up the duty on tea at 1s. 5d., and also retained the proportionate increase in the duty on sugar. It was, therefore, almost a matter of good faith when next there was a reduction in taxation that the duties on tea and sugar should be reduced, which were, in fact, war duties; and there could be no greater claim for reduction of taxation than in those articles of consumption which entered so largely into the comforts of the people. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he was in office before, was of that opinion; and he (Lord J. Russell) was sure, that if there was a duty of 1s. on tea, the increased consumption would soon bring up the revenue. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would take these taxes into consideration. He trusted his right hon. Friend would not press his Resolution, but would assent to the suggestion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leaving out the latter part, be satisfied with the declaration contained in the first paragraph, "that the paper duty ought not to form a permanent source of revenue," and as the amount was so small it would probably be one of the first taxes which would be repealed.

MR. MILNER GIBSON

said, that as he understood there was no objection to the first part of his Resolution—namely, that the retention of the paper duty was impolitic, he would withdraw his Resolution, and move— That in the opinion of the House the maintenance of the Excise duty on paper as a permanent source of revenue was impolitic.

MR. BASS

said, he apprehended that if this Motion was agreed to, it did not commit the House to the opinion that there was no other tax equally impolitic.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

In assenting to this Motion, I must express a hope that the House tnay be allowed at once to go into Committee of Supply, and proceed with the Vote on education.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. BENTINCK

said, before the question was put, he wished to say a word. He hoped that it was clearly understood that the Resolution meant nothing.

Amendment proposed— To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'this House is of opinion that the maintenance of the Excise on Paper, as a permanent source of Revenue, would be impolitic,'" instead thereof.

Question— That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and negatived.

Words added: Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Resolved— That this house is of opinion that the maintenance of the Excise on Paper, as a permanent source of Revenue, would be impolitic.