ADJOURNED DEBATE.—THIRD NIGHT.

HC Deb 24 February 1860 vol 156 cc1725-818

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [21st February],— That this House, recognizing the necessity of providing for the increased expenditure of the coming financial year, is of opinion that it is not expedient to add to the existing deficiency by diminishing the ordinary revenue, and is not prepared to disappoint the just expectations of the Country by re-imposing the Income-tax at an unnecessarily high rate.

Question again proposed.

Debate resumed.

MR. NEWDEGATE

said, that he had not moved the adjournment on the previous evening for the sake of merely making a speech, but in order to draw attention to a matter which was well worthy of consideration—namely, to the fact that the Treaty did not coincide with the instructions given by the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs to Lord Cowley and Mr. Cobden. The noble Lord had thus written:— Taking these as the respective points of departure on the two sides, Her Majesty's Government are prepared to admit, as appears also to be the opinion of the French Government, that the proper basis for the operation will be, on the side of France, a general transition, so far as British commodities are concerned, from prohibition or high duty to duties at a moderate rate; and, on the side of England, the total abolition of Customs' duties on French productions where fiscal considetions will permit it, and reduction to the lowest practicable point, together with the entire abandonment of any protective impost on behalf of a British and against a French commodity, where fiscal considerations will not allow total abolition. On turning to the Treaty, and reading over the articles to which the contracting parties respectively bound themselves, he found that on the part of France the contract related only to articles imported from—only to the produce of—this country; but on the part of England it was proposed that Her Majesty and the Houses of Parliament should, under the obligation of a contract made with France only, admit the produce of all countries, of whatever origin those goods might be, free of duty, into the United Kingdom. Article 1, which expressed the obligation of France, stated thus— His Majesty the Emperor of the French engages that on the following articles of British production and manufacture imported from the United Kingdom into France, the duties shall in no case exceed thirty per cent ad valorem, the two additional decimes included. Then follows a list of commodities under forty-three heads, and a general provision to enable the French Government to add to the amount of the French Customs' duties an amount equal to the Inland or Excise taxation charged upon like articles of French production. Article 5 expressed the obligation contracted by Her Majesty with the Emperor of the French, and runs thus— Article 5. Her Britannic Majesty engages to recommend to Parliament to enable her to abolish the duties of importation on the following articles. Then follows a list under forty-two READINGs, including in the last item all articles charged with a duty of ten per cent, but not enumerated in the tariff, and a general provision against the introduction of articles duty free, into the composition of which articles chargeable with Customs' or Excise duties largely enter. Well may the hon. Member for Birmingham endeavour to excuse such provisions as these—which are the handiwork of his friend Mr. Cobden—on the plea of haste. Let the House consider the position in which these articles place this country with respect to other countries besides France. The hon. Member for Portsmouth, in his admirable speech the previous evening, had well observed, In the 6rst place, if such great blessings were to be derived from a commercial treaty with France, he felt inclined to ask, 'Why don't you enter into commercial treaties with other countries?' If they were to make friends with France at the expense of a million of their revenue—for it came to that—why couldn't they spend a small sum in making other friends on the Continent, where they had not too many? Let the Government, then, take a lesson from their own book, and apply their principles of friendship to the negotiation of commercial treaties with other States besides France. This was a Treaty between the Governments of England and of France, but in what position would it place this country with all the rest of the world? The Emperor of France was treated in it as the representative of all mankind. He would have the opportunity of going to the Rhenish provinces, the Zollverein, to Switzerland, to Savoy, and to Spain, and saying, "Do not trouble yourselves to enter into commercial treaties with England. I have managed England. I have obtained conditions in this Treaty under which you will all be able to bring your produce into her ports on better terms even than my immediate subjects, for it will not be necessary for you to render yourselves liable to the engagements which I have contracted, not to charge above 30 per cent." This country, he maintained, ought not to be placed in such a false position, in such a humiliating relation as respects the Emperor of the French. This was a strong illustration of the imprudent spirit and of the haste with which the Treaty had been negotiated, that Her Majesty was placed at a grievous disadvantage as regarded other Powers. In this respect, moreover, as he had shown, the instrument was directly at variance with the directions given by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The safety of this country consisted in its prestige, and some measures ought to be taken for removing the anomalies which this document introduced regarding the interests of England. The hon. Member for Birmingham had undertaken to lecture him (Mr. Newdegate), speaking in the unwonted guise of a Protectionist, in which he said, and truly, that he lost his usual fluency. In the course of a lengthened dissertation he had told the House that France had engaged to concede five times as much as we were doing. It was perfectly true that France was making a great and a wise reduction of duties, and was wisely abandoning prohibition in many cases. She was acting on the principle of the late Sir Robert Peel in reducing Customs' charges, and in removing import duties from raw materials for her manufactures and articles of primary necessity. France was creating, not abandoning revenue; we, on the contrary, were abandoning revenue, abolishing the means by which we had maintained the establishments of the country, and increasing our deficiency—and for what purpose? To admit to this country no articles of prime necessity—not raw materials for manufactures, not articles on which the cost of collection was too great to make it worth while to maintain the impost—but duties on articles of luxury—which were to be relinquished with scarcely a pretence of an equivalent in return. If they glanced at the catalogue of the articles on which the duty was to be remitted by England under Article 5, they would find that the production or manufacture of them gave employment to 800,000 of the people of this country. And of those no loss than 450,000 were women. It was indeed a woman's question. It did seem to him a bigoted and insane adherence to a system thus to diminish the means of employing so many women, when they knew the difficulty of obtaining employment for the females of this country. This blind adherence to a system that would have such results reminded him of the words— Man to man so oft unjust, Is always so to woman. They might not protect the labour of men, but by the laws of nature they were bound to protect the women of the land. He must say it did appear to him that a jealous, a bigoted, an insane hatred of protection—knowing as they did that the difficulty in obtaining employment for the females of this country which was leading them to a sacrifice of revenue rather than give protection to the labour of women. He could not conceal his opinion on this subject. The hon. Member for Birmingham had addressed him as a Protectionist, His (Mr Newdegate's) opinions were modified, but he did not differ with the great body of mankind. Look round the world—in their own colonies, with their progressive legislation—and then say whether the rigid adherence to this system of free imports—for they had degraded their political economy from being a science to a mere system—was not contrary to the common sense of mankind throughout the world? When they propose to carry out that system against the labour of the women of this country, it did grate upon his feelings—and he appealed to the Gentlemen of that House, and especially to the Secretary at War—for no man had done more to promote female employment—he appealed to them upon this subject as gentlemen and as men He had said that his opinions were modified. He approved of Customs' duties as a means of revenue, and he never would condemn Customs' duties because they might, as a means of revenue, happen to encourage the industry of the country. He attributed an object as yet overlooked to Mr. Cobden's negotiation. They were about to have a Reform Bill. It was his (Mr. Newdegate's) conviction that the lie-form Bill would include in the representation of that House a more popular element, and that a House of Commons thus constituted would not be actuated by the stern adherence to this system of free imports under which that House was at present acting. He was convinced that Mr. Cobden and the Member for Birmingham anticipated this, and were determined by this contract with France to chain down a future Parliament to their system. This was not now a party question; if he were asked to vote for a corn law, or to propose a corn law, his answer would be "never." Never, until, and may God forbid that this should ever happen! the people had felt the misery of a dependence upon foreigners for food. And why would he never until then sanction a corn law? Because he had seen the use that had been made of it to destroy the institutions of the country. And that brought him to the question of the duties they were about to retain. What were they? Duties on articles of almost prime necessity to the people. Heavy duty on coffee; upon tea a duty of 100 per cent; a heavy duty on sugar, and a heavy excise on malt. He would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether in the speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham he did not see a foreshadowing of an agitation for breaking down these duties upon food? The hon. Member for Birmingham was always explicit. He told them plainly what his intentions were. He objected to the expense of our defensive armaments, and therefore he contemplated a deficiency, not of ten millions nor of twelve. His object was to abolish customs and excise. The hon. Member had elsewhere proposed a scheme of his own, and that included the abolition of the duty on coffee, sugar and tea. Of what use was it for the Secretary for Ireland to quote Adam Smith. "Why, Adam Smith recommended that we should maintain the navigation laws." Where were they: A difficulty was felt now about manning the navy. Many were not quite clear that we had done wisely in repealing the navigation laws. Adam Smith was of opinion that it was a foolish act. But what was the use of quoting science to a man who dealt in exciting public agitation—who spoke in that House with some moderation and respect, but out of it spared no language to condemn its Members? Who called them a collection of tax-eaters, and said that the Members of that House lived upon the sweat and toil of the people whom they oppressed. And yet that very man was he who was all the while proclaiming the triumph of free trade, and saying, "look at your prosperity." Really to hear these men speak of the success of their system, one would think that it was they and their system which made the sun to shine upon the just and upon the unjust, and sent the dew by which the earth brought forth her increase. Had not other countries prospered under commercial systems very different from this? Was not America successful, and did not her commerce extend? Look at France; the commercial relations of the two countries were all in favour of France, as shown by their own accounts, and by the report of the French Minister to the Emperor. See how the matter stood. The value of the imports of the five years ending with 1858 from Fiance were £55,218,000, and the exports to France £26,700,000; so that, of course, the commercial relations between the two countries were not satisfactory to hon. Gentlemen on the Government side of the House. And why so? Why, because France was drawing our bullion. That was the case of Gentlemen opposite. If they attributed all prosperity to free trade, how could they account for the prosperity of France? Why, France ought to be crippled, according to such teachers, by her commercial system; but she is not. He was free to admit that the French system was in some respects objectionable, and that it was unwise to maintain prhibitions and to tax the raw materials of manufacture. But, spite of that, the revenue of France was elastic, and Gentlemen opposite complained that there must be some change, because France was robbing us of our gold. Take the case of the United States. The hon. Member for Birmingham had pointed to the increase in the trade of the United States. That according to the hon. Member could be accounted for by her protective system of imports. Would the hon. Member have the kindness to consider the element of Californian gold in connection with the trade of America? It was to that powerful element that the prosperity of our trade with America was mainly attributable, and yet that element had been overlooked in this discussion, save by the hon. Member for Leeds. He only had had the honesty to advert to that great circumstance. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, gifted as he was with an eloquence that enabled him to cast a nebulous and prismatic halo around the worst parts of his case, had made historic references to prove what he called the success of free trade, and he began with 1842. Why he (Mr. Newdegate) had had the pleasure of supporting Sir Robert Peel in all his measures up to 1846, and he asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to remember the effect that was produced on the revenue between 1842 and 1846. Why, at the end of 1844, Sir Robert Peel, instead of a deficit, found himself in possession of a surplus of more than three millions. No parallel elasticity of revenue since that period could be quoted. No period of greater commercial prosperity could be quoted than from 1842 to 1846, and yet England was not then under the system of free imports. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had not referred to that fact at all. Look at the difference between that period and that which extended from 1850 to 1853. In 1850 the country felt the first pinch of free trade under a restricted currency. In 1848 the discovery of gold in California was made, and in 1851 began the working of gold in Australia. In 1853 the product of gold from California amounted to £10,703,000, while the product from Australia had grown up to £9,990,000 in the year, and from that period regularly from year to year there had been added £20,000,000 to the circulation of the world, and half of that amount had come from a colony of England—had come to this country in relief of the pressure from a contracted currency. The year 1853 was marked by something more substantial than the fact that the right hon. Member spoke for five hours in making his financial statement. He remembered conversations he had with the late Sir Robert Peel on this subject and that aubsequently he put a question to him—the first he had ever put in that House—in 1844, that statesman fully admitted the importance of this element. Was it, then, worthy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who called himself a pupil of the late Sir Robert Peel, but was enforcing a policy totally different from that of his master, to omit all notice of that subject, and to attribute all the material progress of this country solely to the system of free trade? The hon. Member for Birmingham spoke of himself, and Mr. Cobden, and the Emperor of the French in the sense nos et rex noster. He said, of the Treaty "this is my accomplishment." He warned the Government not to depart from his system, or they should be swept from the Government benches. The hon. Member did not stop there; he had publicly proposed entirely to overturn the system of indirect taxation, and place the finances of the country directly upon property. The hon. Gentleman was going to re-establish the feudal system against the proprietors of real property, but without its privileges. He proposed a sort of pole-tax, which it would be impossible to enforce, and property tax. Was that a system that House was likely to sanction? Was that likely to commend itself to the deliberate wisdom of Parliament? Was it likely to commend itself to the holders of property throughout the country? The hon. Member for Birmingham's scheme was before the country, and he (Mr. Newdegate) fully believed, that the result of the hon. Member's system would be to impose taxation upon real property and the Funds up to about one-quarter of their value. Experience of the income tax warned them how easily personal property and property invested in trade evaded such an impost. Was the hon. Member's project that which the House was about to sanction; was it prudent of them to accept the position of either being compelled to restrict their defensive establishments, or to accept as the alternative the ultimate imposition of a confiscatory tax of 20 per cent on property? Was it wise in them to sanction this Treaty, so hastily concluded that it failed to place the two contracting Powers on an equal footing before the world? He should have great pleasure in voting for this Motion of the hon. Member for Essex, and he thanked him for having afforded him the opportunity of warning the House that they were launched upon a course the probable results of which were such as all must deprecate, for in adopting that system they were fearfully crippling their sinews of war, undermining the means of their defences, and doing much to imperil the national greatness and safety of the country.

MR. BRIGHT

said, he wished to say a word in explanation of a point which the hon. Gentleman had referred to with regard to himself. He understood the hon. Gentleman to say that he (Mr. Bright) wished to place so much of taxation as he had described on what he called real property; that was, generally speaking, the land and buildings of the country. That never was his intention. He never made any such proposition; he never proposed any taxation of that description that he did not propose to lay on all other property, whether in connection with land or trade.

MR. NEWDEGATE

said, he would not willingly misrepresent the hon. Gentleman, but he had judged from the hon. Member's own statement of his own scheme and from his own figures.

