§ SIR GEORGE JENKINSONsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, as the Government have granted to Scotland the inquiry which they have denied to the ratepayers of England and Wales, on the subject of local taxation, he will undertake to legislate at once on that subject, so that a remedy for the unequal and unjust mode of levying poor rates under the existing system may take effect during the present Session of Parliament; or, if not, whether he will now grant a Select Committee to inquire into the subject of the unequal incidence of the poor rates in England and Wales, with a view to facilitate a remedy being provided by legislation at the earliest available opportunity? He must, in the first place, express his regret at not being able to comply with the request of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, that he would postpone that Motion, and he would assure him that his refusal to comply with the request was made in no spirit of discourtesy towards the right hon. Gentleman, or in any want of respect to the House; but he had consulted a great many Friends in the House, and they had assured him that if he were in that case to establish the precedent of giving way it would be injurious to the interests of the private Members of the House, not only on that occasion, but upon others similar to it. Hon. Gentlemen even on the other side of the House might be glad in future that he had not established 978 that precedent. Were it not for the rule upon which he was now taking his stand, a Prime Minister, supported by an overwhelming majority, might become dictator of the House, and private Members would be unable to enter upon any business whatever except with his permission. The right hon. Gentleman might, however, stop him at any moment by granting that which he asked. He felt unable therefore to give way, but he would not detain the House at any length. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury had promised that the question of local taxation should be dealt with; but it was difficult to see how this promise could be carried out in a manner satisfactory to those most interested, if the promise made by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade to drag his Colleagues before the bar of public opinion perpetually until he had obtained a remission of £20,000,000 of Customs duties were carried out. If they were to look for a remission of £20,000,000 in the Customs duties to please him—if they were also to obtain a remission of local taxation—which now reached the sum of £11,000,000—and if, in justice to the farmers of England, the duty on malt, now about £7,000,000 more, were to be remitted, those sums altogether would reach to a total of £35,000,000—so that he did not see much chance of that relief to the local taxpayer to which they were entitled. The great towns of England were awakening to the importance of the subject, and one important borough, represented by an hon. Gentleman opposite, was about to take action upon it. The question was, in his opinion, of quite as pressing importance as that of the Irish Church. There was a real grievance in the question of local taxation, while it appeared to him that there was no hardship in the question of the Irish Church.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that the hon. Baronet who had just spoken had laid down the somewhat formidable doctrine that it was desirable to interpose the settlement of the question of local taxation before that of the Irish Church. The hon. Baronet had, however, carried that doctrine into practice in so mild a manner that he could not complain of his having declined to accede to his request that the discussion upon this subject should be postponed till a future occasion. With regard to the immediate 979 purpose of the hon. Baronet, he thought it proceeded upon a misapprehension of the real circumstances of the case. He appeared to think that an inquiry had been granted with regard to the operation of the Poor Laws in Scotland, which had not been granted with regard to England. That was far from being the fact. The Committee which had been appointed for Scotland was a Committee appointed to inquire into the operation of the Poor Laws for the purpose of ascertaining whether any, and if so, what amendments might be made therein. A Committee, with almost identical powers, was granted with regard to England some few years ago upon the recommendation of my right hon. Friend, the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Villiers), who was then the President of the Poor Law Board, and that Committee, having inquired into the matter, made a Report, which was laid upon the table of that House, and which had become the basis of subsequent legislation. Therefore, the inquiry which had been recently granted with respect to the Poor Law of Scotland had already been granted and had taken effect as regarded England. The hon. Baronet appeared to desire, not merely an inquiry into the operation of the Poor Law in England, but also an inquiry into the manner in which the rates were raised, which was a totally different matter; as different as an inquiry into our army system would be from an inquiry into the mode of levying taxes out of which the army was supported. The Committee which was sitting to inquire into the operation of the Poor Law in Scotland would act in the main in the same sense, and within the same limitations, as the Committee which was appointed on the recommendation of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton. He had certainly been given to understand that the Scotch Committee had regarded it as being within their province to investigate some matters connected with the collection of the poor rates in Scotland; but, then, it must be recollected that the system of collection of the poor rates in that country was different from the English system, because in Scotland nearly every man was taxed for the relief of the poor on his whole means and substance, and that circumstance had given an indefiniteness to the law of poor rates which did not exist in the law of this country. 