EXCISE DUTIES ON PAPER.—HOUSE OF LORDS.—QUESTION. (Hansard, 25 August 1860)

MR. WHITE
said, he rose to ask Her Majesty's Government, Whether its attention has been called to the losses that have been incurred by Persons in the Paper Trade, in consequence of their having relied upon the finality of the Votes of the House of Commons in providing the Ways and Means for the Service of the Crown, and whether any mode could he entertained for compensating the parties in question; and also to ask whether, as a precedent has been established for the revision by the House of Lords of the provision annually made by this House for the Service of the Crown, it would be in future expedient to obtain the concurrence of the House of Lords before any proposal for the remission of Taxation is made to this House?

§ MR. SPEAKER
If the second part of this notice had been brought to me while in the House, I should have asked the hon. Member whether it was his serious intention to put the question, or whether it was intended in an ironical sense; and if so, I should have informed him that to discuss any matter in that House in an ironical sense is unparliamentary and out of order.

MR. WHITE
said, he begged respectfully to state, that the last question was not put in an ironical sense, and more in sorrow than in anger, and under a sincere conviction that such was the state of matters now. And more than that, he would have appealed to the learned Gentleman at the Table (Mr. Erskine May), that in the 1828 next revised edition of his great work on the practice of Parliament, to state whether the conviction commonly entertained by the public out of doors was right or wrong. They believed that owing to the gigantic innovation by the House of Lords trade would be embarrassed, commerce impeded, and divers ill consequences result, if the present or any future Government should presume to bring forward any measure for the remission of taxation, unless they first consulted the House of Lords as to its expediency. And here he should say that he was not going to re-argue the great question, which had been consecrated by the glorious eloquence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and rendered illustrious by the constitutional wisdom of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London. But he appeared there to put those questions in sober seriousness, because a large interest had suffered by the course taken by the House of Commons. He much regretted that the constituents whom he represented did not belong to the privileged classes. The paper makers, by the number of petitions presented to the House, showed how much they had been aggrieved. Had they been peers, proctors, or lawyers, he was quite sure that compensation, and ample compensation, for losses would have been awarded to them. The House was aware that, according to constitutional usage, they had a right to believe that a Money Bill which had passed the House of Commons, but was subsequently thrown out by the House of Lords, would have become law; and, on the strength of that belief, they went to vast expense, and hence had suffered great loss from the non-fulfilment of their righteous expectations. Although it was not a very agreeable thing to be addressing a moribund Parliament, where only about a dozen Members were present, he could not help recording his opinion that they must regard for the future as a vulgar error that taxation was co-ordinate with representation. That privilege no longer existed. They were now paying a tax on the sole authority of the House of Lords. The noble Lord the leader of the Opposition in "another place" had proclaimed it as his mission to stem the tide of democracy. He had done more. He had made an encroachment on the privileges of that House which were held in trust for the good of the people. It was really a matter of great public concern to know if measures should be taken in any future Parliament that this interference 1829 with trade resulting from the course of j the House of Lords should be voided, and hence it was that he ventured to put the questions with which he should conclude, only adding that he thought this Parliament would be ever memorable in the annals of our country for the cowardly abandonment of its privileges, and the profligate and gigantic expenditure which it had authorized. The hon. Gentleman concluded by putting the Questions.

§ MR. EDWIN JAMES
must say that he did not concur in the observations of the hon. Gentleman. He was aware that the hon. Gentleman felt strongly on this question, and also that there was on the part of the public a strong and jealous feeling on the subject; but he could not agree that any precedent had been set for the interference of the Lords in taxation, for the privileges of the House of Commons were protected by the Resolutions moved by the noble Lord at the head of the Government, which, though he (Mr. James) did not think they were quite sufficiently demonstrative of the feelings of the House, yet they did record in a dignified way the protest of this House against the encroachment. Then it was only the other evening that the question of privilege was raised in the matter of the Divorce Court, when the House, had every reason to be satisfied with the sound, deliberate, and constitutional judgment which the Speaker had pronounced in defence of their privileges. He might also allude to what took place in "another place" last evening, when the Lord Chancellor, referring to that Bill, declared in the most emphatic and dignified language that there was no intention to encroach on the privileges of the Commons. Under these circumstances, he thought his hon. Friend ought to rest satisfied with what the House of Commons had already done.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS
—The House will not expect me even to offer any excuse for not reviving the general subject of the paper duty, and the position of the House of Lords with reference to that question. I shall therefore confine myself as closely as possible to the points upon which the hon. Gentleman has made his interrogatories. As to the statement that there is a defect of legal power for the collection of the present paper duty, I shall only say that, whatever difference there may have been between the two branches of the Legislature respecting the repealing power, the duty is collected now under an Act of 1830 Parliament, which in a former year passed both Houses and received the Royal Assent; and, therefore, as far as the legal question is concerned, there is precisely the same authority for raising the paper duty as for levying and collecting any other branch of the Queen's taxes. No legal difficulty, therefore, can arise on the subject. Then the hon. Gentleman said that this Parliament had distinguished itself by the largo votes which it had made to defray expenditure; and his inference seemed to be that it was unreasonable to retain a certain branch of revenue. Now, if the grants for expenditure have been profuse, it seems hardly a logical inference that it is desirable to diminish our means of payment. With regard to the compensation to paper manufacturers which he suggests, the hon. Gentleman will no doubt remember that the measure for the remission of the Customs' duty on paper, which passed this House after being very fully debated, and which was assented to by the other House, for the most part proceeded on the assumption that the Excise duty inflicted scarcely any appreciable loss on the paper trade. If that assumption be correct, and our legislation certainly proceeded upon it, it can hardly be said that the paper manufacturers are able to substantiate any claim for compensation. I am not aware that any such claim has been made upon the Treasury; and no vote having beenag reed to by this House for such compensation, the Treasury would be of course unable to recognize a claim of this kind. But I will go further, and say that I am aware of no grounds upon which a claim for compensation can be substantiated. With regard to the second question of the hon. Member, I confess that I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. E. James) that no precedent for a change of system has been established by what has taken place during the Session. I have always understood that those who opposed the Paper Duty Abolition Bill did so on the ground that an extraordinary remedy was necessary to meet an extraordinary evil. I remember hearing a remark made by a person supposed to be favourable to the view of the House of Lords, that though be considered the course taken by the Lords was defensible as medicine, it could not he justified as daily food. That opinion, I believe, represents correctly the view taken by those who approved the act of the House of Lords, and if it be correct, no precedent for a change of system has been esta- 1831 blished. However, if a change of system were likely to ensue, I do not see how it would be possible to resort to any such course as that indicated by the hon. Gentleman.

§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBY
said, he thought the House of Commons would be always ready to vindicate their privileges if they were really invaded by the Lords. The moral to be drawn from the existing state of the paper duty question was that the House of Commons should not hastily embark in any extensive reduction of taxation until it was aware of the expenditure which would he required. The only effect of the hasty course adopted was that the revenue had sustained the loss of probably not less than a quarter of a million, which showed that the House had been guilty of great imprudence in repealing this tax.