MR. BERNAL OSBORNE

The hon. Gentleman the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) has solemnly assured the House that he has modified his opinions, but I am sure, after the speech which we have just heard, hon. Members will have some difficulty in discovering, if they do not absolutely fail to perceive in what that modification consists. I, at all events, can call to mind the fact that the self-same objections have been urged to-night against the Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer by the hon. Gentleman which he advanced against free trade in 1847. The hon. Gentleman even then came forward with the cry of "Protection to English women." He then warned the House of what they were about to do, and said, in the same solemn tones, "Remember the women of England." [Mr. NEWDEGATE: Hear!] The hon. Gentleman has not forgotten the women of England; he has not modified his opinions with regard to the women of England. He also spoke of the import of gold in this country from California. But, Sir, whatever the opinions of the hon. Gentleman may be, we have no right to be surprised at them; he has always been consistent, true, and outspoken; and, although I differ from him, I have always honoured his consistent, straightforward, and highminded vindication of his own opinions. But I think we are called upon to express some surprise when we hear the sentiments which proceed from those right hon. Gentlemen who have been, not converts, but the first apostles of the free-trade policy. I must say I was surprised and disappointed indeed at the speech of the right hon. Member for Portsmouth. It appeared to me that he certainly has, to use the hon. Gentleman's expression, somewhat modified his opinions. What was his Criticism upon this Commercial Treaty? I must say, with regard to this Commercial Treaty, that the more it is criticized the less objection can be made by Free-traders to any of its principles. I can understand an hon. Member when he says he considers the old system of making commercial treaties is obsolete: those treaties are in their nature restrictive; but are there any restrictions in this Treaty? Though this Treaty be made nominally with France, is not the country left at liberty to deal on the same terms with every other country? There are no restrictions whatever in the Treaty, though to hear some hon. Gentlemen speak of it one would suppose all our silks were to come from Lyons and all our wines from Burgundy or Bordeaux. The whole world is open to us. Sir, we sometimes find that a right hon. Gentleman who has formerly filled the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer is led to speak of the Budgets of others in an invidious spirit, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring) said, at any rate, whatever the merits of the Treaty, he found that France had the best of the bargain. I deny that there is any bargaining in this case at all. If Mr. Cobden were open to the charge of making any bargaining in this Treaty, I should say it ought to be condemned on every account. We make no bargain with France. But are hon. Gentlemen so fanatical in their adherence to free trade that they will refuse to assist France to take off prohibitory duties from a pedantic affectation of love for the doctrines of free trade? Now, what says Adam Smith, who was sneered at by the hon. Gentleman—[Mr. NEWDEGATE: No, no!]—well, patronized by the hon. Gentleman; what does Adam Smith say of commercial treaties, and especially commercial treaties with France? I am sorry not to see the right hon. Member for Portsmouth in his place. When he talked of a best bargaining system of free trade he must have had a most imperfect understanding of the doctrines of free trade. What says Adam Smith?— The disinclination of foreign Governments to enter into commercial treaties on a footing of reciprocity has been urged as a reason why we should not admit their commodities into our markets. It is true that the French Government have by an unwise regulation prohibited the introduction of English cottons and hardware into France, thus forcing their own subjects to purchase inferior articles at a higher price. This is a line of conduct that ought to be carefully avoided, not followed. Because the French Government makes her subjects pay an artificially-enhanced price for cottons and hardware, there is no reason why the English Government should injure its subjects by making them pay an enhanced price for their wines, brandies, and silks. To act thus is not to retaliate on the French, but ourselves. It is erecting the blind and brutal impulses of revenge into maxims of State policy. So much for the best bargain system. I maintain that this Commercial Treaty has been made in conformity with the doctrines of free trade, and that no bargaining has taken place on this question at all. I am very thankful that the prohibitory system in France has been one step removed, and we may hope to see it ultimately altogether removed by the exertions Mr. Cobden has made in this matter. I am very sorry to hear the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, of all people in the world, endeavouring the other night to get up an anti-Gallican feeling on this subject, by talking of this Treaty as a submission to France. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud (Mr. Horsman) has talked somewhat in the same strain. That right hon. Gentleman has come out this Session as a Whig of the year 1787, and talks of our submission to France. Why, Sir, turning to the old debates of that year, I find that a Whig, very much of the same kidney, if I may use that expression, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud, made almost the same speech. I refer to the suspected author of Junius, Sir Philip Francis,—a remarkably good-natured man: he prophesied that nothing but evil would result if Mr. Pitt carried his treaty—that it was a badge of submission to France; and he declared emphatically that if it were adopted "the English people would be civilized out of their virtues and polished out of their character." Instead of provoking an anti-Gallican spirit, I would say that this Treaty is twice blessed; it blesses him who gives and him who takes; and I feel satisfied if its provisions are carried out, the good understanding that will spring up between the people of this country and the people of France, will eventually enable you to cut down the monstrous expenditure, especially in our army and navy, which I do not think a great credit to the House or the country. I think the answer to all this rhodomon-tade of submission to France was well and forcibly put by the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright), when he spoke of the effects of our commerce with America. What did he tell you were the returns for the export to America of our home products? Not less than £22,000,000. If that be so with the Atlantic rolling between the two countries, what may we not expect of our trade with our next-door neighbour, our natural ally, nearer to us than Ireland, with, I may say, but a herring pond between us? Instead of £5,000,000, as at present, there is no reason why our trade with France should not produce as much as our trade with America. Mr. Pitt and Adam Smith were both of that opinion. And yet Her Majesty's Government have been blamed for endeavouring to remove the existing anomaly. Exception has been taken to the 11th Article of the Treaty, relating to the export of coal, and all the dowager sympathies of the country have been evoked by the fear that the supply of coal may only last 300 years. I will not go into that question. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud (Mr. Horsman) is geologically wrong; he was thinking of Newcastle coal alone, and lost sight of that in South Wales. There seems to be a monomania on this subject: the late Mr. Warburton, who was a Member of this House, was so strongly impressed with the opinion that our fields of coal would only last a certain time, that he denied himself the comfort of a fire. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not adopt such extreme views. It has been said that the French Government wish to lay up enormous stores of steam coal for their fleet. Is the House aware that it would be almost impossible to lay up stores of steam coal in any very great quantity? There would be not only much waste, but the danger of spontaneous combustion would be very great. Is not this, after all, a mere bugbear? Any one who reads the letter of M. Chevalier must be perfectly satisfied of this. Without this Treaty, the Emperor of the French could I buy as much coal as he wished. But does the right hon. Gentleman want to have a prohibitory duty put upon all coal? I do not say whether an export duty would in the abstract be a good or a bad thing. That is a question more for Committee than for a debate on the broad features of the Budget. But what would be the effect of striking this Article out of the Treaty? The case is most ably put by a coalowner, who says,—"By keeping up high discriminating duties against English coal the Emperor of the French might force the rate of production in the Belgian and Prussian coal-mines—many of them worked with English capital,—and this in the event of war would make him quite independent of England. But this Treaty will place not only the French Navy, but the steam mercantile marine of France in such a position of dependence on England, that in the case of an interruption of supply, they would experience great embarrassment and distress, as collieries cannot possibly be opened in less than from three to five years. Is not that a sufficient answer to all objections? In 1860 coal is about to play the same part as corn did in the free-trade struggle of 1846. We were told that the time would come when we must be dependent on foreigners for our food. Nobody in the country believes that now. As little, by and by, will any considerable portion of the community believe that this argument about coal is more than a complete bugbear, conjured up to defeat this Budget. I was surprised to hear what fell from the right hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring) last night as to the wine duties. The right hon. Gentleman scoffed altogether at the idea of reducing those duties, and said, "Look at your petitions; nobody cares about wine—all the petitions presented are against anybody being allowed to sell wine." He ought to have recollected that this is a licensed victualler's cry, and that when you interfere with a large interest like theirs, of course they do not want wine or any other beverage. They wish to stick to their own "black strap" and adulterated beer. The right hon. Gentleman also said the reduction of the wine duties had never led to any sensible increase in the revenue; and he particularly instanced Lord Al-thorp's reduction in 1831. How far is he borne out by the facts? I took the opportunity to look for them this morning. I find that in 1831 Lord Althorp lowered the duty on French wine from 7s. 3d. to 5s. 6d a gallon; and mind, he asked for no concessions from France; he sinned against the best bargain system of the right hon. Gentleman. What, however, was the result of the change? The revenue from wine in 1831, before the duties were reduced, was £77,184. In a cycle of ten years, under the operation of the new scale, the revenue rose to £110,054. That was their amount in 1842. Here, then, is proof positive that a remission of the wine duties imparts elasticity to your revenue. But I maintain that these duties?—-to use the words of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer—are the scandal of our tariff. They keep our products out of nine tenths of the markets of Europe. They ought to be reduced to the lowest possible amount not only on financial but on sanitary and moral considerations. Hon. Gentlemen opposite say wine is a luxury which may be dispensed with. Why is it a luxury? Because you have made it so by your excessive taxation. The duty on the low class of wines that the poor man would drink is 250 per cent. It is only 25 per cent on the higher class of wines. Yet, when yet have yourselves made it impossible for the man to get this beverage, you turn round and say it is a luxury. How well your argument is answered by the Report of Lord Chelsea! And I must say that Report does the noble Lord great honour, and fully justifies the late Chancellor of the Exchequer in sending him to the position which he did; for I think the Report of Lord Chelsea proves that he is a man equal to any situation. [An hon. MEMBER: Your friends removed him.] I think Lord Chelsea was very ill-treated, and if a Motion had been brought forward in his favour I would have supported it. That noble Lord's elaborate Report shows that it is not so many ages ago that wheaten bread was a luxury; that down to the 17th century meat was a luxury. It also instances tea and sugar, and gives most convincing proof that it is only your enormous duties that have made wine, which is in reality a necessary, a luxury in this country. The hon. mover of the Amendment, in his able speech, said, "Oh, these light wines will never suit the English palate!" and after declaring that they would rather be a curse than a boon, he added that our brewers need be under no apprehension that their articles would be supplanted by them Now, the House may not be aware that in the year 1689 so great was the taste for French wines in this country that an Act of Parliament was passed for prohibiting all commercial intercourse with France for three years. In that Act it is declared that the demand for French wines had become so great that it injured our public revenue. Of course, if you lay on duties to that extent you may entirely change the taste of the people. A curious article in McCulloch's Dictionary clearly shows the effect of the Methuen Treaty in 1703 in driving trade into new channels and wholly altering the taste of the country. If you reduce the duties, as is now proposed, you will have an enormous commerce in French wines. Nobody who reads the Report of the Committee who inquired in 1852 into the operation of the import duties can rise from its perusal without feeling satisfied of the incalculable benefit to be derived from the reduction of the wine duties. One very celebrated witness gave valuable evidence as to its effect in increasing' our shipping-trade. Mr. Cyrus Redding says:— The present duties on wine are not to be judged solely by their extravagant amount; they lock up and keep idle a large amount of capital and labour which would benefit the public and the revenue if they were in full activity. If the consumption of wines were increased to 30,000,000 gallons, as there is every reason to believe it would be, there would be required no less than 600 vessels of 250 tons each to bring the wine home, instead of 120. These ships must take out freights, so that the advantage to the shipping interests would be considerable. We are now all deploring the prevalence of an excessive love of spirits and strong drinks. Here is the evidence of one of the largest licensed victuallers in London, Mr. Baker:— He sells (he says) over the counter in glasses a pipe and a half of port per week, and finds there is a growing taste for wine, which would increase if the duties were lowered. His customers, he said, were among the artizan class. I have also in my hand the evidence of two other licensed victuallers, Mr. Pod and Mr. Short, whose customers belong to the same class. Mr. Pod draws 160 pipes a year; of this he sells two pipes and a-half per week in draught— port, sherry, and bucellas from butt, champagne and claret from bottle. He charges 4d. per glass port, 7d. champagne, 6d. claret; the duty too high on French wines; if the duty were lower the people would prefer them to port. Artisans of all sorts take their glass of wine; Irish labourers frequently carry home a bottle of port to their families. This witness says the taste for port is increasing, but by your excessive duties you encourage adulteration. It is calculated, I believe, that not less a sum than £400,000 a year is lost to your revenue by this adulteration. And what does the House think is the composition of the port wine that these Irish labourers take home to their families? Here is the testimony given by Mr. Bastick before a Committee of this House as to the effect of your high duties in poisoning the people. Let me read a curious recipe, quoted by Mr. Bastick, for making port wine:— Take cider, forty-five gallons; brandy, six; port, eight; ripe sloes, two; stew the latter in two gallons of water, press off the liquor. If colour be not strong enough, add tincture of red sanders. When bottled. put in each bottle a tea-spoonful of catechu—it will produce a fine crusty appearance. Soak ends of the corks in a strong decoction of Brazil wood with alum, which will give it a fine appearance of age. That is the mixture called "publican's port," which the Irish labourer takes home in a bottle, and nobody but an Irish labourer, I should think, could manage to swallow such a vile decoction. I believe you are poisoning the people by your high rates of duty. Then, again, something may be said about the use of wine among the sick poor, and that is an important consideration. Evidence upon that point was taken before the Wine Committee, and a surgeon who was examined was asked— What would be the effect of a reduction of the wine duties? I have no doubt that if wine was cheaper I should prescribe it more frequently than I do, in lieu of porter and spirits, as its healing effects are more marked among poor patients than among the rich. We have plenty of medical evidence upon this point to show the benefit which would arise if the wine duties were reduced to an extent that could bring wine within the reach of the sick poor. I have gone rather fully into this point, because I feel strongly upon it. Instead of being an immaterial point, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth would have us believe, this proposed reduction of duties is a most beneficent plan, and will tend to improve the tastes and morals of the poor. I was astonished to hear the speech of the hon. Member for King's County (Mr. Hennessy), who said he would take an Irish view of the Budget, and a singularly Irish view, indeed, he did take. He said it was the worst Budget for Ireland that he had ever known. I do not understand that, be-cause it seems to me that what is commercially good for England must be commercially good for Ireland. The hon. Member adduced two instances of injury to his countrymen—the alliterative articles of butter and boot fronts. I do not apprehend that the Irish farmers, with their skill in the production of butter, are afraid of the competition of the French farmer. But did the hon. Gentleman forget that Ireland was a great wool-producing country, and that it would be a great advantage to the Irish wool-grower to have the French market thrown open to him? There is also the lucrative frieze manufacture, which is now reviving. Do not talk to me about butter and boot fronts. I do not say that this is a singularly good Budget for Ireland, but I do believe it will promote the comforts of the lower classes in Ireland more than some Gentlemen expect. The next point is the paper duty, but I shall not go much into that. I think the right hon. Member for Bucks (Mr. Disraeli) has made a mistake in opposing this Budget in the first instance. I think he should have accepted the principle, and have opposed the details in Committee. I have no doubt that I could have gone with him in opposing many of those details. I am not prepared to say that taking off the paper duty at this time is exactly prudent. I know my hon. Friend below me (Mr. Bright) thinks otherwise; but I doubt whether this be the right time for removing that tax. However, I like the Budget well enough to swallow the remission of the paper duty. Now, as to the income tax, I am like many other Gentlemen, who like the Budget but do not like to pay for it. I think it was a little unfair in the right hon. Baronet the Member for Portsmouth to twit the Chancellor of the Exchequer for what be said in 1853. In that year the Chancellor of the Exchequer made no promise; he only declared his anticipations. Even if he had made any promise, surely the right hon. Member for Portsmouth, having filled the office himself, is too wise to believe the promise of a Chancellor of the Exchequer in relation to future taxes. Did the right hon. Gentleman himself never make a promise which was not kept? The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Hubbard) has told the House that we are to pay 2d. in the pound to enable Mr. Cobden to give his Imperial pupil a lesson in free trade. That is cleverly put, but it is not the fact. We are to pay an extra 2d. in the pound, because since 1858 you have added £8,000,000 to your expenditure for the army and navy. It is not the sacrifice of £650,000 of Customs' and Excise duties that makes a double income tax necessary, it is your expenditure for your army and navy. And I do not agree with the hon. Member for Birmingham that that expenditure is needless and blameable. You have been reorganizing your army and your navy. The country cannot stand still while great improvements in military science are in progress everywhere else. Even the hon. Member for Birmingham himself would not wish us to be without Armstrong guns, or that we should keep to the old paddle steamers when that method of propulsion had been superseded by the screw. It was necessary to reorganize our army and our navy which causes the enormous expenditure; but I do not look forward to paying thirty millions for that purpose every year. I believe that when we have placed the army and navy upon a proper footing, we shall be able to cut down, not the rank and file, but the expenditure, and I feel sure that if you carry out the principles of this Commercial Treaty, the intercourse between the two countries will be such as to render it unnecessary to maintain such large forces. I consider we are paying upon a capital policy of assurance by accepting this Treaty. It is like gilding refined gold to say anything upon the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but there is one thing which I regret, and that is, that the right hon. Gentleman postponed to another year all consideration of the incidence of the income tax. I am of opinion that if the income tax is to last for ever, it is a perfectly just tax, because in time all interests adjust themselves to it; but if it is to be shifted from time to time, high one year and low the next, then I say this income tax inflicts great injury and injustice. I do wish the Chancellor of the Exchequer could have settled the question now. He has only the Reform Bill and the Budget on his hands, and the consideration of this subject would have been a trifle to him. But I warn him that it will not do to go on postponing this question from year to year. Tenpenee in the pound is a very large sum to pay. The Budget is an excellent one, and, I think, worth the money; but still 10d. is a large sum. We ought to know whether the income tax is to be a permanent source of revenue; we must not be always playing fast and loose, putting on the tax for two years, then for three, and then postponing all consideration of its inequalities. I like the Budget well enough to take it as it is. Some hon. Gentlemen opposite do not like the Budget, because they say it is a Manchester Budget. It is 73 years ago since Mr. Pitt's Budget was objected to because it was a French Budget. I certainly was astonished to hear the great Conservative party making such an objection. If there be anything which the Conservative party ought to have inherited it is free-trade principles from Mr. Pitt. Hon. Gentlemen on this side were not always Free-traders, and even in my time there was not one Member now upon that (the Ministerial bench) who was a Free-trader. I am surprised that the great Conservative party are not delighted to seize the great inheritance of Mr. Pitt. I cannot understand how they allowed that inheritance to be taken from them by the Manchester school; and when they oppose it because it is a Manchester Budget, I support it for that very reason, because it is derived from the greatest man in finance the world ever saw—Mr. Pitt. Therefore I call upon all real Conservatives to go with the Government into Committee, and to give their most ardent support to the principles of the Budget.

MR. T. BARING

For myself I have been too long engaged in trade not to know that trade needs interchange, that interchange produces reciprocity, and that free trade is never adopted without interchange and reciprocity. We have yet to get free trade. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. B. Osborne) says this is no bargain; but if this is not a bargain I should like to hear his definition of a bargain. To my mind a bargain is a contract which imposes conditions on both parties: and I believe the Treaty does that. I am not now considering whether the Treaty is a good one, hut I think it is evident that it is a bargain; and, moreover, if it were not a bargain, why did the Government have recourse to a treaty? I do not disapprove reciprocity or commercial treaties. I am anxious to obtain free intercourse between countries. It is better if those countries will give free intercourse spontaneously; but if it is not to be obtained in that shape, I have no objection to obtain it by a treaty; but a treaty well timed, well conducted, and carefully digested; and to which the full sanction of both parties is obtained. I was one of those who felt the greatest pleasure on hearing that a Commercial Treaty with France had been concluded. I hoped, in common with all, that such a measure would remove the asperity between the two nations, which unfortunately has been growing up for many months. I trusted it would tranquillize the restlessness of France, and appease the suspicions on the side of England. I looked at it with great hopes that it would have that effect; but to have that effect it must be, to use the eloquent expression of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a treaty between two nations, not between two Governments; a treaty which inspires both nations with the feeling that it affords fair and mutual advantages, and is likewise one which, when freely discussed, can be altered without giving umbrage, or creating bad feelings. If it were otherwise, and we were to be precluded from canvassing its merits, or making any alterations, Her Majesty's Government ought never to have entered into the negotiation. I therefore heard with some alarm the statement of the hon. Member for Birmingham, that if the Treaty should be altered or refused, it would create an estrangement with France. I trust that in this House, at least, we are still to be allowed to have liberty of discussion. But the feeling of alarm has not been a little strengthened by the publication, in the English newspapers, of a letter from M. Chevalier, who must know that there is the same jealousy of foreign interference in England as in France, and therefore, I presume, will regret that his letter should have been published by injudicious friends. In this letter M. Chevalier proceeds to show that coal is not wanted at all in France; and all I shall say about coal is, that if it is not wanted in France, why was a clause in relation to coal introduced? And if it is wanted in France, why did not our Government ask for a clause preventing a prohibitive duty being placed by the French Government on the exportation of wheat, as is always done whenever there is a prospect of wheat being needed in England and in France? But then M. Chevalier goes on to say:— Thus the pretext invented by the English Protectionists is absurd; it is directly contradicted by the facts; they are, in reality, pursuing but one end—that of sowing distrust and irritation between two great nations. This course of the Tories is, in fact, provoking, on the part of England, an unfriendly act towards us. The rejection of the Article of the Treaty would be an unfriendly act, and it would be taken for such in France. The cry would be raised of 'Perfidious Albion!' Our great manufacturers would exclaim that they have been duped about the reduction in the export duties on English coal. The moral and political effect expected from the Treaty—the drawing closer together of two great nations, would not be attained. And this would be the case, even were the Article to be struck out from the Treaty, with the consent of the French Government. I regret that those sentiments should have been expressed. To my mind, it shows, unfortunately, an attempt to prevent free discussion. I need not remind the House that when, two years ago, interference on the part of France with our laws was suspected, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in eloquent terms, which conduced very much to the result of that debate, claimed the right to discuss English laws upon English grounds, and upon English considerations; and, surely, he would be the first to say he claimed the right to discuss Commercial Treaties upon English grounds, upon English considerations, and for English interests. We are bound, then, to consider what are the advantages of the Treaty to England. If it tends to bind stronger the ties of amity between this country and France, there is nothing I would more willingly support. If, in the first place, the French nation coincide, and, in the next place, the English nation are fairly treated by Her Majesty's Government, it deserves support. But I say that, to make a good treaty, the negotiations ought to be well-timed—that the two contracting parties ought to be able to carry the results into immediate effect. We are called upon, however, immediately to make changes. We find that the other party postpone changes for twelve or eighteen months. I submit, then, whether it would not have been better to wait until the negotiations in that respect could have been carried on upon perfectly fair terms. Again, I do not think that the correspondence is fully satisfactory, or that it shows completely that the interests of this country have been well guarded. We find no correspondence, no written line of instructions given to the negotiators until the 17th of January, and on the 23rd, six days afterwards, the Treaty is concluded. I must say that I should have supposed, in a treaty of commerce which regarded the interests of this great country, that the Board of Trade would be consulted; yet there are no documents to show that the opinion of the Board of Trade was asked, and the want of that consultation is rather obvious in the result of this Treaty. We find no provision that silks which pay a low duty of 15 per cent shall not be increased to 30 per cent, and: we find likewise no notice of the question which excites great interest, the differential duties on shipping. I am told that it is a satisfactory answer that this is a treaty of peace and amity, and not of navigation. Why it is not a treaty of navigation? The Foreign Office could not ignore the question entirely, and the President of the Board of Trade must have been fully aware of the grievance of which the shipowners of this country complain. I cannot but think it ought to have been mentioned, if only in a whisper, if only as a suggestion which the negotiators might withdraw if necessary. But we do not know that it was ever put forward. The House will acquit me of any feelings save those of the greatest respect for Mr. Cobden, and admiration for his talents and consistency. I have admired his career, though politically opposed to him. But unless there is an identity of principles between the Government and their negotiator, and an impossibility of any difference of opinion between them, the negotiator ought to be bound by positive instructions. I ask the House to remember what is the principle of Mr. Cobden with regard to free trade with other countries. It is this—that it is to the advantage of England to abolish all indirect taxation. I do not know when it was that the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary said Mr. Cobden called upon him about this Treaty, but I remember that on the 1st of December there was a meeting of the Financial Reform Association at Liverpool, where the hon. Member for Birmingham proposed a budget of his own, to which Mr. Cobden was invited, but did not come. In the letter which he wrote on that occasion he uses these words:— There never was a moment when I felt greater interest than at present in the realization of your society's programme for the substitution of direct for indirect taxation. Did the noble Lord feel the same desire when he asked Mr. Cobden to undertake the duty of negotiating this Treaty, or did the Government at large feel that desire to substitute direct for indirect taxation? If they did, they ought to tell us so now in bringing in this Budget, which, I fear, will make us drift more and more towards direct taxation; if they did not, they ought to have told Mr. Cobden so. Do I blame Mr. Cobden? Not in the least. He was perfectly justified in carrying out his principles. His opinion is that the sooner he got rid of all indirect taxes the sooner should he achieve the salvation of his country, by bringing it to a system of direct taxation. But we have a right to know whether that is the opinion of the noble Lord and right hon. Gentleman opposite. Looking, then, at the mode in which it has been negotiated, this Treaty appears to me neither likely to insure feelings of amity between the two countries, nor was its negotiation well timed, nor is it drawn up in anything but a loose and careless manner. I am not going to follow the hon. Gentleman (Mr. B. Osborne) into a discussion of the benefits which are likely to be derived from the introduction of French wines. My own belief is that the result will be a much larger introduction of cheap Spanish and Portuguese wines; but still no one can tell the result of the Treaty until it has been tried. We are now in the clouds as to the future effect of it—engaged in a speculative debate on a speculative Budget; but if I might be allowed to hazard a prediction it would be this—when it is apparent that a new market has been opened for English goods we shall see, as we always do see when a new door is opened, that the exports will be greatly increased; the markets will be glutted, Englishmen will lose much, as they can lose much when they are seeking to establish a new trade; and the French manufacturers will be disgusted. We shall then return to what I will call the normal condition of a limited trade with France, for I do not believe, with the hon. Member for Birmingham, that the French nation have the same habits of expenditure as the Americans and our Colonists. They are a frugal people for the most part, living much on what they find around them—not spending their money in trade, like the Americans and our Colonists. Their Wants are easily satisfied and readily supplied from their own neighbourhood. We shall have great exports at first, and a song of triumph at the results of the Treaty; but we must look what it settles down to. I should be quite willing and anxious to reduce these duties if I saw we could do it without danger. If we had wished to do a gracious thing, and if we had had the means, we might have said, "We do not want to negotiate a treaty with France; we will reduce the duties on her products, because we have the means, through a surplus in our Exchequer, to do it." But one of my reasons for thinking this an ill-timed negotiation is that we have not a surplus, and, even if we had, there would probably have been other claims for a reduction more urgent still. I looked through the budget of the hon. Member for Birmingham, and I certainly found in it a great many things taken off, all belonging to what he calls, in his usual forcible style, "the crushing system of taxation, which is all for the rich, and all against the poor"—"all on the comforts and necessaries of the poor." "Give me," he said, "but 8s. in the £100 on property, and I will take off all your taxes." But he said not a word about wine; and yet he is quite enchanted with this Budget, which gives nothing that he promised! It does not even take off the war duties on tea and sugar; it does not diminish any of the taxes on the comforts and necessaries of the poor man, who, the hon. Gentleman says, "with the sweat of his brow labours for the support of a pampered aristocracy." The hon. Gentleman may go down now to his friends and say, "I have not done what I said I would, but I have done a good deal that I did not say. 'Tis true tea and sugar are still taxed, but then you may drown all your cares in copious draughts of cheaper claret; and, if that is not enough, you may dress your wives and children in cheap French silks, and, more than all, there is not a labourer who may not guide the plough and till the soil in cheap foreign gloves." It reminds one of the old story of the monarch who, in answer to the complaint that his people were starving, said, "Why don't they eat piecrust then?" The Chancellor of the Exchequer indulged the other night in a gentle sneer at the friends of the poor. Well, that is a respected and a respectable title, and shared, I trust, alike by all parties. But the friends of the poor will suffer much in public estimation if they are led away by the exaggerated expectations held out by the hon. Member for Birmingham with respect to the results which are to flow from this Treaty of Commerce. I was certainly surprised the other night to hear the hon. Gentleman say that this Treaty realized his warmest hopes, and that it was now the object of his warmest attachment. A treaty with a 30 per cent protective duty the objcet of his warmest attachment! A few years ago he would have cried out, "30 per cent! why, it is prohibition." But this is only a fresh proof of the natural and amiable partiality of a parent for his own offspring, however deformed it may be. If he will look at some of the clauses of the Treaty he will see that there are reserved articles on which the duty is far higher. For example, one reserved article is railroad iron, and on that the duty is 50 per cent. These reserved articles, with the differential duties on shipping, and the wise policy of the Emperor of the French in admitting raw materials duty free, are the chief reasons why I think we are likely to have but a limited trade with France. I, for one, should have been in favour of reducing our duties on wine, if I had felt that we could do it with safety to our finances, and had had no more urgent claims upon us for relief. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer tells us that this is an epoch so marked in our financial history that the Government think it the duty of Parliament to take a step in advance in the career of commercial freedom, and he proposes to take the £2,000,000 terminable annuities for this purpose. But my answer to him is, that instead of being in position to "utilize" that amount, according to the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Cardwell), that money has been spent in anticipation, in obedience to the will of the people. You cannot have your money and spend it too, and that is spent long ago. If I were in expectation of having a large fortune left me in some future year, and on the strength of it were to promise relief to a certain number, and when the time came I found that I had been obliged to spend it, should I be justified in saying, "I promised you relief, but I have not got the money; so I will take it from your neighbours?" Yet that is just what the Chancellor of the Exchequer does, except that in this case the neighbours from whom he takes it—the people who pay the income tax—are just the persons to whom he promised relief. To those to whom he promised he gives nothing; and all he gives is to those to whom he made no promise. I am not inclined to reproach the Chancellor of the Exchequer with his failure to carry out the expectations he announced in 1853. But then, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer abandons the idea of doing what he has promised for the payers of income tax, ought he at the same time to state that he has money which he will devote to the relief of others, and speculate with; because, after all, it is a mere speculation whether an increase of revenue will be gained by a remission of taxation. There are one or two points on which, as I entertain opinions that I know to be unpopular, I feel it right to say a word. The first of these is as to the idea that you can dispense with indirect taxation. My belief is, though you may apply a moderate income tax towards your exigencies, that if you depend entirely on that tax you subject yourselves, you subject the Government, the credit, and the establishments of the country, to the change of disposition which may occur at any moment of national suffering or irritation. In my humble opinion, the wise course would have been to keep up a certain amount of direct, coupled with a fair proportion of indirect taxation. I believe that you will lose very much by bringing the indirect taxes to bear upon so few commodities; they will act in this way much more as direct than as indirect taxes—they will weigh on the necessaries and the comforts of life, while you have taken off the duties on a number of articles which did not create distress, did not press on any industry or any class of the community, but were removed merely because they produced such a trifling amount to the revenue. Why, every little they gave was so much gained, and it appears that what we have abandoned in this way amounts to millions, I do not say that we should have retained them all, but many of the smaller items which have been relinquished might have been advantageously applied to other and more important articles; and you have, to a great extent, sacrificed the stability of your Custom-house system. Such a measure as the present can be justified only by one of three reasons—that it will benefit the consumer, that it will facilitate trade, or that it will reduce the cost of collection. I believe it will be found that by many of these articles the consumer will not have benefited to any appreciable extent. Whatever may take place next year, there has been as yet no great reduction in the cost of collecting the revenue; and I am persuaded that as far as trade is concerned, the benefits accorded by the removal of the duties on these smaller articles will be more than purchased by the vexation attendant on the system of penny charges which the right hon. Gentleman proposes to introduce. I agree with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds (Mr. Baines), and I even go further than he does, in thinking that the benefits which this country has enjoyed of late years have arisen from a variety of causes, and are not solely attributable to commercial reforms. Though it is a disputed question, I believe that the discovery and arrival of gold have stimulated production and increased consumption in great commercial countries like England and the United States. I think that emigration and other influences have tended to raise the wages of labourers, and I consider that a great invention which certainly does not owe its success to legislative enactment—I mean the railway system of the country—has tended as much as commercial reforms or any other cause to the increase of your internal and external prosperity, and has especially benefited your labourers, by allowing them to seek employment with increased facility, by cheapening every article of consumption, and bringing within the reach of persons comforts and almost necessaries which before were unknown to them. I have seen a calculation which showed that by the introduction of railways the transport of heavy goods for 100 miles has been reduced in cost to less than one-fourth of the former amount, and that the time occupied is as 12 hours to 100. I quite admit that any extension of foreign trade must benefit this country; but it is an error to say we owe that benefit entirely to commercial freedom. It is to improvements such as I have pointed out that our prosperity is mainly due. You are wrong likewise in supposing that this constant reduction of duties will always replenish the Exchequer. You cannot have the virgin soil for ever; you must come on poor ground at last; and it is possible that your present changes may not turn out as well as the right hon. Gentleman expects. The right hon. Gentleman justifies them not only on the ground of cheapness for the poor man and the consumer, but because they will afford employment on more advantageous terms to the labourer. Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that there is not a positive injury to the employment of labour in a high income tax? Will he deny that it reduces the means of many a family—that it prevents a man from clothing or feeding his family as well as he otherwise might, and that it lessens his ability to do justice to them in the vital matter of education? Does he not believe that a ten-penny or shilling income tax will in many a house be the cause of absolute and necessary reduction? And does he not believe that such reductions tell, and cannot fail to do so, on the employment and on the comforts of the working classes? If he does, all the authorities are against him. Lord Brougham, at the time when Sir Robert Peel was proposing this tax, said, in the House of Lords, in March, 1842:— A very great delusion prevailed in the country—at least, among that large class the labouring population—as to the operation of the income tax on them. It was a common thing for them and for those who instructed them, and who should know better, to say that the income tax could in no way affect them. There was no greater delusion than this. It required but little argument to show that the labourer was affected by the diminution of the fund out of which he was paid. When capital accumulated, the fund was increased out of which labour was paid; when it became diminished, the fund to pay the labourer decreased in the same proportion."[3 Hansard, lxi., 730.] The noble Lord went on to show that the income tax affected every class, and that annuitants had their means crippled by it, and were in their turn unable to give a similar amount of employment. You cannot tax the rich man without its reaching the poor, and I believe it is a doubtful question whether you are benefiting the labourer by these reductions, if, as a consequence, you must saddle the country with a tenpenny income tax. But more than this, the income tax is a dangerous weapon to rely on; it has been repudiated by every one as an unjust tax, and instances are not wanting where it has been questioned and rejected. I need only refer you to what happened in Lord Liverpool's time, when a strong Administration was, with one common accord, in a moment of irritation displaced, and the tax was swept completely from the register of taxation. It may be safe now, but if you keep on the tax permanently, it may not be always tolerated, and it will be continually subject to the attacks of "ignorant impatience." My fear is, that at some future period you will find, not merely an ignorant impatience, but an impatient irritation, in the country which will force you either to remove your taxes or to reduce both the national income and expenditure below a rate which—whatever the hon. Member for Birmingham may think—may not be always safe, or else to tamper with the public credit, which, perhaps, would be a course fraught with still more fatal consequences. I contend that you place a most dangerous engine in the hands of a Ministry if you give them the power-of taking off all duties, and of making up the deficiency by an increased income tax. I grant to the hon. Member for Birmingham that this is a popular Budget. When you take off taxes such as those now proposed for removal people know they cannot be reimposed, and the measure is popular. When you put on a penny income tax as a substitute for the duties thus relinquished, that also is a popular measure, because people know it is a tax which can be taken off, as, indeed, it was suggested that perhaps it would be. But the effect of such a proceeding is to create a tendency to agitation, and to put machinery in motion for compelling the Government to take off the tax; and that is just the prospect we have before us now. It is the danger of such an impost that it is apt to involve the necessity of pandering to popular demands, which may grow more and more extravagant as they are conceded. Then, I think that the fulfilment of the French Treaty even in its integrity did not necessitate the infliction of this pressure on the country. There is no reason at this juncture for the abolition of the paper duty. You were not called on to do so. The Resolution passed by this House declared that it ought not to be a permanent tax, but no pledge was given that it should be taken off at any particular time. There was no necessity for this supplementary tariff regulation, involving the loss of hundreds of thousands of pounds. All that was wanted was to keep the taxation on the same footing as before. I am not going to make a Budget, but I will offer a few remarks. I find that last year, with the tea and sugar duties at a war rate, and an income tax of 9d. in the pound, you had a revenue of £70,578,000. Your expenditure this year is £70,100,000. Therefore, with the same revenue as last year, you would have a surplus of £500,000, which, with £1,400,000 from the hop and malt credits, would enable you to carry out the Treaty with France, and, if necessary, to pay off the million of Exchequer bonds, besides leaving a surplus. Or it would have enabled you, if you chose—although I should have objected to such a course—to reduce the income tax to 8d. leaving the Exchequer bonds as they are. My idea, I must confess, is that we ought to pay off our debts as soon as we can, and especially before we reduce taxation. I believe the scheme of taxation for this year to be a very objectionable and dangerous one—improvident for the present, unsafe for the future. I think it unsafe even for a time of peace;—what would it; be in a time of war? What resource will you have then? Will you double or treble your income tax? Will you put it at 20d. or 3s. or 4s.? You must do so because you have not only had recourse to high rates in time of peace to effect changes which were required, but persisted in those high rates after the changes were accomplished. The hon. Member for Birmingham reminded the Conservatives that they gave their votes for Sir Robert Peel's 7d. duty; but it is clearly a very different thing to support the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gladstone) in a 10d. duty. The call is not so urgent, the advantages are neither so obvious nor so important. You are now asked to perpetuate the income tax at a very high rate, and to adopt measures which will render it necessary for the future that that high rate should be continued. The Motion of the hon. Member for Essex has been charged with being a party movement—a mere attempt to turn out one Ministry in order to put in another. I hold that the great question whether we are to have resort merely to direct taxation as a means of revenue ought not to be degraded into a mere party contest. I do not regard the present debate as such; nor shall I look upon the division as any evidence of party spirit. For my own part I can honestly say I should have the greatest repugnance to join in a vote which should have the effect of displacing the Government. The noble Lord the Member for London once said with great truth, that the country could not bear a revolution once a year. I will add that we cannot bear a change of Ministry every year; and, in voting for the Motion, I shall do so not from any party motive against the Ministry. I intend, however, to vote against the Budget as it stands. The hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. B. Osborne) says, "Why do you vote against itmow?—let us go into Committee, and then I may support you." But then the hon. Member adds that he is prepared to swallow the paper duties, and all the remissions in the Budget. I feel that those who, like myself, think that the result, if not the motive, of this Budget is gradually to lead the way to a substitution of direct for indirect taxation, must protest against that policy. I shall, therefore record my vote for the Resolution, simply to mark my sense of the danger which exists in relying upon the system which has now been adopted of abandoning revenue when there is a deficiency in the Exchequer, and trusting to direct taxation to replenish the treasury.