980 However, the principal answer he should give to the hon. Baronet would be to remind him that when the question of local taxation was under discussion at an early period of the Session, the evident desire of many hon. Members was that an inquiry into the subject should be made, not through the medium of a Committee of the House, but through that of a Royal Commission, and that what was undertaken by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board and by himself, on the part of the Government, was that the whole facts relating to the question should be collected and brought together, and that, as soon as the pressure of other subjects would permit, the Government would be prepared to propose such alteration in the present law relating to local taxation as might appear to them, upon a careful consideration of those facts to be necessary. Those hon. Members who sup-ported the Motion to which he referred had been pleased to express their satisfaction with that declaration, and he believed that it was then generally understood that the engagement entered into by his right hon. Friend was accepted in place of the demand for a Royal Commission. Upon one point there could be no misunderstanding—namely, that no demand had been made for an inquiry by a Committee of that House. Under these circumstances, he must say the Government were of opinion that a Committee of that House to inquire into the mode of collecting the rates in England and Wales should not be granted; and that, undoubtedly, it was not in their power, whatever might be their desire, to legislate at once on the mode in which local taxation was raised in this country.
§ MR. NEWDEGATEobserved that by his determination to procure an answer from Her Majesty's Government upon this subject the hon. Baronet (Sir George Jenkinson) vindicated the rights of independent Members. After the experience of yesterday, when the great party opposite were held in silence upon a measure, that the Prime Minister had declared to be of the highest importance, he thought it was time that hon. Members, who were opposed to the measure for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church should remind the Prime Minister that although he had a majority in that House those who sat opposite to him represented the 981 majority of the English people. ["Oh!"] He would only guess from the inarticulate mode in which hon. Members opposite expressed their opinions that they dissented from that statement; but his assertion was based upon figures contained in Returns, which had been made in accordance with the Orders of that House for the purpose of the Reform Bill, and from these figures it appeared, that those, who opposed the Irish Church Bill did represent a considerable, indeed, a large majority of the English people. [" Question."] He hoped hon. Members opposite would not endeavour to silence others, because they were reduced to silence themselves, or it would be necessary for those, who represented the majority of the English people to remind them that this was the people's House of Representatives. The hon. Baronet was justified in the course he had pursued on another ground, which was the inordinate haste of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister in proceeding with the Irish Church Bill—a haste which might betoken anything, even a sense of guilt, and which was peculiarly unusual at this period of the Session, and such as he had never known attempted before during the long period he had sat in that House—this inordinate haste showed, at all events, that the right hon. Gentleman, in order to force forward that measure, was prepared to neglect other business, which was essential to the welfare of the country. The hon. Baronet, therefore, in putting this Question had done well to remind the Prime Minister, that there were other matters, which called for attention, and which the people of England expected would be undertaken bonâ fide by that House, if not by Her Majesty's Government, if they were to suppose, that the attention of the latter was totally absorbed by the Irish Church question. It was now clear, from the answer of the Prime Minister, that the incidence of local taxation was not a question, which the Government meant to consider, though that was the very question which was brought forward by the hon. Member for South Devon (Sir Massey Lopes) with so much ability, and to which the answer of the Government they were considering, and would undertake it, was understood to apply. He understood from the language of the right hon. Gentleman that he raised a 982 distinction between the cases of England and Scotland on the ground that in Scotland the local taxation was levied upon the whole means of the ratepayer, and that, therefore, there was a difference between the assessment of the ratepayer in the two countries and the incidence of local taxation in England, was the very point raised by the hon. Member for South Devon. Believing, there-fore, that the question of the hon. Baronet had tended to remove a misunderstanding as to what was to be expected from the Government upon this subject, he thought that the hon. Baronet in insisting upon its being answered, had only done his duty, and had rendered a service to the House.