§ LORD ROBERT CECILsaid, he was afraid that he was about to descend to a subject of much smaller magnitude than the deeds of the Taepings. He wished to correct a statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the last time they were in Committee of Ways and Means. He had asked the right hon. Gentleman whether the income tax collectors had, by the authority of the Government, informed those persons who were liable to that impost that they were bound to pay on the 20th March, or twelve days before the termination of the quarter. The right hon. Gentleman said, that if the collectors had done that—and he intimated a doubt of the fact—they had done wrong, because they had been told not to press for payment before the end of the quarter; and that, whatever they had done in that respect, the Government were not responsible for their actions. Since that answer was given he had received a letter from one of the leading income tax collectors; and as the right hon. Gentleman's statement had been made public, it was only fair that this letter should be made public also. The writer denied both of the right hon. Gentleman's propositions, and stated that in the general instructions issued for the collection of the income tax for the whole year—a copy of which he enclosed—the collectors were ordered to collect the quarter's tax within ten days after the same should have become due—that was, to collect the quarter due on the 20th of March before the 1st of April, and not, as he gathered from Mr. Gladstone's reply, after the 1st of April. By the general instructions the collectors were bound not only to collect the quarter's tax within ten days after it became due, 770 but were bound to issue a warrant of distress if it were not paid. That might seem a small matter to hon. Members, but it was of serious consequence to small farmers and tradesmen. His correspondent added—
He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) further states, 'The proceedings of the collectors were not taken by the direction of the Government.' In answer, I can say we are continually feeling the action of the Government in the pressure put on us through the Surveyor and Receiver of Taxes, to hasten and complete the collection, which compels us in turn to press for the tax, which, at present, entails a great hardship upon small farmers and traders, suffering from the effects of two years' scanty harvests.The writer made one other remark, in which he entirely concurred—There has been a tendency of late to make the collectors the scapegoat for those in high office in connection with the income tax, which I feel to be most unjust.In that matter he desired that the saddle should be put upon the right horse. If it was true that the fault lay with the collectors, a check ought to be placed upon them, and their duties ought to be properly defined. If the fault did not lie with the collectors, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer must be held answerable for it. There were strong grounds for suspecting that the action really proceeded from the Government. They had had two years of experimental finance, which had ended in large deficiencies. To remedy those deficiencies, the Government had scraped up every farthing it could find at the very first moment it could lay hands on it; and it had exhausted every means within its reach for bringing the wretched condition of the Treasury balances up to something like a presentable state. He was afraid that the hardship to small farmers and traders which he had been describing was but a part, and possibly only a small part, of the same policy which drew five quarters of the income tax into one year. At all events, the subject was one upon which the House ought to have some explanation.