MR. MILNER GIBSON

Sir, I heard with much regret an hon. Gentleman of such high authority in the commercial world as the hon. Member for Huntingdon entirely condemn the policy of the Budget, and invite the House to set aside the financial proposals of the Government. I recollect, however that the hon. Gentleman has been the uniform, persevering, and consistent opponent of all the commercial reforms that have taken place, and I should have preferred it myself, if he had taken his old ground for opposing the Budget, rather than he should have made it manifest that an insuperable objection to a penny more in the income tax induces him to invite the House to reject the whole scheme of the Government. The hon. Gentleman does not propose to get rid of the income tax altogether; and to revert to the figure of the hon. Member for Stamford (Sir S. Northcote), I must say we should purchase a reduction of a penny in the income-tax at a very dear rate if we paid for it by the sacrifice of the French Treaty and all the commercial remissions proposed by Her Majesty's Government. And I regret, also, to find the hon. Member for Essex is supported by the leader of the Opposition. I was in hopes that the Motion of the hon. Gentleman was placed on the paper in order to enable a certain section of the Conservative party to put on record their hostility to free-trade principles. The leader of the Opposition has stated that free-trade principles are good principles. Now I believe it can be shown that a vote in favour of this Resolution will be understood as announcing a belief that free-trade principles are bad principles. There are, however, some Conservatives, among whom I may instance the hon. Member for Norfolk (Mr. Bentinck), who on this point are directly in opposition to their leader the right hon. Member for Bucks. I know that the hon. Member for Norfolk will say openly that free trade is a bad principle, and he is right in voting for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Essex. But I own I cannot understand those who admit free-trade principles to be good, yet take a step which at the present time is calculated to prevent those principles from being further carried out. We are invited to take a very strong course. We are invited to refuse to the Crown the means of carrying into effect the Treaty that has been concluded with France. Undoubtedly the House approaches the consideration of the question free and unfettered. We are at liberty to take that course if, from our sense of what is due to the public interest we feel it is advisable; but before this House deliberately refuses to give the legislative powers necessary to enable the Crown to carry the Treaty into effect it ought to be satisfied there is good and sufficient ground for taking so strong a course. What is the history of commercial treaties with France? I do not speak now of Mr. Pitt's Treaty of 1786; but is this present Treaty the first that has been attempted in modern times; have there not been repeated attempts, within a recent period, by Administrations of both parties, to conclude commercial treaties with France? In the years 1838, 1839, and 1840, a joint Commission of Representatives of England and France was engaged in drawing up a project for a commercial convention very similar in its principles to the Treaty lately concluded. But though the Commissioners had agreed on the project, yet from various causes the convention fell through. Soon after, another attempt was made to arrange a commercial treaty with France, I think by the Administration of Sir Robert Peel. I recollect distinctly that when Sir Robert Peel introduced his reform of the tariff in 1842 he said that one reason why he reserved the question of the wine duties was, because he hoped to be able to effect a commercial treaty with France. And I find it stated in the evidence given before a Committee of this House in 1853, on the local and differential Dues on Shipping, by the Registrar of the Board of Trade, that— Under the Derby Administration in 1852 it was proposed again to attempt to obtain a commercial treaty with France. I think what then took place had more especial reference to a commercial treaty as distinguished from the navigation question. The proposal was for a commercial treaty, but France insisted on combining it with a navigation treaty. Thus the Government of the Earl of Derby-was engaged in 1852 in negotiating a commercial treaty with France, leaving the differential dues on shipping untouched—a treaty very much resembling that now concluded. Again the Earl of Malmesbury occupied himself very earnestly in endeavouring to obtain an increased export of coal to France Repeated complaints had been made by the coalowners that they were injured by the difficulties they experienced in getting an extension of the coal trade with France. The Earl of Malmesbury, very properly I think, did all he could to induce the French Government to remit the duty for the purpose of increasing the import of coal into France. The French Government asked what we would do in return; it asked if we would reduce the duty on French brandy. The Earl of Malmesbury replied he had no objection, but thought it would be too limited an operation. He would not agree to a limited commercial treaty that would only obtain a reduction of the duty on coal on the one side and that on French brandy on the other; but he was prepared to enter into a commercial treaty with a view to the revision of Customs' duties on both sides. How extraordinary, then, are the objections of the followers of the Earl of Derby and of the Earl of Malmesbury to a commercial treaty founded on the same principles. When the most enlightened statesmen, both Conservative and Liberal, have been trying for years to bring about what they all believed to be a most desirable result, something that would increase our commercial intercourse with France, are we, when such a treaty has been ratified, and the object is within our reach, to refuse the Crown those legislative powers required to enable the Crown to carry the Treaty into effect? That is the position in which we are placed. The hon. Member for Essex (Mr. Du Cane) fairly says he objects to the Treaty because he is a Protectionist; he objects to the remission of duties by this country; therefore he very consistently opposes the Treaty; but I cannot understand how the hon. Gentlemen I see opposite, who have adopted, and I believe sincerely adopted, the principles of free trade, can be acting on this occasion with the hon. Member for Essex. Before I go further I will allude to one or two representations that have been made, and that are rather calculated to mislead. The hon. Baronet the Member for Stam- ford (Sir S. Northcote) made a statement which, if it were accurate, would be a very serious objection to the Treaty—namely, that we have by the Treaty bound ourselves to France to establish a protective duty in favour of French and against Spanish and Portuguese wines. The hon. Baronet said we had, in fact, "reversed the Methuen Treaty." I think he has fallen into an error herein. He imagines, because he sees a certain scale of duties depending upon the amount of proof spirit in these different kinds of wine, that we are bound by treaty to these particular amounts, and bound to give this supposed protection to French against Spanish and Portuguese wines. The effect of the Treaty will be nothing of the kind. The hon. Baronet will find that by the 6th Article all that Her Majesty engages herself to recommend her Parliament to do is to impose a duty upon wine containing a certain proportion of proof spirit not exceeding 1s. per gallon, and on wine containing 36 degrees of spirit a duty not exceeding 1s. 6d. per gallon. The duties specified are the maximum. If Parliament should please it may reduce these duties to as low an amount as it shall think fit. It may abolish them altogether, and Her Majesty is not bound by this Treaty to establish a differential duty in favour of the wines of France against those of Spain and Portugal. The arrangement is, in fact, merely made for your own domestic convenience. France would, no doubt, be glad to hear that the duty on wine was to be abolished altogether, and that French wine was to enter upon an equality in this respect with that of other countries. I therefore think that the hon. Baronet has fallen into an error when he says we have reversed the Methuen Treaty, and by treaty have given a protection to France against Spain and Portugal. The hon. Member who just sat down does not object to a commercial treaty with France, but he says he would rather not have entered upon one unless we had also concluded a commercial treaty with Spain and other countries. That reminds me of an old doctrine of the Protectionists of former days. They used to say you ought not to reduce duties upon the produce of another country until you got a reciprocity treaty with it, and obtain an equivalent reduction of duties on English productions in the other country. Now it is said it was better not to make a commercial treaty with one country until you could make them with all. We say, on the other hand, that this Commercial Treaty with France is to be taken on its own merits. We believe it will be attended by great and important political and commercial advantages to this country. Glad should I be to conclude a similar commercial treaty with any other country, but I will not be deterred from making such a treaty with France because I may not be able to conclude one with Spain, Portugal, and other countries. The hon. Baronet the Member for Portsmouth also stated that, with regard to the reduction of duties, the right articles had not been selected. He says that instead of selecting spirits and wine we should have taken tea and sugar, because experience has proved that by reducing those duties you may hope, by increased consumption, to recover your revenue. The hon. Baronet contends that you cannot hope for such a result in reducing the duties on spirits and wine. But is that so? When Sir Robert Peel reduced the duty on French brandy from 22s. to 15s., what was the consequence? Why there was an immediate increase of consumption of sixty per cent, and in the three following years the revenue completely recovered itself. The reason why the experiments of reducing the duty on wine have not been successful is, that you have not gone low enough—because you have never reduced it to that point when the reduction has been sufficient to introduce it into a new field of consumption. It has never gone beyond the wealthy classes, who were as ready to give one sum as another. But you will now find consumers of wine among those classes of the people who have not hitherto drunk wine. The hon. Member for North Essex as a Protectionist thought that beer, as a national beverage, ought to be protected as against wine. But when the plan of the Government is adopted, as I believe it will be, I say that beer will continue to have a very sufficient protection against wine. A gentleman of my acquaintance had a small transaction in the purchase of wine a little while ago. He bought a kind of wine which, it is said, will be brought to this country, will supersede the national beverage, and injure the British farmer. He bought a cask of wine in France containing forty gallons for sixty-four francs. The present duty on that wine is £11 l1s., so that upon 53s. worth of wine he had to pay a duty of £11 l1s. Under the new scheme if the duty of 1s. per gallon were in operation, the forty gallons, worth 53s., would pay a duty of £2. Now, how much would he have to pay in malt-tax upon 53s. worth of beer? Why, the duty would not be more than 13s. I have calculated it exactly; so that 53s. worth of wine will pay a duty of £2, and 53s. worth of beer will only pay a duty of 13s. It is not so much even as that, but I wish to be on the safe side. The national beverage of the people is therefore amply protected. There is one point upon which I shall be glad to say a word or two, because very considerable misapprehension exists as to the 3rd Article of the French Treaty relative to the differential duties on French shipping. It is supposed by many that this Article has given some sanction or some fresh vitality to a system of restriction in France that is very injurious to British shipping. Now the 3rd Article merely relates to the two preceding Articles. It says:— It is understood that the rates of duty mentioned in the preceding Articles are independent of the differential duties in favour of French shipping, with which they shall not interfere. That means that these differential duties are not to be interfered with by the effect of the two preceding Articles, and the whole has merely relation to the trade that may grow up between England and France from the effect of these mutual reductions of duty. The 3rd Article only has reference to the direct trade between England and France. Now, there are no differential duties upon English shipping engaged in the trade between England and France. English ships that go to France from England, carrying British produce and manufactures, stand on precisely the same footing as French ships. But if a Dutch or American ship should go from England to France, the Dutch or American ship, carrying British produce and manufactures, would be subject to differential duties to which French and British ships are not liable. Hon. Members opposite ought to like these differential duties, for they are really a protection to British and French shipping in the trade between the two countries. I confess I do not like them, and I wish they were abolished. But the effect of this abolition, in regard to the direct trade of the two countries, would be that when British manufactures are sent to France they could be sent in Dutch and American ships and by the ships of all nations. I approve of such a principle, but I cannot understand the anxiety of hon. Gentlemen opposite for the removal of these dif- ferential duties so far as the trade of this country is concerned, for this Article has the effect of securing to British and French ships the carrying trade that arises under this Treaty between France and England. The two contracting parties do not wish that any misunderstanding should arise, and some question might have arisen but for this Article in case of American and Dutch ships carrying British produce to France. The Governments of France and England thought fit, as they did not intend to interfere with the existing navigation laws between the two countries, to insert this Article to prevent future misunderstanding. They have left the navigation laws open to be dealt with by future arrangement, and I hope the day will come when we shall see a liberal Navigation Treaty as well as a liberal Commercial Treaty. The hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Horsfall) is mistaken in supposing that the differential duties I have alluded to have a reference to anything but what I have stated. He will be gratified to hear, from an announcement in the Moniteur, that the differential duties paid by a British ship going from America to Havre with a cargo of cotton, though not abolished, are likely to be reduced. The announcement in the Moniteur forms no party of the Treaty, but, as I read it, the duty will in future be as follows:—Cotton imported from America to France in English ships will pay five francs per 100 kilogrammes, or about ¼d. per pound—the present differential duty on British ships going from America to France being 1 ½d. per pound in excess of what is paid by American or French ships; so that the differential duty paid by English shipping as against American shipping will be reduced from 1½d. to ¼d. I state this to show the hon. Member for Liverpool that the 3rd Article has no bearing whatever on the question of differential duties.

MR. HORSFALL

I gave no opinion as to the 3rd Article, I only said there existed considerable difference of opinion as to the interpretation of it.

