§ MR. WYLDsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If the Government have received any memorials or remonstrances from British Subjects residing at Smyrna of the attempted imposition, by the British Consul, of a poll tax of five shillings per head upon every adult Englishwoman and Englishman residing at Smyrna; and if he will lay before the House a copy of the Report of Sir Edmund Hornby on the complaints made against Mr. Consul Blunt at Smyrna?
§ MR. LAYARD, in reply, said, Her Majesty's Government had received a memorial or remonstrance from British residents at Smyrna, on the subject of what 1327 they were pleased to call the attempted imposition of a poll tax. The memorial and the answer of Her Majesty's Government would both be laid upon the table; but he begged to say, that this so-called poll tax was simply a registration fee levied upon British subjects on registering themselves, by virtue of an Order in Council, not alone in Smyrna, but throughout the East. A similar fee was levied by the representatives of all other Powers in the East. It was levied by the British authorities to meet the large expense of courts, juries, and various other institutions and establishments connected with consular affairs, and was imposed on persons who did not pay English taxes and would not pay Turkish taxes. With regard to the correspondence relating to Mr. Blunt, it referred to a matter now past; four years had elapsed since the events to which it related took place, and no good would arise from laying the papers connected with the case on the table.
§ SIR GEORGE BOWYERsaid, he wished to know, whether the opinions of the Law Officers of the Crown had been obtained as to the legality of levying taxes by Orders in Council?
§ MR. LAYARDsaid, the Orders in Council were drawn up by the law advisers of the Crown, and the fee was equally leviable under the old constitution of the Levant Company and several Orders in Council.