MR. MILNER GIBSON

Well, at any rate, I believe the view I have expressed is the right one, that nothing in the Article can be construed to mean that the present differential duties affecting the indirect trade with France will be maintained. I must now make an appeal to those hon. Gentlemen who are connected with the agricultural interest. This Budget has been called a commercial Budget, a concession made to a section of the Liberal party, and in which the interests of those connected with land has been overlooked. On the contrary, I believe it to be an agricultural Budget. I know what the British farmers have often felt in reference to free trade. They have felt and said that if the other classes go to foreign countries for their food, the agricultural class should be allowed to buy their manufactures and the articles which they consume in the cheapest market also. It is, they say, a demand based upon obvious justice that if the British farmer is exposed to competition in the articles of corn and flour, he should be permitted also to go to the foreign market for the goods he consumes, and at any rate that he should not have the price of those articles raised upon him by the operation of protective duties. Now, I find that the British farmer has a very strong case in favour of this French Treaty. According to the returns of the imports of wheat into this country, it appears that in 1859 the value imported amounted to £8,713,532, and that 28 per cent of that, or£2,420,224, came from France. Of wheat flour imported the value was £2,392,295, of which 82 per cent, or £1,944,247 came from France; making a total of wheat and flour imported from France in 1859 of £4,374,471. Now, the British farmer may say with justice that if people are permitted to go to France for wheat and flour they should be permitted to go to Franco for their silk manufactures and their brandy; and I believe that if you were to call a meeting of the agricultural population in any county in England, and put the question to them, you would find them voting unanimously that, as we have got free trade in corn, we ought logically to carry out the principle and give free trade in everything else. I believe this argument to be a sound one; and that the agricultural classes will derive no inconsiderable advantage from this Treaty. There are a variety of articles which they are in the habit of consuming which they will now be able to import at a lower rate. There is a party in the county of Essex, which the hon. Mover of the Amendment represents, who are very much against this Treaty; but their opposition is based on a very small ground. There is a good deal of this sort of opposition, and I am sorry to find that the right hon. Baronet, the late First Lord of the Admiralty, because he dislikes a little portion of the scheme connected with hops, has condemned the whole of it. [Sir J. PAKINGTON: I dislike it all.] You dislike it all. Well, there is a small party who are much offended with the plan in Essex. I have been in correspondence with them, and I find their objection is to the permission to import carraway and coriander seeds. Specially alive to their own interests they would throw out the French Treaty and the reform of the tariff because carraway and coriander seeds, which are produced in Essex, are to be admitted. They attach more importance to that than to anything else, and therefore, on account of it, they disapprove the whole financial scheme of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There is a great deal of this in the country. The whole scheme is condemned because objections are entertained to a portion of it. I have no doubt, though I do not know the fact, that the hon. Member for Essex (Mr. Du Cane) has been urged by the producers of carraway and coriander seeds to use his utmost energy to destroy the Budget. Now, in what are the agricultural interests more concerned than in the diminution of the poor-rates? It has often been said that Imperial taxation ought not to be taken as the measure of the real burdens which the possessors of real property bear, and I admit that people often overlook the fact that lands and houses are heavily taxed to pay the local rates and support the destitute poor. I believe nothing will more effectually lessen the poor-rates than an increase of the field of employment for the poorer classes; and what has been the effect in this respect of our commercial policy since 1842? I believe that had the poor-rates gone on increasing in proportion to your population from 1842 till the present moment they would have been upwards of £1,000,000 greater than they are now; so that, though you may object to the direct taxation of the income tax, you have saved a large amount of direct taxation by the diminution of the poor-rate, which has been the consequence of your commercial changes, and which will be the consequence of the scheme propounded by the Government. Take the case of the wine duties. Is there anything likely to give greater employment for labour, as the mere consequence of extended consumption, than the reduction of these duties? There was a witness before the Wine Duty Committee who gave this evidence:— There is no article of commerce the increase of which would give so much employment to labour as the increased importation of wine. In the first place, it is a very bulky article, and, being brought in casks, would require a great number of ships to bring it to this country. When here it requires a great deal of labour to land it, to store it up on the quays for the purpose of gauging, to convey it afterwards to the cellars of the wine merchants, the fining and bottling it afterwards in those cellars, and when bottled the conveyance to the houses of the respective consumers. It would lead to a very large increase in the importation of corkwood, which would employ many ships; an immense increase in the manufacture and consumption of bottles, causing a most beneficial effect on the demand for labour. This is all true, and though it may appear trivial, I contend it is of the utmost importance to the agricultural interest. I live in a parish in which the resident population has not increased for a great number of years, notwithstanding, of course, that it ought to have done so from natural causes; and this circumstance I attribute to the fact that the inhabitants of the parish have found occupation elsewhere, for, otherwise, we should have an excess of labour in the particular locality to which I refer, and, no doubt, that excess of labour would have resulted in an increased poor-rate and increased destitution. I maintain, therefore, that no class in this country is so directly interested in everything that may lead to the extension of the field of employment as are the owners of land and houses, and I fairly believe the best policy which they can pursue is to encourage every measure of commercial freedom—every measure which tends to unloose the springs of industry, even though they should be actuated by no higher motive than their own pecuniary advantage. I shall now proceed to advert to the question of the income tax against which there is so strong a feeling. Hon. Members opposite define it as a war tax, and say it is a tax of which they wish in time of peace to get rid. But why, let me ask, is it called a war tax? Because it is a charge which is imposed on the country when a largo expenditure for military and naval purposes is required. Well, you have at the present moment such an expenditure to meet, and it must be perfectly clear to you that it is not an actual state of war, but the necessity to keep up large warlike establishments that justifies the definition of the tax which you employ. When you are voting £30,000,000 for naval and military purposes, it is quite obvious that your policy involves the payment of a high rate of income tax. An income tax at the rate of 10d. in the pound is not, then, I maintain, at all out of pro- portion to your necessities for warlike expenditure at the present moment, especially when you consider that the total expenditure for which we have to make provision amounts to about £70,000,000. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, however, say that 10d. is too much. They are of opinion that the just proportion which the tax ought to bear to our requirements is the rate of 9d. in the pound. I hope you have too much confidence in the good sense of the people of England to suppose that they would advocate that reckless onslaught which the hon. Member for Stamford (Sir S. Northcote) seemed to think would some day be made on the establishments of the country merely because the income tax is rather too high. I do not believe in this doctrine of reckless onslaught myself. I have a firm confidence in the good sense of the great body of the people, and I am persuaded that they always bear what they think necessary to support the establishments of the country. The hon. Member, however, pointed out to us how we might do with a 7d. income tax; but upon looking at his figures, it appears to me that he is a great deal too sanguine in that respect. Be that, however, as it may, I, for one, would not accept his 7d. income tax at the cost of rejecting the Treaty with France. The income tax, you admit, is a tax connected with warlike expenditure. Well, the estimated expenditure for your army, navy, and ordnance—excluding the packet service—for the year 1860–61 is £29,200,000, and I find that an income tax at the rate of 10d. in the pound amounts but to 36 per cent on that expenditure, which was the exact percentage on expenditure for army, navy, and ordnance at which it stood when the tax was first imposed by Sir E. Peel in 1843. Yet, notwithstanding this fact, the great Conservative party, which is so anxious to support a war establishment, and to place on an efficient footing the defences of the country, object to the rate at which the tax is now proposed to be levied. But the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. T. Baring'; goes further, and draws a frightful picture of the consequences which must ensue if this dangerous Budget be adopted. He says we are going to get rid of all indirect taxation, and that our object is to pay all the expenditure of the country by means of the income tax. He drew, in fact, so gloomy a picture of the effects of our policy, and raised up such frightful spectres, that some hon. Members stood quite aghast. He, moreover, addressed himself to a speech which was said to have been delivered at Liverpool, and argued with great effect against the scheme which was there proposed, when, in my opinion, his time would have been much better employed in pointing out the badness of the particular propositions which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has submitted to our consideration. But in what, let me ask, consists the disproportion between the proposed amount of the income tax and that of the indirect taxation of the country? Including under the head of direct taxation the succession duty and the income tax, and everything that can be designated as a direct tax, I find that for the year 1860–61, out of every £100, £78 will be paid by means of indirect, and £22 only by means of direct taxation. Now what, let me ask, is alarming in that proportion? What is there in it to frighten the most ardent admirer of indirect taxation? I am, of course, prepared to admit that of late years the proportion of direct to indirect taxation has been on the increase; but I am also aware that great benefit has been the result of the change of policy so far as it has proceeded. There is, however, now before the House no question of converting all your direct into indirect taxation. The plain and definite proposition which we make to you is that you should provide for the expenditure of the coming year in the mode suggested by Her Majesty's Government, and also that you should assent to the Commercial Treaty with France. I should regard it as a most unfortunate circumstance if the House were to reject that Treaty, and to put its veto upon the remission of duties which we ask you to make, because you happened to think that the income tax was fixed at a rate a little too high. I do trust that hon. Members will bear in mind that we have under our consideration, not the mere question of adding an additional penny to a particular impost, but a question of the adoption of a broad and enlightened policy. It has been frequently argued in this House that in providing for the expenditure of the year no considerations are to actuate a Government but the simple one, of merely getting a particular amount of money? But I hold that there is something more than this to be considered—there is the broader question of a fiscal policy, which, with a country like England, and taking into account the growing population, the Chancellor is bound to have in view, he must consider what is the least injurious mode of raising the money which the maintenance of the establishments of the country may require. I shall not say more than a word or two with respect to the remission of the paper duty, because hon. Members already know the opinions which I entertain on the subject. You may give your assent to the Resolution of the hon. Member for Essex, which says that you ought not to diminish the ordinary sources of revenue, and yet support this particular remission, inasmuch as the House of Commons has solemnly declared it to be its opinion that the paper duty ought no longer to be regarded as a permanent source of your ordinary revenue. Hon. Members might talk of that Resolution as something shadowy and indefinite, but if they meant nothing when they voted for it I meant something when I drew it, and feel assured the great body of hon. Members will never assent to the doctrine that such a Resolution ought to be treated as so much waste paper, and never be acted upon by the Executive. And had this opportunity for acting upon it been passed over, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bucks, who formerly voted with me for the repeal of the tax, might have fairly complained that the Government had neglected to proceed upon that which this House had declared to be its deliberate opinion. I thank the House for having listened to me with so much patience under circumstances that perhaps made my utterance somewhat unintelligible. I have endeavoured to explain the views I entertain; occupying the position I do, and feeling the deep respect and gratitude I owe to Mr. Cobden for his successful exertions in the cause of commercial freedom between this country and France, I felt I was bound to state my opinions on this subject, and I again thank the House for the indulgence they have extended to me.

MR. WALPOLE

Sir, I assure the House that I will not trespass long on their attention, but the magnitude, variety, and importance of the subjects brought before us, unless, as I think it may be, the question could be now reduced to a narrow issue, might and would justify more lengthened observations than I shall address to the House this evening. At the same time, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will pardon me for saying that, in my opinion, he has placed us; in a position of considerable embarrassment by bringing before us at one time, and in one debate, on a financial statement, so many questions that it is hardly possible to arrive at a distinct and definite issue upon any one of them; and I think it would be much preferable to follow the old and salutary custom of confining the financial statement to the year for which it is intended, without mixing up with it other questions of high State policy, rather than that which my right hon. Friend has followed, and which it seems, unless it is checked, we shall be likely to pursue in future. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will now see that he has, in fact, broken through this old custom twice—once in 1853, and again in 1860. In 1853 he brought upon us, partly at least, the emergency in which we are now placed, because in 1853, instead of simply meeting the obligations which he had to provide for in the year, he based his arrangements on future hopes and on expectations which no human foresight could fully anticipate and which no human wisdom could adequately provide for. In 1860 a similar course has been pursued by my right hon. Friend, because he has mixed up a question of great State policy—namely, a treaty with France—with the financial statement of the year, instead of taking these two questions at distinct times, by distinct Motions, and on distinct principles. Well, now, I think my hon. Friend the Member for Essex deserves the thanks of the House for bringing this matter to a definite issue, and moreover to one issue only, as I think I can show. That does not appear to be the opinion of many gentlemen who have spoken in this debate. The hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) says this Motion means increased expenditure. If he had looked at the Motion more attentively, he might have seen that there is no more of increased expenditure in the proposition of the hon. Member for Essex than in the mind of the hon. Member for Birmingham himself. The proposition of the hon. Member for Essex simply recognizes the increased expenditure, the high expenditure of the present year, and the hon. Member for Birmingham, with all his desire to reduce that high expenditure, has not ventured to say you can reduce it below the point which the Government have fixed. My right hon. Friend the Secretary for Ireland treats this Motion as if it were one for what he calls a stationary policy in finance. But it does not mean a stationary policy in finance, except in this point of view—that when you have a great deficit before you it is better to remain stationary and where you are than to sink down an inclined plane into a greater deficit hereafter. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool (Mr. Horsfall) said that if this Motion were simply confined to the re-imposition of the income tax at the high rate at which it is proposed, he would have voted for it, but he takes exception to the Motion upon the ground that it is intended to defeat the Budget. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: Hear, hoar!] My right hon. Friend cheers that, recognizing thereby the statement I have made as a correct description of what my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool intended. Then let me at once repeat to my right hon. Friend what I said the very day after I heard, in common with all the House, that splendid speech of his. I was asked the question, "What do you think of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's financial statement?" My answer was that its main provisions I believed to be right, but in point of time exception may be taken to it, and also to the mode in which the thing is to be done. I have listened to this debate from the beginning to the end, and the impression on my mind is just what it then was—namely, that I believe the main provisions of the Budget are right, and I should be sorry to see them defeated. But I do say that exception may be taken, both as to the time and, in some respects, as to the mode in which the provisions of it are intended to be carried out. The right hon. the President of the Board of Trade treats the Motion as being mainly an attack on the French Treaty. Well, then, again I must make a confession, contrary, I fear, to the opinion of many of those who now sit about me—that if I thought this Motion would defeat the French Treaty, I would not vote for it. Then it may be asked, why are you going to support this Motion? Now, I ask you to follow me for a few moments, and, if you will only treat me as candidly as I am treating you, I will venture to say that you cannot, either on sound reason or in point of principle, resist this Motion, at least in your hearts, whatever you may do by your votes. What does the Motion pledge you to? It recognizes, as do the hon. Member for Birmingham and, indeed, every other Gentleman who has spoken, that the expenditure of the year must unfortunately be taken at the enormous figure of £70,000,000; but it goes on to ask whether, with a deficiency staring you in the face, you are to in- crease that deficiency by trenching on the ordinary revenue of the country, particularly at a time when that process will lead to this result, that you must reimpose an income tax, in the very year you intended to take it off, at a higher rate than it was ever imposed during a time of peace. I take this Motion, according to the words in which it is proposed, to be this—Will you diminish the ordinary revenue with this deficit before you? What is the ordinary revenue you are about to diminish: Part of it comes from a remission of Customs' duties in pursuance of the Treaty, part from remission of Customs' duties independent of the Treaty, and part of it comes from the remission of the Excise on paper. These are the three sources of ordinary revenue which the arrangements proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer would trench upon. Now, with regard to the first of these, I am free to admit that, in point of fact, the duties which you are about to remit in pursuance or in consequence of this Treaty must be remitted, if you are to adopt the Treaty; and I, for one, am in favour of its adoption. With regard to the £1,100,000 you propose to remit on this account, I do not think after all that has happened, that you can deal with it in the way this Motion would imply—namely, by retaining it so as to prevent the imposition of the income tax at its proposed high rate. If the Treaty is to be maintained, that revenue must go, and therefore perhaps I may be allowed in a very few words to state my reasons for giving it my support. Possibly in point of time exception might be taken to it, because, in point of fact, the more deliberate negotiation of parts of that Treaty might probably have led to better provisions in some of its Articles; and I also believe that it would have done no harm to the Government or to the country if, upon deliberation, you could have made the Treaty more concurrent as regards time, and more reciprocal as regards its operation, so that the remission of duties on the part of England might be made more to tally with the remission of duties on the part of France. But the main reason why I am in favour of the Treaty is this—-I cannot understand the jealous policy of two great kingdoms like France and England keeping themselves, as it were, at arms' length, when they can interchange their products with each other, one of them having a great superiority in soil and climate, the other having what I believe to be an equally great superiority in some of its natural productions, in its mechanical skill, in its immense capital, and its manufacturing energy. Believing that, I cannot conceive how any jealousy on the part of England should induce statesmen on either side of the House to refrain from lending a helping hand to break down those barriers which subsist between the two countries. Nay, more; when you are acting on the principle of commercial freedom, I cannot conceive anything more unwise than that you should not endeavour to obtain as much as you can from others, merely because you cannot acquire exactly as much as you wish to have. But as I am now on that part of the subject, perhaps the Government will permit me to say that the two Articles—3 and 11—which have been so much objected to, are not Articles which I can approve of, and they will, in my opinion, require reconsideration. And why? Because, in one word, it is most impolitic to tie up the Crown, acting under the responsible advice of the Government, from exercising a most important power which Parliament has intrusted to it. Parliarnent has intrusted to the Crown the power of prohibiting the export of coal when it may come under the category of munitions of war, and it has also reserved the power to the Crown of imposing restrictions upon other countries when those countries do not reciprocate with you in the freedom of navigation which you grant to them. If you give up that power—if you give up the means of inducing other countries to enter into a free navigation with yourselves, the observations which the noble Lord the Member for London (Lord John Russell) made the other night, convinced me at once how dangerous it would be to adopt such a course. I remember when the navigation laws were discussed, I said we were acting on a principle the reverse of that on which we ought to act—that, instead of repealing our navigation laws, without reciprocity on the part of others, we ought to have repealed them when that reciprocity was offered to us. The noble Lord the other night said, in reply to a Question— The hon. Gentleman would recollect the professions of the American Minister in 1849, when we proposed to repeal the navigation laws. Mr. Bancroft, who was then the American Minister in this country, stated to Mr. Labouchere, the Presi- dent of the Board of Trade, 'If you are liberal, we shall he liberal; if you give much, we shall give much; if you give all, we shall give all.' It was only just to say that the American Government did give equivalent advantages on passing the Navigation Act; but, although in 1854 we threw open the coasting trade; what had been done by them in that respect was still very unsatisfactory. Now this convinces me that the power of imposing restrictions on others when they will not give up their restrictions upon us, is not a power which we ought to abandon. So much for the first source of ordinary revenue you propose to relinquish. I admit that you cannot make use of that for the purpose of preventing the high rate of the income tax, because I think you must remit those duties if you do not intend to abandon the Treaty. I come now to the second source of revenue which you are about to diminish. What is that? It is about £1,000,000 of Customs' duties. The House was not so full as it is now when my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. T. Baring) addressed it. With his observations on that part of the subject I entirely concurred. When I think of the little obstruction offered to trade by the restriction of these duties, when I think of the great loss which has resulted to the revenue, not from the reduction but from the abolition of Customs' dues, I must hold that when you have a deficiency, however advantageous free trade may be, one of the last things you ought to do is to aggravate that deficiency by giving up duties which do not materially obstruct trade, which do not obstruct it nearly so much as the equivalent taxation you are going to impose, as was so well exposed the other night by my hon. Friend, the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Hubbard). If I am right in this, I at once get rid of the extra 1d. on the income tax. Retain these Customs' duties for a short time longer, and that 1d. of the income tax may at once be get rid of. But now I come to that which I conceive to be an unanswerable part of the subject. Upon what principle can you relinquish £1,000,000 of paper duty, when you know that the effect of that remission is the imposition of an extra 1d. in the pound of the property and income tax? My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, really made me smile when he came to that part of his speech in which he recommended the remission of the Excise duty on paper. My right hon. Friend, forgetting all that he told us in 1853, said, "We have £2,000,000 of long annuities falling in. We have made use of £1,000,000 of those annuities to effect a great Commercial Treaty with France, and the Government consider that they have now another £1,000,000 which they may apply for the benefit of trade and industry." Why that was a portion of the fund on which my right hon. Friend relied for getting rid of the income tax. Then what are the reasons why you now give up for one purpose that which you had intended to appropriate to a totally different purpose, contrary to the expectations of the country, and greatly to the aggravations of the burdens of the people? My right hon. Friend gave four reasons for the remission of the paper duty, and to them I beg the attention of the House. He alluded first to a pledge, embodied in a Re-solution of this House, that the paper duty was not to be a permanent source of revenue; secondly, to the obstructions it placed in the way of skill and enterprise; thirdly, to the untenable character of the tax; and, lastly, to its greater pressure on the poor, as compared with the rich, especially in the matter of cheap literature. I will venture to say that every one of those reasons, urged as arguments against the continuance of the excise on paper, may be urged with tenfold force against the continuance of any unnecessary part of the enormous burden which the income tax imposes. As to the pledge, it is said by the President of the Board of Trade, that my right hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), supported the Resolution in which it was embodied. But what was the nature of that pledge? Why, it was general; whereas the pledge given with reference to the income tax was not general, but specific; and the specific pledge was that, at a given time, if you had the means by which you could reduce that tax, or get rid of it, you would then avail yourselves of those means. But that is not all. The pledge with reference to the excise on paper, was contained in a Resolution of this House only. The pledge with regard to the income tax was embodied in an Act of Parliament; and in proposing that Act my right hon. Friend said he put this mark upon the tax that it was a temporary tax, namely, that it should cease at a stated period. The House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Queen, by the Royal Assent, were equally pledged, therefore, to get rid of the tax; for it was stated in the Act of Parliament that it should continue until 1860, and no longer. But this is not all; the pledge with respect to the excise upon paper, was a pledge accompanied by no other obligation of any sort or kind; but the pledge, with respect to the reduction or remission of the income tax, was accompanied by the imposition of other taxes, which would not have been imposed except on the condition that the income tax should come off. I say then, after such a pledge, you are not for a single moment justified in laying on a penny more of income tax than you need impose in 1860, or in any subsequent year, if you do that merely to get rid of a part of the ordinary revenue. So much for the pledge; and now for the obstructions which the collection of the revenue is said to place in the way of the trade in paper. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds (Mr. Baines) has spoken of the obstructions which the paper duty, like any other excise, presented to the exercise of skill and industry. I hold in my hand extracts from two Re-ports from the Commissioners of Inland Re-venue, which are worthy the attention of the House. Do they say that any obstruction to trade is now referable to the collection of the paper duty? Quite the reverse. They say:— So far, indeed, have our regulations been modified to meet the wishes of the papermakers, that we are able to state that the duty is now charged and collected without any appreciable restriction on their trade, and that their complaints, at one time frequent, have entirely ceased. Mr. Phillips, of the Laboratory Department, confirms this in stronger language. It may be observed that the regulations under which the Excise duty is charged upon paper, do not offer the slightest impediment to the manufacturer in the introduction of new materials, or in the alteration or improvement of his processes, as paper, unlike all other exciseable articles, is perfectly free from fiscal interference during its manufacture, and it is only when the article is finished and ready for the market, that an account is taken of it, and the duty charged. The Commissioners say, in another Re port:— If the objections so constantly urged against the paper duty were such as we are accustomed to hear most insisted on in the case of Excise duties generally—namely, their restrictive and oppressive incidence on the manufacturer the advocates for the abolition of the tax would find it difficult to make out their case. There is scarcely any duty in the collection of which our interference is so little felt, and in which we are so continually adapting our regulations to the wants and wishes of the trade. Has the House read the remarkable report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue with reference to the income tax? Are they aware of what these Commissioners said of the tax as recently as the year 1858? I own I was more startled by it than by anything that has lately come before my eyes. The passage to which I more particularly allude, is to the effect, that "it would be almost impossible to give any person, unacquainted with the practical working of the income tax, a notion of the labour it entails on this office, of the great variety and complexity of the questions daily brought before us, or of the powerful appeals which are made to our compassion or forbearance." To those who are aware of the numerous and troublesome inquiries necessary in the case of each application for exemption or repayment, the fact that upwards of 250,000 such claims are annually disposed of, will convey some impression of the difficulties that have to be encountered. Talk of oppressive taxation, talk of interfering with skill, enterprise, and the hard industry of the people! I declare to you that I never read anything so alarming as that paragraph, if we are indeed to continue an impost attended with such a fearful concomitant. But is this all? I am sorry the hon. Member for Birmingham is not in his place. Where is the pressure greatest? It is not upon the rich. If any one will look at the returns he will find specified the number of persons in different classes who contribute to the income tax. Take Schedule D, and then see how you are interfering with trade. In Schedule D, according to the last return, there were 258,000 persons who contributed to this tax. How many of these persons, think you, are assessed under £300 a year? More than 200,000 out of the whole 258,000! These are the persons on whom this tax is weighing so heavily. It is not your landed proprietor—it is not your rich manufacturer—it is not your opulent and powerful merchant. No; it is your hard-worn tradesman, the poorer shopkeeper, the struggling clerk. And yet you tell me that, as compared with the paper duty, this is a tax which ought to be retained! [Cheers, followed by some laughter on the Ministerial side.] I hope hon. Gentlemen opposite who are smiling at the cheer which has accompanied that statement will allow that it is one deserving their attention. I am dealing with the question fairly. I have taken every objection that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has urged so powerfully in respect to the paper duty, and I am contrasting those objections, and showing that there is a weight of disadvantage operating quite as strongly against the income tax as can be found against the paper duty. Remember, that is the argument. What was the third point on which the right hon. Gentleman relied? He said, the paper duty is daily becoming more untenable. What is the criterion of the untenableness of a tax? That it is falling off. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER dissented.] My right hon. Friend shakes his head; but, if that is not the only test, it is surely one test. I will make another comparison, which I think will startle you quite as much as the statement I have already adduced. Since the year 1842 the quantity of paper manufactured, notwithstanding the duty upon it, has increased from 96,000,000 lbs. to 187,000,000 lbs. in the year 1858; and within the same period the duty has increased from £634,000 to £1,281,000. This shows how the manufacture of paper has flourished in spite of every hindrance. Now for your income tax. I hold in my hand the Returns of the income tax from the year 1843 to 1853. I take those years for my comparison because the tax then remained at 7d. in the pound continuously, and we have not the same facilities for comparison afterwards. Was there an equal increase of revenue from the income tax? There ought to have been, if the prosperity of the country was as great as you say it was, and as I believe it to have been. The whole amount of the income tax levied in 1843 was £5,336,000. In 1853 it was £5,598,000; so that ten years of prosperity only produced you between £200,000 and £300,000 increase in this impost. My right hon. Friend paraded the figures before us to show the immense amount of income tax derived under Schedules A and D. Now, it is true that the gross amount of the incomes assessed under Schedule D was in England in the year 1857, £69,110,922, and in 1858 the amount rose to £73,106,000. But in those years incomes between £100 and £150 a year were brought under charge. The gross amount of the incomes assessed between £100 and £150 in 1857 was £11,880,000, and in 1858 £12,843,000. If, therefore, you deduct the £11,880,000 assessed on the lower class of incomes under Schedule D in 1857, you will find the total amount of income subjected to charge under that schedule was about £57,230,000. But the income charged under Schedule D in 1843 was £63,000,000, showing that there was less income under charge in 1857 as compared with 1843. In 1858, again, the incomes charged under Schedule D amounted only to £33,106,832, as against £63,000,000 in 1843. But you must deduct from this sum the incomes charged upon £100 and £152 a year, i.e. £12,843,000. Thus, while your exports have increased threefold and your manufactures have been prospering, your incomes assessed under Schedule D, being incomes derived from trades and professions, were less in 1857 and 1858 than in 1843. Do I say that you have not had, in reality, any increase in those incomes? Far from it. I only give these statistics to show the enormous frauds that are being practised on the revenue; and, that being so, I say it well becomes the Chancellor of the Exchequer to see whether a tax leading to such results had not much better be taken off. But then my right hon. Friend refers to the inequality and the pressure of the paper duty, as between the rich and poor. I think I have shown you by the enormous number of claims for exemption under the income tax, that there are ten—aye, twenty times more inequality in the pressure of that tax. These are reasons which strongly induce me to vote for the Motion of the hon. Member (Mr. Du Cane). If, however, I wanted another reason, it would be that urged by my hon. Friend the Member for Stamford (Sir Stafford Northcote), in a speech which proves that he is likely to aid us with his financial ability and knowledge as much, perhaps, as any man in this House. He showed you that, while you are taking off the paper duty and at the same time raising the income tax, you will in another year, having forfeited that ordinary revenue, be in a deficiency at least as great, if not greater, than now. My right hon. Friend is only postponing, he is not satisfying his obligations. But I ask the House whether it is wise to postpone your obligations for another twelve months, and to throw either upon yourselves or your successors the difficulty of determining that which ought to be determined now—namely, whether any and how much of the income and property tax shall continue as a permanent part of your fiscal system? I for one am opposed to this. If you want to deal with the deficiency which yawns before you, you can only do so by reducing expenditure, by loans, or by a reimposition of the income tax at a still higher rate. A reduction of expenditure it would be difficult to accomplish, though I think much may be done in that direction, not that I wish our armaments to be made inefficient, but because I believe you do not get money's worth for money spent. You cannot have recourse to loans. That is only the improvident scheme which a gambler would have recourse to; it is discounting the future at a price which, in the end, will only increase your embarrassments. Then, if a loan is not to be thought of, and if any considerable reduction of expenditure is impracticable, Parliament will next year sec the same question before it awaiting discussion and unsettled. You will have the hon. Member (Mr. Bright) coming down to the House, and saying you ought to increase rather than diminish direct taxation, at the same time altering the mode in which it is levied. You will have, too, the Chancellor of the Exchequer telling you that this is a powerful weapon, which you must keep ready for great emergencies, but that the mode of levying it ought not to be altered; and you will find the utter impossibility of settling that question a bit more effectually than now. These, Sir, are the reasons which induce me to vote for the Resolution. I will only add another word, though I hardly need do so after the speech of the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Baring). He told you, and truly, that a question of imports and exports was not a party question. I can assure the Government that they are entirely mistaken if they suppose that the vote I am going to give is meant to disturb or to displace them in their seat. No, Sir, I think the circumstances of the time are far too important, far too grave, to justify endeavours, year after year, made with a view of disturbing the Administration. If in their conduct the Government are moderate, as I trust they will be; if they consider reasonable objections which are urged against parts of their measure without any intention of breaking that measure down; if they will meet the objections of those who criticise fairly without condemning unjustly; if they will not stop their ears when Motions are made from this side of the House, their financial arrangements will then be in a much better position, and will be much more favourably viewed. Sir, I am convinced that party feeling has nothing whatever to do with this question, at least in the minds of the great bulk of those around me. I believe that almost all those Gentlemen would say, "We are living in times when the hands of the Executive require to he strengthened rather than weakened." In voting for this Motion, therefore, I do so simply for the reason I have stated, and not in the slightest degree with a party object; for I am thoroughly convinced that, for the national good, any Administration, so long as it does not provoke hostility, ought to be freely and frankly supported in carrying on the affairs of this great country in a manner conducive to its interests and to its honour.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

Sir, having listened with attention, like the rest of the House, to the speech of my right hon. Friend, I am free to confess that I find it perfectly easy to understand his premisses apart from his conclusion, not less easy to understand his conclusion—that is, the vote he means to give—apart from his premisses. But what the process is by which my right hon. Friend has combined such premisses with such a conclusion, I must say would have been received by me as a riddle more hopeless than that of the Sphinx, if it had been proposed to me before the debate to-night. The premisses of my right hon. Friend are these. He is favourable to the main features of the Budget. He is, in substance, favourable to the Treaty with France, and wishes to see it well carried through. He is favourable to the Government—a most insignificant consideration in comparison with that I named before, but still a statement which, coming from him, I and every man receive with the most implicit credit. He is favourable to the maintenance of the Government; and, being favourable to the Treaty, to the main features of the financial scheme and to the Government, he is about to vote for the Motion of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Du Cane). That is a process which may be perfectly intelligible to some hon. Gentlemen opposite. But the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) will, I take it, have a share in this debate; he, I have no doubt, means to support the Motion; yet I will venture to lay what are termed very long odds that he does not found his support of the Motion upon the propositions of my right hon. Friend, but upon propositions which are in direct contradiction to them. I will not attempt to follow my right hon. Friend through the details of his speech. He says that we are subject—and I admit the charge—to great difficult}', in consequence of the number of questions we have to discuss. The best way of coping with that difficulty, I think, is to separate them one from the other, and discuss them in their order; and, as we shall have separate and distinct opportunities of examining the Treaty with France, of discussing the paper duty, and of considering the income tax, I cannot enter into the smallest detail on any one of those three questions. I am obliged to say one word, however, on what has fallen from my right hon. Friend with regard to the relation of the paper duties and the income tax. He positively in one part of his speech used language which would lead us to understand that the alternative before the Government when they came to their conclusions was, whether they should retain the paper duty and dispense with the income tax. ["No, no."] I beg pardon. I distinctly assert, in opposition to the hon. Gentleman who says"No"—and, at any rate, I may be allowed to state my recollection—that in one part of his speech my right hon. Friend seemed to imply that the alternative with us was, whether we should keep the paper duties and get rid of the income tax, or whether we should keep the income tax and part with the paper duties. My right hon. Friend was very eloquent upon the difficulties which attend the collection of the paper duty, and made light of those difficulties. On another occasion I will endeavour to show what those difficulties are, that my right hon. Friend has not at all taken them into his view, and that the Report of the Board of Inland Revenue quoted by him, which refers to a prior date, and does not express the present state of the question or the present views of the Board, is perfectly compatible with the proposition that those difficulties are of the most serious kind. But my right hon. Friend with equal eloquence and effect sets forth also the great difficulties which attend the levying of the income tax; but when we see before us this conclusion, that the difficulties of the paper duties are great, and that the difficulties of the income tax are great, I say that it is wiser, if we can, to get rid of one of the two as we propose, than to keep both as my right hon. Friend proposes. It is, then, no question between the paper duty and the income tax that we shall have to discuss. It is at the outside only a question between the paper duty and one tenth portion of the income tax. But I pass on from that subject, because I think we have an issue before us in a far broader form, and I shall endeavour to come as soon as I can to that issue. I will not, therefore, follow the right hon. and learned Gentleman who spoke on a former night (Mr. Whiteside) into the discussion on the alcoholic test on wines, or the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Hubbard) into the question of contract notes and dock warrants. The contract note stamp is 1d., and that moves his indignation, because it is so small, and he says, "Will you obstruct trade by this paltry tax?" But the dock warrant is 3d., and that moves his indignation because it is so great, and he says, "Will you overwhelm trade by this great duty?" The hon. Member has the direst views for the future in consequence of these painful measures, but we shall have ample opportunities of discussing them also. When, however, I see men of the ability, position, and character of my hon. Friend (Mr. Hubbard) and of my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. T. Baring) in a state of feverish apprehension and foretelling the direst results from the measures proposed, I naturally seek for consolation under circumstances so discouraging, and if I find that those hon. Gentlemen viewed on former occasions with the same and even more painful anxiety public measures which afterwards were adopted, approved, and vindicated to the satisfaction of the whole country, then I confess that I live in hopes that that which has happened before may happen again, and that, their gloomy views of the future turning out incorrect, I may count on their admitting hereafter, and at no distant period, the merits of the measures they now denounce. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Hubbard) has certainly not had the same opportunities as the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. T. Baring) has had, but on great occasions we have found the hon. Member for Huntingdon among the most resolute and distinguished opponents of those great measures which have fundamentally reformed your commercial system. Nevertheless, while I listened to the vaticinations of the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Hubbard) my memory ran back to the time where I heard him—not in this House, for we then had not the pleasure of enjoying his company here— uttering the same dismal prophecies on an occasion when it was proposed to do justice to British trade as compared with foreign trade by imposing a stamp on foreign bills of exchange. Upon that occasion the hon. Gentleman was a distinguished member of a deputation from the port of London, and he assured me that if we ventured to impose a stamp duty on foreign bills we should drive the trade from the market of London, and London would no longer be the centre of money operations. That gave me uncomfortable sensations at the time, I must confess; but we persevered with the plan, the House adopted it, the stamp was imposed, it has contributed for six years to the revenue of the country, and London is still the centre of the money operations of the world. But I have now done, as I promised, with questions of this kind, which, however important, will be more conveniently discussed on another opportunity, and I come to the general issue before us. On Monday night I heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) explain to the House the dignified course which his party had adopted. The right hon. Gentleman said—and I, for one, and I believe the generality of the House, went along with him in what he said—"We have scorned to raise a partial issue; we have rejected the hands that might be held out to us from this and that alarmed and timorous interest; we have rested our cause on the broad ground of general merits, and on that ground alone we seek to take issue." Upon that declaration of the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, I bethought me of the language of Burke, who lamented that the age of chivalry had gone; and for a moment—aye, for a whole evening—I was in hopes that the age of chivalry had come back again; for I heard it declared that it was intolerable to meet a great measure of this kind—a national and international measure—by petty and paltry combinations of A and B and C, who object to this and to that, and by putting together their separate units endeavour to obtain a mass of force sufficient to overturn the whole scheme. Those were the sentiments expressed on Monday night; but it is a bad world we live in, and if any man suffers himself to be deluded for a moment with the notion that high ideals govern the conduct of persona and parties, there is a great chance that in a very short time he will be painfully undeceived. For my part, I was undeceived when I opened the newspapers next morning, for I found there that a right hon. Gentleman had committed himself in the manner I am now going to describe. That right hon. Gentleman attended a meeting of an alarmed and timorous interest, which, fearful of the withdrawal of the protection they enjoyed, might be acted upon, it was hoped, to oppose a great national measure on account of their own narrow interests. There is one valuable principle of free trade which appears to be well understood by the hon. Gentlemen opposite, and that is the division of labour. While the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire was announcing in sounding periods the high ground on which he took his stand, another right hon. Gentleman was holding different language in a different place—I mean the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir J. Pakington). The right hon. Baronet attended a meeting of a set of gentlemen who are well known, almost every man of them, to every successive Chancellor of the Exchequer—namely, those who are called the growers of hops. The county to which the right hon. Baronet is an ornament is not a great hop-growing county; it produces 1½ per cent of the total consumption, and consequently—I believe I am correct in the statement—until the eventful week in which we now are the right hon. Baronet had never thought it worth his while to attend a meeting of hop-growers. But on this particular occasion, when the financial scheme and a chance of intercepting the Treaty with France were in question, my right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwitch, his bowels with mercy and sympathy moved towards the hop-growers, appeared for the first time at a meeting among the champions of that suffering interest. And what was the advice given by my right hon. Friend within twenty-four hours of the time when the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire had—if I may thus express myself—so surreptitiously excited our admiration and almost enthusiasm by the enunciation of lofty principles. I have made inquiry about the accuracy of the report, and therefore I have less hesitation in quoting a few words from it. My right hon. Friend spoke among hop-growers, and said that he was not connected with a great hop-growing county. I suppose his audience knew that as well as he; but he went on to observe that his county had a good deal of land planted with hops, and he thought it right to attend the meeting. My right hon. Friend then entered on hops, but very slightly, and did not show that acquaintance with the manipulation of details which no one knew hotter how to employ when a master of details; but it was a resistless impulse which brought him among those unfortunate people in order to point out the way of salvation to them, and he said, "I would suggest as a matter of business"—the House will see that, unlike the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, who spoke in a tone of high feeling and romance, the right hon. Baronet, observing the division of labour agreed on, applied himself rigidly and without any chivalrous feeling to the part allotted to him. He said, "I would suggest, as a matter of business," that instead of their going to the Chancellor of the Exchequer they should instruct their Members to go at once to the House of Commons, and say, 'This Budget does not suit us, and we will oppose it." As for the Budget itself, the right hon. Baronet said he looked on it as "a rash, meddlesome, and unsatisfactory scheme." That is all very well. Regarding the Budget in that light, it is doubtless the right hon. Baronet's duty to oppose it, but he never thought it at all necessary to understand whether the hop-growers he was addressing partook of his opinion. He did not go to them and ask, "Do you think the Budget bad?" but he said "Your particular interests are attacked, and therefore turn against the whole Budget." The right hon. Gentleman went on:— And if all the interests injuriously affected by it could combine together, giving up their immediate views with regard to their own individual interests, the result would very soon be to get rid of it altogether. He therefore counselled them to unite with other interests and bring such a pressure to bear upon Parliament as would put an end to the Budget at a blow. That is the disappointment which I for one have undergone in comparing a declaration in full of the highest mediaeval spirit made by the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire with the more practical proceedings of the right hon. Member for Droitwich as a matter of business. But, however that may be, and whatever may be the proceedings that may be taken by those who sit on the same bench with the right hon. Baronet at the meeting of hop-growers or others, whether reported or not reported, having availed myself of the little light that was thrown on them through the medium of the daily journals, let me now endeavour to deal with the Motion as it stands on our books, and apart altogether from the question of what interests can be got to support it. But this I am bound to say, after the challenge given by the right hon. Gentleman—the invitation given by him to those parties—that I am deeply convinced that all such invitations in a country like England will miserably fail. Those who think that this Budget does them injustice will use their best exertions to defend themselves upon their own ground and with their own legitimate weapons, but they will not, from fear of losing their own legal privilege, be deluded and seduced into an error so grave as that of absorbing the greatest national interests in their own individual and particular convenience as a class, and they will give, I am convinced, an impartial judgment upon the main issue which is brought before them. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Whiteside), who spoke last night, described the Budget, and referred to the descriptions that had been given of it. He said my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry (Mr. Ellice) had characterized it as an ambitious Budget. I know the position of my right hon. Friend, and I cannot in the slightest degree quarrel with him for the use of that epithet, but I am sure he will admit to me that if it shall be found that the people of England receive these financial plans with approval it is not because they are fond of ambitious Budgets, but because they wish for measures which they think will contribute to the extension of trade and the prosperity of the nation. Some one else went far beyond my right hon. Friend, and said it was an audacious Budget. The right hon. and learned Gentleman himself would not go as far as that, but said it was a bold experiment upon the country. I am desirous that the House should come to a clear and conclusive view of the question who it is that is treading the safe paths of experience, and who it is that is chargeable to-night with objections and propositions that are ambitious, that are audacious, or that are bold experiments upon the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) gave a different description of the financial scheme. He gave a description which was not the most complimentary to the author of an ambitious Budget. He said, looking at it from a directly opposite point of view, "the Chancellor of the Exchequer can lay no claim to the merit of originality, he is simply walking in the footsteps of those who have gone before him, and because those footsteps have led us to safety in other times therefore he walks in them now." I affirm that that is the true description of the Budget. It does not lay claim to the merit of originality—if originality be a merit—but, at any rate, such have been the providence and sagacity of those who have gone before us that there is no need of originality. They have laid down the pattern of wise and prudent conduct in respect of public finance, and all we have to do is to follow in the course they have indicated. I must be permitted to say that I really pass by the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman who last addressed us, who conceives that this Motion, which was born at the meeting of a great party, and has been adopted in consequence of the determination of a distinguished nobleman to come forth from almost monastic seclusion to which he had retired, in order to rescue his country from danger—I cannot conceive that such a Motion is to be regarded in such a light. [Cries "Who!"] I mean the Earl of Derby. I speak from what I have seen reported, distinctly and without contradiction, as having been the language of the noble Earl. That noble Earl said that he had determined not to become a candidate for the resumption of his office as Prime Minister, after having twice held and lost it in a manner not satisfactory to himself, unless under circumstances of some rash and dangerous scheme vitally assailing the best interests of the country. Under these circumstances he would come forth from his retirement and again be at the command of his Sovereign. ["No, no!"] I apprehend I am right in supposing that Lord Derby is at the command of his Sovereign. I do not wish to detain the House by a verbal contest, but I imagine the right hon. Gentleman who last spoke treated this as a Motion which did not disturb the Treaty, and was not intended, if carried, to disturb the Government. As to disturbing the Treaty, it is well known the Treaty parts with £1,200,000 of the ordinary revenue of the year, and the Motion declares that it is not expedient to add to the existing deficiency by diminishing the ordinary revenue, and that I understand to be a plain and flat contradiction of our scheme. In the same manner I am right in supposing there is no hon. Gentleman who sits opposite, or at least upon the bench immediately before mo, who does not frankly regard this Motion as one which, if carried, would render it impossible for any Government to continue to hold office. I have no doubt my right hon. Friend who spoke last is the only hon. Member here who holds that peculiar form of opinion he has expressed. ["No, no!"] Let us, then, understand what the Motion is. Is it aimed at the Treaty with France or is it not? Is it possible to hold that a Motion which denounces any addition to an existing deficiency by parting with revenue can be thought compatible with a Treaty which does add. to the deficiency by parting with considerable revenue? It is a Motion aimed in terms—and I interpret its spirit solely from its terms—it is aimed in its terms and spirit at the life and substance of the Treaty. But more than that, I will endeavour to point out why I also say the Motion repudiates and condemns in the mass the commercial legislation of the last eighteen years. ["No!"] Hon. Gentlemen say "no." Permit me respectfully to suggest that I am to be followed in the debate by their leader, and he will have an opportunity of conveying the "No" to which they wish to give utterance in a manner quite as effective for their purpose, and much more agreeable to the House generally. The doctrine laid down is that it is not expedient to add to existing deficiencies by diminishing the ordinary revenue. That is the doctrine laid down in the Motion, and that doctrine, I say, is fatal to every great and beneficial change that has been made in this country in connection with the revenue for the last eighteen years. ["No, no!"] I understand hon. Gentlemen to dissent. Let us go to the proof. I will endeavour to prove that in a short and simple manner, and, without referring to all operations during a number of years, will refer only to three great crises. Putting aside the greatest of those events—the corn law and the navigation laws, which had no perceptible connnection with finance—I will refer to those great occasions when we dealt largely with the finances of the country in the sense of propositions of commercial reform—1842, 1845, and 1853. I was glad to hear, when, the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) last night said we were treading in the footsteps of Sir Robert Peel, that some hon. Members opposite cried "No." It showed that we have arrived at last at a time when it is admitted that those principles and that policy constitute not the mere decoration of a name or of a party, but a great national inheritance for which contending parties may honourably strive. That is a great mark of progress, when we recollect what has taken place within the memory of us all, when we remember that the changes of 1842 and those which followed led the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bucks to denounce a Conservative Government as an "organized hypocrisy." Take that as a starting point, and then realize the fact that the two sides of the House are now contesting who shall be the exponents, who shall be the champions, of those principles. It is a proof of the great progress that has been made, and the only question remaining now is which of the two sides of this House is endeavouring to continue that progress, and which to resist it. I will refer to each of those three years—1842,1845, and 1853—in order to show that in every substantial and important financial change you will find the principles to be precisely the same as those upon which the present Government has founded the scheme which is now before the House and the country. I shall place them in the sharpest contrast with the Motion which you are invited to adopt tonight, which my right hon. Friend who spoke last is about to support by his vote, and which declares that it is "not expedient to add to the existing deficiency, by diminishing the ordinary revenue." In 1842 there was, as there is now, an existing deficiency. It amounted to £2,570,000. Sir Robert Peel added to that existing deficiency by diminishing the ordinary revenue. He took from the ordinary revenue, by the remissions he made, a sum of £1,210,000. He thereby swelled the deficiency to £3,780,000, and he then laid on new taxes, of which the income tax was nine-tenths, to the amount of £4,380,000; thus obtaining a surplus of £600,000. I think that is rather like the operation which you are now asked to sanction. In 1845 there was one point of difference, and you will yourselves judge whether it is vital, or whether, as I think, it is comparatively unimportant, if it does not make out a stronger case. In that year Sir Robert Peel did not add to an existing deficiency, but he created a deficiency, by converting a surplus into a deficit. He had, in 1845, a surplus of £1,420,000. He converted it into a deficit by large remissions, which involved a loss to the revenue of more than £3,502,000. In that way he created a deficiency of £2,082,000. By renewing the income tax, he obtained Ways and Means to the extent of £2,600,000, and so secured a surplus of £518,000. I think that, again, was rather like the operation of 1842. In 1853, when substantially, though in loss arduous circumstances, most of us who are here present heard all these dismal prophecies, there was again an existing deficiency of £1,968,000. We again added to the existing deficiency, by diminishing the ordinary sources of revenue to the extent of £1,656,000. In that way we increased the deficiency to no less a sum than £3,624,000. We supplied that deficiency by new charges, that were estimated to yield—but, in point of fact, they yielded more—£4,090,000., and so obtained a surplus within a few thousands, the same as that which is now proposed—a surplus of £466,000. In each and all of these cases you pursued precisely for every substantial and practical purpose the same course. You either found or you created a deficiency; you aggravated when you did not create it; you had it to deal with in each case; you dealt with it after diminishing the ordinary revenue, by the imposition of new taxes; and that is the essence and foundation of the scheme now before you, as compared and contrasted with those rival schemes, of which some faint glimmerings have been obtained from one or two of the less cautious of the speeches which have been delivered in the course of the present debate. I may observe that 1853 was so far distinguished from the other cases, that in that year not only did we add to an existing deficiency, and impose new taxes, but the House of Commons, by so strong and so prevalent a feeling, both in the House and in the country, that no one ventured to raise a general issue, effected the operation by means of some indirect taxes laid upon spirits, but mainly by direct taxation, and in no inconsiderable degree by an extension of the income tax itself. I contend, therefore, that by demonstration, and not merely by loose assertion, it is clear beyond all doubt or argument, and in the rigid logic of figures themselves, that the plan we are now proposing, not as we describe it, but as described in a hostile Motion, corresponds in every point with the measures of 1842, 1845, and 1853. If that be so, the issue is a very short and simple one, because the question is, will the House stand by those measures,—will it endeavour to develope by further application the principles upon which they were founded, or will it, on the contrary, at this time of day, declare that it sees cause to renounce those doctrines, and to adopt, instead of them, the opposite principle, that it is "not expedient to add to the existing deficiency, by' diminishing the ordinary revenue?" So far I have quoted the words of the Motion, but I will add on my own account "for the purpose of making those investments on the part of the public, which a long, a sure, and now an unquestioned experience has proved to be almost beyond all other investments fruitful, wholesome, and reproductive." It may be said that there is one important point of difference between the circumstances of the present year, and those of the years to which I have referred, and that is that the deficiency with which we have to deal, is much larger than it was upon any of those occasions. That is perfectly true; but, on the other hand, let the House reflect whether there are not special circumstances of the most cogent character which almost compel Parliament, by the force of equity and justice, to recognize the claims of trade, of industry, and of the population at large to remissions of taxation. I shall mention two. One of them is the falling in of £2,000,000, and more of annuities, with respect to which I think it will be admitted that some question at least arises whether they are merely to be added to the means of meeting an enormous and constantly growing expenditure, or whether they mark an epoch at which we ought to endeavour to apply afresh the principles which we applied with such good effect before. The other relates to the extraordinary resources which we shall derive during the present year from what may be called casual receipts, that cannot recur. Take the single case of the sums we are going to obtain from the malt and hop credits. I have no difficulty in justifying the application of those sums under the circumstances to the services of the year, partly because they may in some sense be set against the really extraordinary expenditure to which we are liable on account of the military expedition to China, but mainly because we intend to make a reproductive use of the money. And though we begin by remitting taxes we are going to create funds, which as time goes on, will from year to year be constantly adding to your resources. Just look how the case stands. We are going to apply from extraordinary sources to the services of the year a sum of £1,400,000. That is only £700,000 less than the whole amount we are to lose by remissions of taxation; in other words, £700,000 is the whole extent for the services of the present year to which the ordinary revenue is really to be a loser on account of the remissions we are making, and that £700,000 represents three-fourths of a penny, or the difference between 9d. and 10d. in the income tax. But I must object altogether to the assumptions of these who exclaim against the reduction of indirect taxes as an irretrievable loss to the revenue. The receipts from indirect taxes constantly increase, and they increase the faster, and mainly, because we reduce. The receipts from indirect taxes will be larger in the present year, apart from the operation of the Treaty with France, than they have been, I believe, in any past year within our recollection,—certainly in any year since the imposition of the income tax. The difference is enormous between the amount at which they stood when the income tax was first imposed and the amount to which they have been raised by judicious remissions. But it does not follow that because we propose an operation of this kind in the present year it is therefore to be repeated every year. You commenced these reforms practically in 1842. You went on in 1842, in 1845, in 1846, which was, perhaps, the greatest year of the whole. In 1849 you repealed the navigation laws. In 1850 and 1851 you returned to the repeal of taxation, chiefly indirect. In 1853 you made another large remission of taxation. Between 1842 and 1853 there were not less than seven or eight years in which you made these operations; and what has happened since? For seven years, owing to the circumstances, we will suppose, of the time, the application of the principle has been intermitted altogether; and then comes a year when you have an extraordinary relief from the public debt, and when you are going to apply extraordinary means to the services of the year. With an interval of seven years since you have done anything for the further application of your principle, is it strange that you should be asked to recur to a beneficial practice? You may tell me that this is a year of great expenditure, and that therefore it is an unfit year; but do you who say that promise me that there will be great relief from that expenditure next year? If it were in a year of great expenditure, with the prospect of immediate relief, I grant you it might be better to undergo the inconvenience and forego the benefit, and wait for a year or a couple of years before proposing what we propose to do now. But what is the spirit shown on the other side, not by all hon. Gentlemen opposite, but by the Mover of this Motion, whom I take as an excellent specimen of the distinguished class to which he belongs? What is the spirit which he shows, and what is the spirit of the Motion with regard to expenditure? Does this Motion condemn our great expenditure? Does this recognize it, as I believe it is generally recognized on this side of the House—as far as it is approved—as a necessity, but a painful necessity, to which we submit because we think high interests require it, but from which we are desirous to escape—from which we hope to escape, and from which we are determined to keep in our own hands the means of escaping? That is the spirit in which the expenditure is supported on this side of the House; but is that the spirit of the hon. Mover? On the contrary, he pours contempt on times of economy—he fears we shall get back to those times to which he applies the miserable epithet of "cheeseparing"—he seems to give countenance to the discrediting assertion that the Ministers and the Parliament of England have given way to this cheeseparing economy. Why, who have been the Ministers during whose time economy has been most in vogue? I do not speak of those who live and sit on this bench. I speak only of the dead. The Duke of Wellington—than whose Administration none did more, according to its time and circumstances, for economy—Lord Grey, Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel. Those are the men under whom, by whose countenance, and by whose labour rules of thrift were applied to the expenditure of the State; and those are the men upon whom the Mover of this Motion, partly by its terms, and partly by the language by which he expounds them, thinks fit to throw a slur as cheeseparing economists. Sir, I have admitted that it is impossible to expect a rapid return for this benefit; that we have entered—though I trust the Estimates for the present year are exceptional—on a high level of expenditure. But, being on that high level of expenditure, and having heavy burdens to bear, can we not strengthen ourselves for the task by means which in former years were found so efficacious, and again apply the principles which were applied in 1842, in 1845, and in 1853? Sir, there is another view of this ease, to which no allusion has been made by hon. Gentlemen who have spoken on the other side of the House, but which I must confess impresses itself very forcibly upon my mind, and it is this:—I heard with pain the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring) which gave the weight of his authority, not so far, as I could understand, in support of the Motion, but, at any rate, in disapproval of the financial proposals of the Government. My right hon. Friend referred, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stamford (Sir Stafford Northcote) referred, to a political reason for the recommendation of schemes different from those of the Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Stamford gave us a glimpse of finance to which he would gladly have been a party, and he said that, instead of an income tax of 10d. in the pound, we ought to have an income tax of 7d. in the pound. My first objection to that agreeable suggestion is, that he proposed entirely to abolish the very small and modest surplus which I asked the House to provide, and that entire abolition of surplus is not, as I understand, a condition or characteristic of safe or prudent finance. My hon. Friend proposed to restore to the revenue what we take away. He proposed to take away 3–10ths of the income tax, or about £3,550,000, and the difference between those sums swallowed up the modest surplus which I have asked. That is my first objection to the suggestion of my hon. Friend. "Aye, but," says my hon. Friend, "you have always an increase from indirect taxes." Yes, Sir, but it happens that we have reckoned that increase already; we have taken it at as high an amount as the opinion of the official persons who are entitled to the greatest consideration warrants us in taking it, and I need not tell my hon. Friend we cannot eat the cake and have it too—we cannot reckon a sum twice on the same side of the account. But then my hon. Friend said he would provide a surplus by new taxes. By what new taxes? By taxes on the trade and industry of the country. Depend upon it if ever you adopt a stationary finance—stationary in fact, but retrogressive in spirit—you will not simply stand still; you will lose those continual supplies welling forth year by year from the fountains which prudent legislation has opened, and you will be obliged to make provision by new taxes, to which my hon. Friend so very mildly glanced. My hon. Friend said, and my right hon. Friend also (Sir F. Baring) also said, we do not make proper provision for 1861. Supposing hon. Gentlemen opposite had attained a Spartan heroism, and were as rigid financiers as they are Puritanical Free-traders when it suits them, and they had said, "It is intolerable that this £1,400,000 should be applied to the purposes you propose; take £1,000,000 of it and apply it to the payment of Exchequer bonds;" I am not sure that they would have made a good party Motion or that they would have had the hop-growers to assist them; but they would have acted on those high principles of finance which I must say have for many years been the peculiar characteristic of the party which they claim to represent. But it is not so. They ask you to give the utmost possible relief to the class which chiefly returns Members to Parliament,—nothing to any other class,—and to apply the malt and hop credits, not with a view to reproduction, but as an expedient to meet expenditure in a dead season, in accordance with a policy which provides from hand to mouth, looks not to the future, and contains within it no germ of vigour or possible improvement. My hon. Friend said, "Take care what you are doing," and he was echoed by my right hon. Friend. What are we doing? We leave to the Parliament of 1861 to make provision for 1861, as we are making provisions for 1860; and the reason of that proceeding is not concealed. It is a very plain reason,—that we do not recognize the expenditure now going on as fixed and immutable. We wish it to be watched by the people of England, to be controlled by Parliament, and therefore it is well that the Government should be dependent on Parliament for a portion of the revenue, instead of its being absolutely fixed in all its parts, in order that Parliament shall have control over the taxes. Here I think I am entitled to make a strong appeal to my right hon. Friend. He did not speak of great expenditure as desirable, or to be looked on with indifference. He, I thought, from the tone of his speech, looked with anxiety, which in my idea every prudent statesman must feel, to see the expenditure increased. I have no article of faith more cardinal than that large expenditure is not only an evil in itself, but constitutes a social and political danger to the country. But my right hon. Friend said, "You will never get down the expenditure until you refuse some of the taxes," and yet he objects to us when the course which we take is to leave in the Parliament of next year the power of employing that lever, if it thinks fit, for the purpose of acting on the expenditure of the country. I must say we are acting on the principle of my right hon. Friend, and I shall be very sorry if we have not his aid to give it effect. But here he and my hon. Friend came in and intimated that there is a peculiar danger in leaving to the Parliament of next year to make provisions for the exigencies of next year, because it is likely to be a Reformed Parliament; and so, because it is likely to be a Reformed Parliament, you are to tie up its hands, as a man who holds an estate in fee simple, and has got a disreputable son, entails and hampers it in every way he can, for fear his son will abuse his power. That is the spirit in which we are to act towards the Reformed Parliament. We are to go and say to an additional portion of the people, "We hold you worthy to be associated with your fellow-citizens in the great and noble office of choosing your representatives in Parliament, but when those representatives come and take their seats in the old British House of Commons they shall find the House denuded, as far as we can effect it, of some of its powers. They shall find that we have done for them something we thought dangerous to allow them to do for themselves." If there is to be a reform of Parliament—if masses of our fellow-countrymen now excluded, be they great or small, are to be admitted to the franchise—let those who are returned to the new House, when they assemble, be heirs to every power, to every privilege, and to all the liberty of the old; and do not let us presume to lay the foundations of jealousy—perhaps of disloyalty and disorder—by promulgating the doctrine that in proportion to the larger number of the people responsible for the election and conduct of Parliament, the powers of that Parliament are to be limited. That is one way of guarding against the dangers of a reformed Parliament, and it is a way which, under pretence of guarding against them, in fact, aggravates their dangers. There is another method of proceeding, which I hope this House will pursue. We are at present returned by undoubtedly a most intelligent portion of the population, but a portion more limited in its numbers than we think desirable. We are about to admit new classes to the exercise of the franchise. I have got the specific of my right hon. Friend (Sir P. Baring) for making the new Parliament innocuous, and I am not able to adopt it. I will give him mine, and leave the House to judge between us. It is a very simple one. When the new class sends to Parliament representatives who will be more peculiarly its own; when these newly-elected stewards enter upon the discharge of their functions; when they come to review the actions of their predecessors, let them find that, though we represented but a part of the people, yet to the best of our opinions and the best of our judgment, we held fairly the scales of justice between class and class, and studied the interests of all alike. And now I make my second appeal to the House of Commons. I ask you, which of the two plans before you best corresponds to the description I have given? You know well that the interests of different classes are materially affected by different kinds of taxation. Hear my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Hubbard). How eloquent he is on the sufferings of the long annuitants. I am very glad that the long annuitants should have a representative in this House; but there are classes which are not represented, and I want to know what sort of justice it is proposed to do them by the plan of the Government and the plan of the party opposite respectively? Here, again, I must resort for a few minutes to figures to prove my case, and they shall be the last. I apprehend it is an admitted proposition that in a certain relative manner, but with much of substantial truth, we may say that indirect taxes upon commodities are paid in a large proportion on a number of articles of consumption by the unrepresented classes, whereas the income tax is paid almost entirely by the represented classes, and in a great degree by the wealthy classes of the country. These are the terms in which I would state the incidence of the two kinds of taxation; and bearing these terms in mind, I beg the House to observe what has happened. Six years ago came the Russian war, and we had to make great additions to the taxation of the country. The House thought fit to make those additions in certain proportions between what was direct and what was indirect taxation. I put out of view now—what if not put out of view would make for my own side—the additional taxes laid on spirits, because I conceive they were permanent additions to the revenue which we gladly adopted, irrespective of the question of what class they favoured, and I look only to the temporary additions which the House of Commons made to the taxation for the purposes of the war. They were these—In 1854 and 1855, we laid on for the purposes of the war £8,557,000 of direct taxes; and in the same years, also for the purposes of the war, putting aside the spirit duties, £5,450,000 of indirect taxes. The House will see that this is in the proportion very nearly of eight to five; eight representing the direct, and five the indirect taxes. That was the measure and the mode of the deviation which we made at that period from our old system of taxation, and I think the House will go with me when I say that it was desirable when peace returned, and we began to remit those taxes, that we should not remit exclusively or mainly the taxes paid by the classes that returned us to Parliament; but that we should have observed the same proportion, or at least a proportion equally favourable to the classes not directly represented here. What have we done? Have we conformed to that law? Does the plan of Her Majesty's Government conform to it? Does the plan of right hon. Gentlemen opposite conform to it or reverse it? Here are the figures, and I must say they are more curious than satisfactory. In 1857–8 we retained of direct taxes, above the standard provided for peace—nearly £2,000,000. We retained of indirect taxes £3,000,000—those on tea and sugar. In 1858 9, when the right hon. Gentleman opposite was in office, we retained of direct taxes of the war—none at all of indirect taxes—£3,000,000. In 1859–60 we put on of income tax £4,000,000, not done by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, but done by the present Government, in order to meet the charge of the Estimates in the main prepared by their predecessors, and we still retained £3,000,000 indirect taxes on tea and sugar. In point of fact, if we take the totals of 1857 and 1858, we levied of the direct taxes of the war £2,000,000 and of the indirect taxes of the war £6,000,000, and whereas they have been laid on in the proportion of 8 to 5, not much short of double, they were retained in the proportion of 1 to 3. The proceedings of last year somewhat rectified this, because then we should have paid up to April £6,000,000 of the direct taxes of the war, and £9,000,000 of indirect taxes—the propor- tion still standing at 2 to 3, instead of, as it ought, at 3 to 2. If the House has followed me in these figures, I think it is clearly demonstrable that, if this House really wishes to show the reformed Parliament which is to follow us that we have done justice as between class and class, something is due from us to the consumers of the great commodities in which the people take an interest, and to the relief which is afforded to those classes by the remission of duties affecting trade. And here let mo say this—that if an hon. Gentleman opposite says we have made a great mistake in selecting the paper duty for remission instead of the tea and sugar duties—though I may differ from him, though I may enter into an argument to show that it would be better for the masses that the paper duties should be repealed, still we stand, at any rate, upon common ground; and I am ready to admit that, as far as principle is concerned, the reduction of the duties on tea and sugar would be as just in intention towards the masses of the people as the repeal of the duty on paper. But that is not the fact. Every proposal that has proceeded from the opposite side of the House goes on the principle of maintaining not only every farthing affecting the trading interest, but every farthing of the duties in which the masses of the people are directly concerned as consumers. If I were to take it as a sum in arithmetic, the real state of the case is this;—In proportion to the nine millions that we have levied of indirect war taxation since the war, if we had observed the same rule which we observed in laying it on, we should have levied £14,000,000 of direct taxation. Instead of that we have levied £6,000,000, and the balance of £8,000,000, according to the principle adopted by Parliament, is still duo to those classes whose demands we ought first to have relieved. It is under these circumstances, when we have kept up heavy charges on articles consumed by the people, in which the labouring man takes a great interest, that we are again asked to administer relief; for I admit that a penny in the pound is a great relief to the classes which have so long been subject to the burden of the income tax. I am quite satisfied with the issues which have been raised. I do not think it is necessary longer to detain the House. When hon. Gentlemen opposite regret that an unnecessarily high income tax should be levied, I certainly agree with them. I am sorry that any high income tax should be levied, whether necessary or unnecessary. We will debate on the meaning of these terms when the proper time comes. For the present, I have endeavoured to direct your attention to this fact, that the main proposition of the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Essex is a proposal which attacks the whole of the past course of commercial legislation since 1842, and which stigmatizes it for the past, and which renounces it for the future. I have also shown that, if Parliament is to be reformed, the best security we can take for the institutions of the country, for the loyalty of the people under the action of the new system, is to show that we have done justice to all classes while the old one was in existence. Upon these two issues jointly and without fear I commit the Motion to the decision of the House, and I am convinced both that their decision will be conclusively favourable to the scheme of the Government, and likewise that in delivering it the House of Commons will do no more than echo back the voice which has sounded throughout the nation from one extremity to the other.

MR. DISRAELI

I rise, Sir, to answer the challenge of the right hon. Gentleman, and to interpret that indignant negative which he heard from my hon. Friends behind me. The right hon. Gentleman has stated that the Motion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Essex is one that impugns the whole policy of commercial legislation for the last eighteen years. He says that the measures which he has introduced and the policy which he recommends are precisely the same as those which on preceding occasions have received the sanction of Parliament, and the approbation of the nation. He says, that if the House accedes to this Motion we are declaring that we entirely disapprove all that has been done in those eighteen years to revise our Commercial Code. But I join issue at once with the right hon. Gentleman. I deny the similarity between the measures which he introduces and those to which he refers. Sir Robert Peel, in 1842, in 1845, and the right hon. Gentleman himself, in 1853, certainly found or made deficits, but when they proposed a tax like the income tax it was for a period which covered the interval during which the experiment might have fair play. What we charge against the measures of the right hon. Gentleman is this,—that he has found a deficit and made a deficit, and has not proposed measures which will secure fair play to any experiment by which that deficit can be supplied. The whole speech of the right hon. Gentleman depended on this point. If the position of the right hon. Gentleman is not sound—as I hope I shall succeed in showing to the House—the whole of his conclusions fall to the ground. The House, I am sure, will generously remember, though the hour is late, that this is not an occasion on which I could shrink from expressing my opinions. I will therefore consider, as briefly as I possibly can, and for the moment in a merely financial point of view, the plan of the right hon. Gentleman, and I will see how it agrees with the position he has laid down, and how you can reconcile it with the character he has given of the Motion of my hon. Friend. Of this Budget of the right hon. Gentleman I would say this—that it aims at too much and provides too little. The right hon. Gentleman finds a deficit: he increases that deficit, and he closes his proposition with introducing a tax of a very extensive character and which is to exist only for a short term. The right hon. Gentleman has, I think, estimated his deficiency at nearly nine millions and a half—£9,400,000. When the right hon. Gentleman made his financial statement the Army Estimates were not on the table, at least few Gentlemen had enjoyed the opportunity of studying them; I, at least, had not been able to examine them. But I think no one can deny, who has since looked over these Estimates, that it would he a moderate calculation to assume that the army expenditure will not be less than a million beyond what appears in these accounts. We have heard to-night that regiments have been sent to China from the Indian establishments, and that the moment they arrive in China they will be on the British establishment. We have also heard to-night of regiments from India which are expected in England, and which the moment they arrive will be on the British establishment. In the Estimates we found one Vote of half a million for the Chinese war, which every one felt at the moment was a ludicrous amount.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

You are not to suppose that the Vote of credit represents the whole charge of the Chinese war. It only represents certain extraordinary charges which could not be stated in the ordinary Estimates.

MR. DISRAELI

Certainly the sum of £500,000 would appear at the first blush very unequal to the occasion. The Estimate has already assumed the dimensions of £850,000.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

was understood to dissent.

MR. DISRAELI

Without at this hour dwelling too much on the Estimates, it would be a very sanguine anticipation on the part of the House to suppose that the deficit assumed by the right hon. Gentleman would not be exceeded. The right hon. Gentleman, with this deficit of £9,400,000, will next year find wanting those malt and hop credits for £1,400,000, of which we have heard so much, and against the appropriation of which I enter my protest as a measure utterly unsound in finance, and of which I am quite surprised that the right hon. Gentleman should ever have proposed to avail himself. I remember that in 1852 I proposed, as a measure of reform, the extinction of a very small office connected with the Treasury which had a comparatively small sum of public money intrusted to its administration; I believe not more than £350,000. I proposed that that sum should be taken in the revenue of the year, and I did so only in order to secure a surplus, so that the amount would almost certainly have been found in the balances of the Exchequer, to which it belonged. The right hon. Gentleman denounced that project as one which could be justified on no ground whatever, and called for the reprobation of Parliament upon it; but what he is now doing is just the same thing, only upon a much greater scale, and under circumstances much less justifiable. Then we have in addition the question of the million of Exchequer bonds. We are told, Sir, that the country is in a position of unexampled prosperity. If we cannot pay our debts at such a time, when can we? When I asked, the of her night, the Secretary to the Treasury, in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman, how and when he proposed to pay that million of Exchequer bonds, the reply I received was a courteous reminder that I had in 1858 postponed the payment of £2,000,000 of Exchequer bonds. Surely he recollected the circumstances under which I took that step? That was not a time of unexampled prosperity. The country was still staggering under a great commercial panic. The month before Parliament met, at the beginning of the year, the minimum rate of discount was 10 per cent, and it was felt by everybody that it was totally impossible under those circumstances to propose taxes which would press especially on the commercial classes, then suffering from such startling and fatal depression. The proposition I made was unanimously adopted by the House, and no one, under the circumstances, raised the slightest protest against it; but I see no similarity between the circumstances of that year and those of this year of unrivalled prosperity with which we are now dealing. What we object to in the scheme of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is, that it does not resemble the transactions of 1842 or of 1845. It does not resemble the operations of Sir Robert Peel, or even those operations of 1853 which the right hon. Gentleman himself introduced in this House. It is because the right hon. Gentleman has neglected to take the same security for the future, because we find his plan is improvident, and consequently, under the circumstances, extremely dangerous, that we ask the House to interpose and express its opinion upon the propositions submitted to them. What will be our situation a year hence? It may not, under ordinary circumstances be discreet to indulge in very prospective finance; but it appears to me it would be perfect madness, in our present situation, not to contemplate what will be our position in 1861. The right hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir Francis Baring), who has some experience on such subjects, has calculated the amount of probable deficit. I confess I shall be surprised, I need hardly say pleased, to find it does not exceed that amount; but if the possible deficit in 1861 be merely £12,000,000, surely the House should pause before it sanctions the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman, and should hesitate, with such a prospect in view, before it accedes to measures which must necessarily, according to the right hon. Gentleman's own account, increase the deficit and augment the pressure of 1861. The right hon. Gentleman seems to be disappointed that more than one speaker in this debate has contemplated the dangerous and inevitable consequences, in such a state of affairs, of attempting to fasten the expenditure of the country upon direct taxation; and he has brought forward a paper—and it is not the first time that he has had recourse to documents of that kind—to show how, in all recent impositions of taxation, there has not been that fair proportion between direct and indirect taxation imposed which he feels to be just and believes to be highly politic. But there is this fallacy in the paper which the right hon. Gentleman read, and the inferences which he draws from it. We do not object to a fair proportion of direct taxation in our financial system. What we do object to is that direct taxation should take the form of an income tax on this large scale. It is not fair in the right hon. Gentleman always to state the question as one of competition between direct and indirect taxation, and describe this side of the House as being always the advocates of the indirect against the direct system. The question is not as to which system is superior. There are but few in this House who contemplate a time when a considerable amount of indirect taxation must not form part of our financial system. But the question is whether that form of direct taxation, which no one has denounced in more unsparing language than the right hon. Gentleman, the national evils of which he has proclaimed, the demoralizing influence of which on the people he has described in glowing terms, shall continue to exist, and not only exist, but be increased under his administration, and go on increasing in a ratio that none can contemplate without apprehension. That is the question. More than one hon. Gentleman has addressed us in this way. We who object to this form, I will say to this excess of direct taxation, are told we are advocating the interests of a class, and that we do not consider sufficiently the interests of the masses, that we now learn from the Chancellor of the Exchequer will probably elect the new Parliament. I deny the justice of this observation. There is a class of political philosophers, certainly represented in the present House of Commons, who think that they can elevate a nation by degrading it into a mob. Sir, I do not share their opinion. The contributors to the income tax are of various classes in the state, numerous, of very different degrees of wealth, cultivation, and position. But it is no doubt true that those who pay the income tax are, generally speaking, the flower of the nation. They represent the traditions, the experience, the domestic integrity, and the moral qualities of the nation; and it is to their high spirit and constancy, from the highest to the humblest, that the State must look in the hour of exigency. It is not true that the con- tributors to the income tax are a class apart from the great body of the nation; though divided into many degrees they are an important portion of that body. I will not go into the subject of the comparative pressure of taxation, or inquire whether those who fall under the imposition of the income tax do not suffer more severely than any of the working classes of this country. I acknowledge how important it is to consider the condition of the working classes; I know how much depends on their ample and remunerative employment; and knowing how they contribute to the wealth of the country I feel their condition ought, by all means, to be elevated and improved. And I know that you cannot accomplish such a result better than by extending the commercial relations of this country with others, and putting an end to those remaining burdens, that press on trade and industry. All these are high objects of policy that the vast majority of this House are prepared by great efforts to accomplish. But you can accomplish this result on certain conditions—namely, that they are practicable, and consistent with our financial position. Sir, I would now say a word on this Commercial Treaty with France. I entirely approve any means that will increase our commercial relations with that country. That has been for many years—at least a quarter of a century—the object of constant solicitude on the part of many successive Governments. In 1840 we were informed—not officially, but it was well known—that a commercial treaty with France was negotiated. I am not aware of the real reason why that treaty was not ratified, but I believe that the difficulty did not come from the French Government. I should not have alluded to the subject if it had not been mentioned by a Member of the Cabinet, nor should I have felt at liberty to state what I am about to say but for what has fallen to-night from a servant of the Crown. Sir, in 1852, when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, I was not in office a month before I made an attempt to establish increased commercial relations with France. When the Secretary of State (the Earl of Malmesbury) had opened the more formal business of the negotiation he requested me to place myself in communication with Earl Cowley, and to enter into correspondence with him on the subject, which I did. I do not say that the result of our labours would have taken the form of a treaty. Perhaps the alterations would not have been so extensive as those contemplated by the present Government, but at any rate they would not have been of a despicable character in a commercial point of view, and they would have been arranged by the mutual operation of our respective tariffs. What, Sir, was it that unfortunately prevented those arrangements? Towards the end of the autumn circumstances occurred that rendered it our duty when Parliament assembled to propose a great increase of our armaments. I found it impossible to have a peace Budget and a war expenditure. I was the victim, and my Budget never recovered that fatal blow. I mention this to show that we have none of those prejudices which the right hon. Gentleman imputes to us against increasing our commercial relations with the French Government. On the contrary, I think that, if the condition of affairs permitted, there is nothing more desirable than that those relations should be enlarged, and even if they took the form of a treaty I think I could endure it. What I object to in this Treaty is, that irrespective of the financial considerations involved, it is a very bad Treaty. I do not think there ever was a treaty drawn up apparently with less forethought or less knowledge of the circumstances with which the negotiators had to deal, which altogether contains so many arrangements injurious not only to the trade of England, but also inferentially and ultimately to that of France, or which is better calculated to sow the seeds of discord and dissension between the two countries. It would not be convenient now, at this hour, to go into the details of the Treaty, which would of itself require rather an elaborate speech; but I think that famous clause relating to coal, for example, is a very great mistake, and, if it is acceded to, ought to be accompanied by a reciprocal engagement on the part of France that all corn coming to this country should be exported free of duty. Then the arrangement about silk in the Treaty is extremely imperfect. Some silk manufactures enter Franco at a duty of fifteen per cent, which will now be charged thirty per cent. It is a great error that France should be permitted by this Treaty to levy an export duty on raw silk, when her manufactured articles of silk are to be admitted to our markets duty free. There are many other details, some of which are important, but which I will not weary the House with at this hour. I object, however, to the Treaty as an ill-drawn instru- ment, and one which, under any circumstances, ought not to be allowed to pass without criticism and opposition. But what I particularly object to is, that by entering on this Treaty the Government have increased that deficiency of the revenue under which the right hon. Gentleman is suffering. I will say this of the Treaty, that it adds certainly to our deficit a sum of £1,200,000 immediately; but it is so drawn that in respect to wine, when the right hon. Gentleman brings his new duties into full operation, his tests, I feel persuaded, will desert him. I do not understand how he will put his machinery into such order that his wines can he entered without a much greater sacrifice of revenue than he contemplates. If that be so, his loss of revenue will be much more considerable, perhaps £500,000 more than he contemplated in the statement he made when he opened his Budget to the House. As regards commercial intercourse with France, there is on this side of the House no political opposition to such a course, but, on the contrary, the greatest readiness to enter into arrangements for that object. But we object to the Treaty as a Treaty not skilfully negotiated, and as one that occasions a considerable deficiency in our revenue, probably a much more considerable deficiency than the Chancellor of the Exchequer estimates. We object also to the time at which it is brought forward, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself has confessed that the French Government were prepared to postpone the Treaty till 1861. [Mr. GLADSTONE: The operation of the Treaty]. There were secret negotiations, and there is not the slightest reason why the Treaty should not have been ratified, and remained a secret Treaty, till it was carried into operation. But we must consider the Budget of this year combined with the Budget of 1853, for this is a complement of that Budget, and they are in fact inseparably united. What has been the effect of the financial propositions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1858, and cannot we draw some warning from their fate as to the probable result of the financial arrangements of 1860? There are four great features of the financial scheme of 1853—that famous scheme, the praises of which have been so much celebrated, and on the credit of which the Chancellor of the Exchequer flourished till he made his financial statement for 1860. The first feature of that celebrated Budget was, I will not say one to pay off the national debt, but to reduce the interest paid to public creditors. We afterwards had an ambiguous apology from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, from which it appeared that when he embarked in that enterprise he was not aware that it was necessary to give a notice of six months to the holders of £500,000,000 of stock before they could be paid off—a circumstance which, of course, somewhat interfered with the operation. The right hon. Gentleman himself acknowledged that his scheme was an abortion. I may say, in passing, what is perhaps not known to the House, that it was an abortion which cost us the whole of the balances in the Exchequer, and when we entered on the Russian war our balance in the Treasury was little more than £1,000,000. Well, so much for the first great feature, and first great failure of the Budget of 1853. The second feature of that financial scheme was the reduction of the tea duties to 1s. a pound. I think I may say, in passing, that that was a measure which had been adopted from his predecessor. I had the honour, on the part of the Earl of Derby's Government, to propose that the tea duties should be reduced to 1s. a pound; and had the proposition then been carried into law a duty of 1s. only would now have been paid. The right hon. Gentleman adopted generally the plan I proposed, but with his eager mind he proposed what he thought a more rapid and less methodical arrangement. He wished to do it quicker than I suggested; and what has been the result? The duty on tea is not 1s. a pound; it is much more; and I observed, from what passed at a meeting of the tea trade the other day, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer received, apparently with no disrelish, a suggestion from some gentlemen present that the duty at the present exigency should be made one penny a pound more. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I did not approve of, but dissented from that suggestion]. One great advantage of this debate is that we are favoured with a running commentary by the right hon. Gentleman. [A laugh.] I never object to being interrupted, and I hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will in future bear interruptions with as much patience as I do. This, then, was the second great feature, and the second great failure, of the Budget of 1853. On the third feature of that Budget—the Succession-Tax—I need say little. This is the great measure which gained for the right hon. Gentleman the sympathy of the hon. member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright). Here was a tax directed against the landed interest—a circumstance which recommended itself very much to that hon. Gentleman's favour, and which in 1860 was to produce two millions of money. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told us then that with those £2,000,000, and the £2,000,000 which we should acquire by the falling in of the terminable annuities he should have a pretty good sum in hand to assist him in putting an end to the income tax. Well, the year 1860 has arrived, in which this succession tax was to produce £2,000,000 per annum, and the result, we find, is that it has actually produced about one-third that sum. This was the third great feature of the Budget of 1853, and the third great failure. The fourth great feature, and one much larger in its proportions, is now under the consideration of the House—that which relates to the income tax, which, in a manner which gained for him the applause of all parties and the assent of a grateful country, he told us—masterpiece of statesmanship!—was at the commencement of 1860 to terminate altogether. Yet, notwithstanding that promise, we find that the income tax of 1853 is, unfortunately, still alive; nay, more, that it is a child which has greatly grown. The income tax of 1853, in short, which year after year was to diminish, and which in the present year was entirely to cease, has now increased to more than 4 per cent, or at the rate of 10d. in the pound. This, Sir, was the fourth great feature of the famous Budget of 1853, and the fourth great failure. Such, then, was the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman, and it is in consequence of that great financial success that we are asked to place confidence in the wild and improvident propositions to which our assent is now invited. But I will not state the case unfairly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has reminded the House that causes have intervened to prevent the realization of calculations which no one could control, and to those causes it is that he attributes the utter failure of his arrangements. The Russian war broke out contrary to his expectation. Now, before I touch briefly on that war, let me remind the right hon. Gentleman that the plea put forward because of it has no validity whatever, so far as regards his attempts to account for not keeping his engagement with respect to the termination of the income tax. Did he not, let me ask, ratify that policy and repeat those engagements in 1857, when he criticised the Budget of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Radnor(Sir G. Lewis), long, he it recollected, after peace had been proclaimed? Why, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman was then the apostle of the same policy as in 1853, and, so far as speeches can bind him, he must admit that he recommended the same policy and contemplated the same results. Nay, more; at a still more recent period, when I, in 1858, occupied the position which he now holds, when by course of law the income tax was to have lapsed to 5d.—half its proposed amount—he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), still faithful to his old views, sanctioned the measures which I proposed, and bound himself to the accomplishment of the same compact to which in 1853 he stood pledged. But now, what, let me ask, is the plea which he puts forward for the abandonment of the policy to which I have referred? We now, instead of witnessing the termination of the income tax, are called upon to assent not only to its great increase, but to sanction an arrangement by which, in all probability, another appeal in the same shape will next year be rendered necessary, when we shall be asked to continue this tax in an aggravated form. The right hon. Gentleman, however, tells us that to the Russian war we are to attribute the utter failure of the Budget of 1853; but let me remind the House, in dealing with that plea, that we now know much more with respect to that war than we did seven years ago. We have had since laid on this table the secret correspondence which took place between Her Majesty's Minister at St. Petersburgh and the Members of the present Government, the noble Lord opposite (Lord John Russell) being then, as at present, Secretary for Foreign Affairs. That correspondence was laid on the table in the spring of 1854. From the circumstance of my receiving authentic information which led me to infer its existence, the noble Lord was obliged ultimately to produce it. What appeared by that correspondence? Why, this—that no sooner had Lord Derby's Government been expelled from office than the Emperor of Russia disclosed to their successors his designs on Turkey. Am I using an exaggerated phrase in saying that immediately the Earl of Derby's Government left office this disclosure was made? I have a very good witness, formerly a great commercial authority, now a great diplomatic one, the secret negotiator at Paris—Mr. Cobden. I saw him rise in this House, and heard him say that there never was a vote in his life he regretted more than the one which expelled the Earl of Derby from office in 1852, because he said I have not the slightest doubt, from the information we possess, that that vote produced the Russian war. On the 1st of January the despatch was dated which informed Her Majesty's Ministers that it was the intention of the Emperor of Russia to invade Turkey. The Menschikoff mission, which hon. Gentlemen recollect, followed in due course, and yet it was with all this knowledge—unless the right hon. Gentleman, with his eager nature, was so absorbed in his office that he had no acquaintance with public affairs generally—that he brought forward his famous Budget of 1853 with all those arrangements which only a state of continuous peace could justify. He held out to a Parliament that had repudiated the income tax, that had insisted that it should be referred to a Select Committee, this mode as the satisfactory one of settling those long differences, while the right hon. Gentleman must have been aware that Europe was on the eve of a great convulsion, and of a war into which England would not be inferentially and indirectly drawn, but one in which she must have been the prime actor, for her interests were about to be assailed. But is that all? We know that the Emperor of Russia acted with great hesitation, with great doubt and perplexity, watching with keenness the conduct and temper of the British Government; and if it had appeared to possess any energy or real decision, would he not have been arrested in his fatal course? But we know from the personal confessions of that Government itself, that their Cabinet was the scene of internal dissension—we know that there were two parties in it, and if the present Prime Minister had been Prime Minister then, the war would not have taken place. There was a party over which the Earl of Aberdeen presided, which exercised an influence greater than that of the present Premier and the Foreign Secretary; and that was the party that produced peace Budgets when they ought to have been preparing war armaments. And what was the consequence? Has the House forgotten—England, I am sure, has not forgotten that famous Vote in 1854, in Supply, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer—determined, forced at last to take a Dew course, which would arrest that of the Emperor, and show him that England was not to be trifled with—proposed that a few battalions of Guards should be sent to Malta, and proposed also the Vote that should pay for their passage back. Who can be surprised at what took place? Three months after such feeble conduct on the part of the Government, the war was begun; and what were the consequences of that war? An addition to your debt of £40,000,000—an annual charge of £1,180,000, exactly the sum you are going to pay annually for the French Treaty of Commerce. And now we are told we have great and successful financiers—statesmen who produce the great budgets of 1853 and 1860—men who think only of the incidence of taxation on the working classes—who shrink from expenditure, who call for retrenchment, who make every possible effort to lighten the burden of taxation on the people. Why, if those great statesmen had only shown a little more foresight and firmness, and prevented that Russian war which they precipitated by their feebleness, the incidence of taxation would have been very considerably lightened. Does not this prove that other qualities than mere political economy are necessary for the government of a nation? I told you that this Budget of 1853 was inseparably connected with that of 1860. You see how completely the Budget of 1853 has failed in all its four features. You see why it failed—because external circumstances, that were not foreseen by one who ought to have been prescient, interfered in a great degree with their consummation. What is the state of affairs now? Is the aspect more serene than it was in the spring of 1853? No man can suppose that the right hon. Gentleman is now ignorant of the state of external politics. If the Budget of 1860 ends in that confusion which I believe awaits it, and must await all schemes so utterly improvident, the right hon. Gentleman will not be able to tell us next year that his plans have been frustrated by external causes which he could not foresee. The right hon. Gentleman takes a great interest in the affairs of Italy. He has quarrelled with his old friend the Pope, as he has quarrelled with many others of his old friends. That Christian charity he grudged me a share of the other night, he now derives, I believe, from the Greek Church. But I think it would be well for this House, when we have a scheme of finance of this improvident description placed before us—when, with a deficit existing, a further deficiency is created, and that tax increased which in the moment of emergency should be the source on which we ought most to rely, I think it would be well for us to consider what is the state of our Foreign affairs, and what is really contained under that phrase which so glibly runs through the mouths of men—the affairs of Italy. Sir, the affairs of Italy at this moment involve the greatest causes which can possibly impel men to action, or which can influence the destinies of empires. Totally irrespective of many causes of comparative insignificance, all of which in old days might have produced war, you have in Italy now three matters alone, any one of which is enough to convulse the world. You have the question of Papal supremacy, you have the question of the natural boundaries of empires, you have the question of the nationality of races; each of the first two have before this time produced the longest and most sanguinary struggle in the memory of man. The question of Papal supremacy gave you once the thirty years' war. The question of the natural boundaries of empires gave you the long war of the French Revolution. Those questions are still in existence; and, in addition, you have a new one, the solution of which cannot be ultimately avoided, perhaps cannot be long delayed—the question of the nationality of races. Are we to be told, in such circumstances as these, that all a Statesman should do is to simplify a tariff? Was there ever a moment in the history of this country, when we ought more to husband our resources? Is this a time wantonly to put an end to the sources of your ordinary revenue? Is this the time you should fix upon to anticipate the resources of your direct taxation? There is not a man out of this House, if there be any man in it, who doubts the propriety of the course we ought to pursue. I think the course recommended by the Government is the most improvident—I could use, but I will not, a much stronger phrase—that ever yet was counselled to Parliament. I should, under ordinary circumstances, hesitate to support it; but in a moment like this I feel it my duty utterly and emphatically to protest against it. The hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. B. Osborne) spoke with great friendliness to me this evening, and told me aloud, though, of course, in confidence, that I had recom- mended a very unwise course to my hon. Friend, the Member for Essex, in advising him to propose that Motion, which he did with so much spirit and promise. The hon. Member for Liskeard asked why we proposed such a Resolution, why we did not admit the principle of the Budget—that is to say, the principle of the policy—and worry the Government in Committee. "We should then have got a great deal of assistance; the hon. Member would have helped us himself; and we might have beat the Government in detail. I have no doubt the hon. Member would make a much more adroit leader of a party than I can pretend to be; and, indeed, it is only with the assistance and constant indulgence of my friends, that I can for a moment undertake the cares and duties of the post I now occupy. But I must tell the hon. Member for Liskeard he has totally mistaken the motives which influence us on this occasion, and which are totally different from those which would regulate his conduct. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to deride the speech of the right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole)—a speech inspired, I believe, by as true a sense of patriotism, and characterized by as becoming an eloquence as any speech ever made in this House. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to deride the possibility that we had any object in the course we have taken but to embarrass and subvert the Government. "If those are your views of finance and policy," said the right hon. Gentleman, "it is your duty to terminate our Ministerial career, and if you are not prepared to do that, you ought not wantonly to embarrass us." That was the argument he used. But, Sir, I remember the Parliament I am now addressing. I remember it is a Parliament summoned by the Queen under the advice of counsellors, of whom I formed one myself; and that Parliament, on its meeting, though by a very narrow majority, declared that they had no confidence in the then Government of Her Majesty. They had no confidence in our Foreign policy; they had no confidence in our Reform principles. What confidence the present Parliament has in the Foreign policy of the present Government, I will not pretend to decide. All I know is, that, so far as I can form an opinion, the affairs of Italy are in exactly the same position as when Parliament was prorogued in August last. So far as the Reform Bill is concerned, I confess, after the announcement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the franchise is to be given to the masses, I admit that no Reform Bill we could bring forward could vie with the coming measure of Her Majesty's Government. But I think I have a right, under these circumstances, to say that neither I, nor my Colleagues, after that vote, are at all anxious to attempt to re-occupy the places we then filled. I may, at least, say for myself, that having for more than two years led this House in a minority, I shrink from the renewed anxiety and responsibility of such a post; and I would recommend no Gentleman ever to accept such a position who has any regard for his nervous system. The important office which the Chancellor of the Exchequer fills gives ample opportunity to his eager mind and his impetuous rhetoric. Perhaps in moments of solitary aspiration he may have wished to occupy the proud post of leader of the House of Commons, which no doubt he could fill efficiently. But from what I have observed of the right hon. Gentleman's temperament, I think I may tell him that it is well for him, however eminent his position, that he reposes at least for a time beneath the mitis sapientia of the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary and the calm patience of the noble Premier. Although, however, we are neither anxious, nor, perhaps, able, to disturb you in your seats, are we to forget our duties, as Members of this House? Are we to forget that there is such a thing as the English nation, and that there is such a thing to fulfil as public duty? No, Sir! We are conscious of that duty. We will not enter into combinations and cabals to embarrass the Government. I have heard in this debate a great deal about what are called party questions, and there is nothing upon which there appears to me such confusion in the minds of men, and, of all men in the world, in the minds of Members of Parliament, as upon this subject. Sir, when a great political party chooses on on some technical ground and narrow issue to join with a section of their opponents and upset a Government, their conduct may be liable to great public reproach. I say "may be liable" because even in such a case combination might be an act of duty, if they thought that the general conduct of the Government was pernicious and they had the means and opportunity of rectifying it. But when a great party, on a question of policy, financial, commercial, or diplomatic, come forward to assert distinct principles, and to advocate an intelligible course, which none can misapprehend, and with which I believe a great portion of the nation sympathizes, to hold up such a party movement as liable to reproach is to confound the nature of things, and not to comprehend the scope and spirit of our Constitution. It is the duty, the noblest duty that can fall to Members of this House, to fulfil such a task. It must always be the lot of only the minority to be Ministers of State, but it is the privilege of all to have views upon political affairs, to support those views with eloquence in this House if they desire it and have the gift, but, at all events, in honourable combination with those with whom they have community of sentiment to assert with their votes their influence and their opinions. Sir, such is now the course which we are about to take. It is our opinion that the proposition of the Government is one pernicious, improvident in finance, not to say profligate—one that may lead this country to an extremity of circumstances this time next year which few can contemplate without the utmost alarm. I wish to see such a course arrested. I do not know what prolonged discussions in this House may not effect. I have little hope or supposition that by asserting our policy in this straightforward manner we can accomplish that object at present. But, in affirming the Resolution of my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, which declares that to add to a deficiency in finance is a proceeding to be deprecated, and that we ought not to disappoint the just expectations of the country by largely increasing the income tax, we assert a principle which we believe in and will maintain. Those just expectations I for one will not deceive, and to that country I ultimately appeal.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

Sir, I am not about to follow the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) either in discussing the details of the Budget of 1853, the causes and events of the Russian war, the affairs of Italy, or the nervous system of the right hon. Gentleman, which, however, I may be allowed in passing to say I feel great and unfeigned pleasure in finding to be in so good a condition. But I wish, even at this late hour, in a few brief sentences to recall the House to the subject which has really now to be decided. And I will venture to say that a more important question never was comprised within the six short lines of a Resolution, ample enough in itself for the decision of Parliament without mixing it up with the various topics, some personal, and some of a more general character, in which the right hon. Gentleman has thought fit to indulge in his speech. The Resolution moved is one of the most important that in so short a compass has ever been submitted to Parliament. It contains a decided opinion on two great questions—one relating to our commercial relations with foreign countries, the other to the development of our own internal resources. Either one or the other would have been a fit subject for separate discussion. The hon. Member for Essex has judged fit to put both together; and the result he hopes to accomplish is nothing more nor less than the rejection by anticipation, without any detailed discussion, the Treaty with France and the Budget of my right hon. Friend. That intention may be sufficiently gleaned from the words of the Resolution; and, if any doubt of it has existed, it has been dispelled by the frank avowal of the right hon. Gentleman. I shall not go into any details either of the Treaty or the Budget. The Government is about to invite the House to a discussion in which all the provisions of the Treaty may be considered; and we have to propose Resolutions in all the other parts of our financial arrangement. I now only wish to recall the House to the subject in debate, and to entreat it to consider well what will be the effect of its Vote. By the Treaty with France we have accomplished, in regard to our commercial relations with that country, what has been the object of many successive Governments and Ministries, what was the object of the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman himself was a Member. He has even stated that he should not have objected to put into the shape of a treaty the arrangements negotiated by that Government with the Government of France. The Resolution, nevertheless, which he supports calls on the House to do what will be equivalent to the entire rejection of the present Treaty. With regard to the Budget, and that part of the Resolution that deals with the income tax, if the House agrees to it, it will set aside summarily all the financial arrangements proposed by the Government. I will not deal with that part of the Resolution that refers to the additional penny on the income tax. I presume the framers of the Resolution do not wish to abolish the income tax altogether. But the latter part of the Resolution does dispose of the Budget, as the former part disposes of the Treaty with France. This part of the Amendment is advocated on the ground of the increased naval and military expenditure of the country. That augmentation neither the right hon. Gentleman nor the country has found fault with. Indeed, it has rather been forced on the Government by public opinion. I fear that no great diminution of that expenditure can be expected within any short period of time. Then to meet it I say it is the duty of Parliament to endeavour to increase the resources of the country by all the means by which they can intelligently be increased. And one mode of improving those resources is to increase our commercial transactions with that great country that lies at your doors. Those increased commercial transactions must necessarily add to the wealth and resources of this country. We are told, indeed, that this Treaty ought not to come into operation at once, because it was secretly concluded, and pledges the sources of the revenue of the country for a year to come. I have no hesitation in saying that a Government who could keep secret a treaty of that sort would deserve the highest censure of Parliament and the country. It is ridiculous to suppose that a treaty of that kind could be kept secret. I say that; if we are in a position in which we have to face a large expenditure, it behoves us to do all we possibly can to increase the national resources; and the treaty we have concluded with Prance has that direct tendency, having regard to the friendly and commercial relations in which it will place us with our great neighbour. But, more than that, the example which has been set by Prance and England will be followed by other countries, and the principle of free trade being thus laid as the foundation of the intercourse between those two great countries, will necessarily draw by its example the other nations of Europe into the same course. This Treaty will not only lay the foundation of a great increase in the intercourse between England and France, but will have the effect of spreading over the other countries of Europe those great principles of commercial intercourse which will lead to the prosperity and augment the resources and happiness of all. And when we are increasing our commercial relations with other countries, it would be unwise not to free the industry and develop the resources of our own. Surely, when we are pursuing that course which was followed with such signal success in 1842, 1845, and 1853, we are but doing that which it is our duty to do—namely, setting free the springs of industry at home, and by that means augmenting the resources of the country. I entreat the House not to be led away by any of the extraneous topics which the right hon. Gentleman has imported into this debate. I entreat you to consider the deep importance of the vote you are now about to give; for, by putting a stop to those beneficent measures by which we hope to lay the foundations of a great intercourse between two powerful countries, and to develop still more the internal prosperity of our own, the House, I think, will incur a responsibility which, upon reflection, every man who is a party to such a result will afterwards deplore.

Question put,

The House divided—Ayes 228; Noes 339: Majority 116.

List of the AYES.
Annesley, hon. Capt. H.	Codrington, Sir W.
Arbuthnott, hon. Gen.	Cole, hon. H.
Archdall, Capt. M.	Collins, T.
Astell, J. H.	Cooper, C. W.
Bailey, G.	Corry, rt. hon. H. L.
Baillie, H. J.	Cross, R. A.
Ball, E.	Curzon, Visct.
Baring, A. H.	Dalkeith, Earl of
Baring, rt, hon. Sir F. T.	Damer, S. D.
Baring, T.	Dawson, R. P.
Barrow, W. H.	Dickson, Col.
Bathurst, A. A.	Disraeli, Rt. hon. B.
Beach, W. W. B.	Drax, J. S. W. S. E. D.
Bective, Earl of	Du Cane, C.
Beecroft, G. S.	Duncombe, hon. A.
Bentinck, G. W. P.	Duncombe, hon. W. E.
Bentinck, G. C.	Dunn, J.
Beresford, rt. hon. W.	Dunne, Col.
Bernard, T. T.	Du Pre, C. G.
Blackburn, P.	East, Sir J. B.
Bond, J. W. M'G.	Edwards, Major
Bovill, W.	Egerton, Sir P. G.
Bowyer, G.	Egerton, hon. W.
Boyd, J.	Elmley, Visct.
Bridges, Sir B. W.	Elphinstone, Sir J. D.
Brooks, R.	Farquhar, Sir M.
Bruce, Major C.	Farrer, J.
Bruen. H.	Fellowes, E.
Bunbury, Cap. W. B. M'C.	Fergusson, Sir J.
Burghley, Lord	Kilmer, Sir E.
Burrell, Sir C. M.	FitzGerald, W. R. S.
Carnae, Sir J. R.	Forester, rt. hon. Col.
Cartwright, Col.	Forster, Sir G.
Cave, S.	Franklin, G. W.
Close, M. C.	Galway, Visct.
Cobbold, J. C.	Gard, R. S.
Cochrane, A. D. R. W. B.	George, J.

Gilpin, Col.	Mitford, W. T.
Gladstone, Capt.	Montagu, Lord R.
Goddard, A. L.	Mordaunt, Sir C.
Goff, T. W.	Morgan, hon. Major
Gore, J. R. O.	Mowbray, rt. hon. J. R
Gore, W. R. O.	Murray, W.
Graham, Lord W.	Naas, Lord
Greaves, E.	Newdegate, C. N.
Greene, J.	Newport, Visct.
Grey de Wilton, V sct.	Nicol, W.
Grogan, Sir E.	Noel, hon. G. J.
Haliburton, T. C.	North, Col.
Hamilton, Lord C.	Northcote, Sir S. H.
Hamilton, J. H.	O'Donoghue, The
Hamilton, Major	Packe, C. W.
Hanbury, hon. Capt.	Pakenham, Col.
Hardy, G.	Pakington, rt. hn. Sir J.
Hartopp, E. B.	Palk, L.
Hassard, M.	Papillon, P. O.
Henley, rt. hon. J. W.	Parker, Major W.
Hennessy, J. P.	Paull, H.
Henniker, Lord	Peacocke, G. M. W.
Herbert, Col. P.	Peel, rt. hon. Gen.
Heygate, Sir F. W.	Pevensey, Visct.
Hill, Lord E.	Powys, P. L.
Hill, hon. R. C.	Quinn, P.
Holford, R. S.	Repton, G. W. J.
Holmesdale, Visct.	Ridley, Sir M. W.
Hood, Sir A. A.	Rogers, J. J.
Howes, E.	Rolt, J.
Hubbard, J. G.	Salt, Thomas
Hunt, G. W.	Sclater-Booth, G.
Ingestre, Visct.	Selwyn, C. J.
Jervis, Capt.	Seymer, H. K.
Johnstone, hon. H. B.	Shirley, E. P.
Jolliffe, H. H.	Sibthorp, Major
Jones, D.	Smith, Montagu
Kekewich, S. T.	Smith, S. G.
Kelly, Sir F.	Somes, J.
Kennard, R. W.	Stanhope, J. B.
Kerrison, Sir E. C.	Stirling, W.
King, J. K.	Steuart, A.
Knatchbull, W. F.	Sturt, H. G.
Knight, F. W.	Sturt, N.
Knightley, R.	Talbot, hon. W. C.
Knox, Col.	Thynne, Lord E.
Knox, hon. Major S.	Thynne, Lord H.
Lacon, Sir E.	Tollemache, J.
Leeke, Sir H.	Tomline, G.
Lefroy, A.	Torrens, R.
Legh, W. J.	Trefusis, hon. C. H. R.
Leighton, Sir B.	Trollope, rt. hon. Sir J.
Leslie, C. P.	Upton, hon. Gen.
Lever, J. O.	Valletort, Visct.
Lindsay, hon. Col.	Vance, J.
Long, R. P.	Vansittart, W.
Long, W.	Verner, Sir W.
Longfield, R.	Vernon, L. V.
Lopes, Sir M.	Walcott, Adm.
Lowther, hon. Col.	Walker, J. R.
Lowther, Capt.	Walpole, rt. hon. S. H.
Lyall, G.	Walsh, Sir J.
Lygon, hon. F.	Watlington, J. W. P.
Lytton, rt. hon. Sir G. E. L. B.	Way, A. E.
	Welby, W. E.
Macaulay, K.	Whiteside, rt. hon. J.
MacEvoy, E.	Whitmore, H.
Malins, R.	Williams, Col.
Manners, rt. hn. Lord J.	Willoughby, Sir H.
March, Earl of	Woodd, B. T.
Maxwell, hon. Col.	Wyndham, Sir H.
Miles, Sir W.	Wyndham, hon. H.
Miller, T. J.	Wynn, Col.

Wynn, Sir W. W.	TELLERS.
Wynne, C. G.
Wynne, W. W. E.	Jolliffe, Sir W.
Yorke, hon. E. T.	Taylor, Col.

List of the NOES.
Acton, Sir J. D.	Clifford, C. C.
Adair, H. E.	Clinton, Lord R.
Adam, W. P.	Clive, G.
Adeane, H. J.	Cogan, W. H. F.
Agar-Ellis, hon. L. G. F.	Colebrooke, Sir T. E.
Alcock, T.	Collier, R. P.
Andover, Visct.	Coningham. W.
Angerstein, W.	Cowper, rt. hon. W. F.
Antrobus, E.	Craufurd, E. H. J.
Arnott, Sir J.	Crawford, R. W.
Ashley, Lord.	Crook, J.
Atherton, Sir W.	Crossley, F.
Ayrton, A. S.	Dalglish, R.
Bagwell, J.	Dashwood, Sir G. H.
Baines, E.	Davey, R.
Baring, H. B.	Davie, Sir H. R. F.
Baring. T. G.	Davie, Col. F.
Bass, M. T.	Deedes, W.
Baxter, W. E.	Denman, hon. G.
Bazley, T.	Dent, J. D.
Beale, S.	Divett, E.
Beamish, F. B.	Dodson, J. G.
Beaumont, W. B.	Douglas, Sir C.
Bellew, R. M.	Duff, M. E. G.
Berkeley, hon. H. F.	Duff, Major L. D. G.
Berkeley, Col. F. W. F.	Duke, Sir J.
Bethell, Sir R.	Dunbar, Sir W.
Biddulph, Col.	Duncombe, T.
Biggs, J.	Dundas, F.
Black, A.	Dunkellin, Lord
Blake, J.	Dunlop, A. M.
Blencowe, J. G.	Dutton, hon. R. H.
Bonham-Carter, J.	Egerton, hon. A. F.
Botfield, B.	Egerton, E. C.
Bouverie, rt. hon. E. P.	Ellice, rt. hon. E.
Bouverie, hon. P. P.	Emlyn, Visct.
Bramston, T. W.	Ennis, J.
Bright, J.	Esmonde, J.
Briscoe, J. I.	Euston, Earl of
Bristow, A. R.	Evans, T. W.
Brocklehurst, J.	Ewart, W.
Brown, J.	Ewart, J. C.
Browne, Lord J. T.	Ewing, H. E. C.
Bruce, H. A.	Fenwick, H.
Bulkeley, Sir R.	Ferguson, Col.
Buller, J. W.	Fermoy, Lord
Buller, Sir A. W.	Finlay, A. S.
Burke, Sir T. J.	Fitzwilliam, hn. C. W. W.
Butler, C. S.	Foley, J. H.
Butt, I.	Foley, H. W.
Buxton, C.	Foljambe, F. J. S,
Byng, hon. G.	Forster, C.
Caird, J.	Foster, W. O.
Calthorpe, hon. Fred. H. W. G.	Fortescue, hon. F. D.
	Fortescue, C. S.
Campbell, hon. W. F.	Freeland, H. W.
Cardwell, rt. hon. E.	Garnett, W. J.
Carnegie, hon. C.	Gaskell, J. M.
Castlerosse, Visct.	Gavin, Major
Cavendish, hon. W.	Gibson, rt. hon. T. M.
Cavendish, Lord G.	Gifford, Earl of
Cayley, E. S.	Gilpin, C.
Childers, H. C. E.	Gladstone, rt. hon. W.
Cholmeley, Sir M. J.	Glyn, G. C.
Churchill, Lord A. S.	Glyn, G. G.
Clay, J.	Goldsmid, Sir. F. H.

Gordon, C. W.	Mackinnon, Wrn. Alex. (Lymington)
Gower, hon. F. L.
Graham, rt. hon. Sir J.	Mackinnon, Wm, Alex. (Rye)
Greenall, G.
Greenwood, J.	Maguire, J. F.
Gregory, W. H.	Mainwaring, T.
Gregson, S.	Marjoribanks, D. C.
Grenfell, C. P.	Marsh, M. H.
Greville, Col. F.	Marshall, W.
Gray, Capt.	Martin, P. W.
Grey, rt. hon. Sir G.	Martin, J.
Grosvenor, Earl	Massey, W. N.
Gurdon, B.	Matheson, A.
Gurney, J. H.	Matheson, Sir J.
Gurney, S.	Mellor, J.
Hadfield, G.	Merry, J.
Hanbury, R.	Mildmay, H. F.
Handley, J.	Miller, W.
Hankey, T.	Mills, T.
Hanmer, Sir J.	Milnes, R. M.
Harcourt, G. G.	Mitchell, T. A.
Hardcastle, J. A.	Moncreiff, rt. hon. J.
Hartington, Marq. of	Monsell, rt. hon. W.
Hayter, rt. hn. Sir W. G.	Monson, hon. W. J.
Headlam, rt. hon. T. E.	Montgomery, Sir G.
Heathcote. hon. G. H.	Moody, C. A.
Heneage, G. F.	Morris, D.
Henley, Lord	Mostyn, hon. T. E. M. L.
Herbert, rt. hon. H. A.	Napier, Sir C.
Herbert, rt. hon. S.	Newark, Visct.
Hervey, Lord A.	Noble, J. W.
Hodgkinson, G.	Norris, J. T.
Hodgson, K. D.	North, F.
Holland, E.	O'Brien, P.
Hope, G. W.	O'Ferrall, rt. hon. R. M.
Hornby, W. H.	Ogilvy, Sir J.
Horsfall, T. B.	Onslow, G.
Howard, hon. C. W. G.	Osborne, R. B.
Howard, Lord E.	Owen, Sir J.
Humberston, P. S.	Packe, G. H.
Hutt, rt. hon. W.	Paget, C.
Ingham, R.	Paget, Lord A.
Ingram, H.	Paget, Lord C.
Jackson, W.	Palmerston, Visct.
James, E.	Patten, Col. W.
Jermyn, Earl	Paxton, Sir J.
Jervoise, Sir J. C.	Pease, H.
Johnstone, Sir J.	Peel, Sir R.
Kendall, N.	Peel, rt. hon. F.
Kershaw, J.	Peto, Sir S. M.
King, hon. P. J. L.	Pigott, F.
Kinglake, J. A.	Pilkington, J.
Kingscote, Col.	Pinney, Col.
Kinnaird, hon. A. F.	Pollard-Urquhart, W.
Laing, S.	Ponsonby, hon. A.
Langston, J. H.	Portman, hon. W. H. B.
Langton, W. H. G.	Pryse, E. L.
Lanigan, J.	Pritchard, J.
Lawson, W.	Proby, Lord
Leatham, E. A.	Pugh, D. (Carmarthenshire)
Legh, Major C.
Levinge, Sir R.	Puller, C. W. G.
Lewis, right hon. Sir G. C.	Ramsden, Sir J. W.
	Raynham, Visct.
Liddell, hon. H. G.	Ricardo, J. L.
Lindsay, W. S.	Ricardo, O.
Locke, Joseph	Rich, H.
Locke, John	Ridley, G.
Lockhart, A. E.	Robartes, T. J. A.
Lowe, rt. hon. H.	Robertson, D.
Lysley, W. J.	Roebuck, J. A.
M'Cann, J.	Rothschild, Baron L. de
Mackie, J.	Rothschild, Baron M. de

Roupell, W.	Taylor, H.
Russell, Lord J.	Tempest, Lord A. V.
Russell, H.	Thompson, H. S.
Russell, A.	Tite, W.
Russell, F. W.	Tollemache, hon. F. J.
St. Aubyn, J.	Traill, G.
Salomons, Mr. Ald.	Turner, J. A.
Salt, Titus	Tynte, Col. K.
Scholefield, W.	Vane, Lord H.
Scott, Sir W.	Verney, Sir H.
Scrope, G. P.	Villiers, rt. hon. C. P.
Scully, V.	Vivian, H. H.
Seymour, Sir M.	Walter, J.
Seymour, H. D.	Watkins, Col. L.
Seymour, W. D.	Weymss, J. H. E.
Shafto, R. D.	Western, S.
Shelley, Sir J. V.	Westhead, J. P. B.
Sheridan, R. B.	Whalley, G. H.
Sheridan, H. B.	Whitbread, S.
Slaney, R. A.	White; Col. L.
Smith, J. B.	Wickham, H. W.
Smith, M. T.	Willcox, B. M'G.
Smith, Augustus	Williams, W.
Smith, Sir F.	Wilmington, Sir T. E.
Smith, Abel	Wise, J. A.
Somerville, rt. hon. Sir W. M.	Wood, rt. hon. Sir C.
	Woods, H.
Stafford, Marquess of	Worsley, Lord
Staniland, M.	Wrightson, W. B.
Stansfeld, J.	Wyld, J.
Steel, J.	Wyvill, M.
Stewart, Sir M. R. S.
Stuart, Col.	TELLERS.
Stuart, Major W.	Brand, hon. H. B.
Sykes, Col. W. H.	Knatchbull Hugessen, E.
Talbot, C. R. M.

House adjourned at half after Two o'clock till Monday next.