HC Deb 05 June 1877 vol 234 cc1332-59
MR. MITCHELL HENRY

, in rising to call attention to the inequality of Irish and English Taxation, and to move the following Resolutions:— (1.) That the burden of Imperial Taxation imposed on Ireland is excessive, and out of proportion to her financial ability to bear it as compared to England. (2.) That this inequality is a violation of the promises made at the Union, and occasions a loss of capital which, accompanied by the annual absentee drain, is the main cause of the small material progress of the country. (3.) That to tax a poor country on the same scale as a rich one is in itself unjust and opposed to sound economic principles; whilst the fact that the excessive taxation raised in Ireland is in great measure expended out of Ireland forms an aggravation of the injustice, and makes permanent improvement hopeless until the present mode of dealing with Irish Revenues is altered, said: Mr. Speaker, although the House of Commons is the guardian of the public purse, financial discussions are not popular with it. Even the Budget does not always attract a very full audience; and the discussions of Amendments on the Budget, except they are of special importance, always take place in the presence of a select, and small audience. If, however, the grievances, in a monetary point of view, of Ireland are brought under review, no more unpalatable subject can be introduced to a Legislative Assembly. That arises, I believe, from a very general impression that these alleged grievances are unsubstantial, perhaps even fictitious; and if, in submitting them, I have to refer, as I must do to-night, for a very short time to some historical aspects of the question, the impression I have to combat in the minds of many of my hearers certainly will be that the case is altogether unfathomable. I do not share that opinion, and certainly should not bring the subject before the House of Commons again unless I had a firm conviction that it is of the most serious interest to the welfare of both countries. The more I study it, the more I see the iniquity of the present arrangements. I believe that the misery that has occurred in Ireland—I believe the miseries that have occurred in England owing to her connection with Ireland—have arisen in a largo measure from the financial relations of the two countries.

First of all, I must ask the attention of the House to the strange impression in this country, and perhaps in the House of Commons also—that the Irish Parliament was an Assembly got together at the close of the last century, when England was in difficulties; that it assumed to itself the name of a Parliament without being one in reality; that it existed for a few years; that it did many improper things; and that eventually it was dissolved by the will of England, and for the good of both nations. Sir, that impression ought to be corrected. Parliamentary institutions in Ireland are almost coeval with the invasion of Ireland. There have been Parliaments in Ireland since the time of King John, and the Irish Parliaments have met with as great regularity as the Parliaments of England. I mention that because it is necessary to explain that the finances of Ireland were as much under the jurisdiction of those Parliaments as they are now under the jurisdiction of this Parliament. At the same time, the Parliament of England frequently attempted to interfere with the taxation of Ireland, but those attempts always met with resistance; and the accounts of such contests remind one very much of the contests that have taken place in this country between the House of Lords and the House of Commons as to which should have the custody of the national purse. Now, the Parliament of Ireland, long before 1782, which is the date many fix for the beginning of an Irish Parliament, imposed taxation. It had regular Budgets which were laid upon the Table of the House, and the Budgets were discussed just as Budgets are discussed in this House. In the year 1773 there was a Return made to the House of Commons of the amount of the revenue, and that revenue was something under £750,000. It was, stated more exactly, £640,000, and the debt was £976,000. This was taken from the average for the 12 years previous to 1773. The taxes were raised in this way. They were called "the King's hereditary revenue," and were revised from time to time. The last revision took place on the accession of Charles II., and the bulk sum was made up not only of King's rents, and all fines, and confiscations, and tolls, lighthouse, and so on; but it also included the Customs outward and inward, just as in former years we had both of them here, and as we now have inward Customs. It included duties on beer and wine and strong waters. Those strong waters—whiskey, was taxed, it may be interesting to say, at 4d. per gallon; and I do not know that Ireland was any more drunken than she is falsely accused of being now. There is no indication that Ireland was worse off because she paid a light taxation upon drinks and had the money to pay for other things. I want, however, to draw the attention of the House to the way in which the Debt and Revenue were administered in 1782, when the independence of the Irish Parliament was declared. That was during the troubles of the American War. What is called the independence of the Irish Parliament was nothing else than the repeal of "Poyning's Law," which was passed in Henry VII.'s reign, and prevented the Irish Parliament from really legislating for the nation, because all laws which it might pass were subject to the revision of the English Privy Council. What was called the independence of the Irish Parliament then was the repeal of Poyning's Law. The Parliament continued as it was and as it had been—all that happened was that the Privy Council no longer revised the Irish statutes. Independence, then, being established, I wish to call attention to the fact, that from 1782 to 1793—which may be taken as the prosperous period of Ireland's history, when she had the management of her own affairs—when she was not interfered with, the increase of Debt was only £162,000. The whole Debt, indeed, at 1793 was under £1,000,000, the increase from 1773 being little more than £500,000. Then came the troubles of 1793, and the Debt rapidly increased, so that in 1798 Ireland had contracted a Debt of £10,000,000; and in 1800, which was the date of the Union, the Debt of Ireland was £22,500,000. I desire to establish these facts, because they are very important. They are important because they show that the taxes of Ireland were very light when she had the management of her own affairs; and that it was not until she was involved in troubles with England that her Debt and taxes rapidly increased.

What happened next? The English Government determined that the Irish Parliament should be suppressed, and for that purpose employed a mixture of cajolery, terrorism, chicane, and deceit. I will not characterize further the way in which the Union was brought about, because everybody knows it. One of the specious arguments used by Lord Castle-reagh was that it would stop the accumulation of Irish debt; he said that Ireland was rapidly running into debt; that the debt then amounted to £22,500,000; and he said—"If Ireland unites with us we will manage her affairs so that she shall share only in the proper portion of our expenses." The Union took place in 1800, and at that time the Irish taxation stood at £3,500,000. The very next year Ireland was taxed exactly double-£7,000,000—and the Debt augmented every year until in 1810 there was a Debt of £65,500,000. Such was the state of affairs 10 years after the Union. In 1816 the Debt of Ireland had increased to no less than £111,000,000, notwithstanding that she struggled hard to pay the taxes imposed upon her, as I will show to the House. In 1806 Ireland was called upon to pay £8,250,000. She did pay £4,500,000, and borrowed another £4,000,000. In 1815 Ireland was called upon to pay £17,000,000 of taxation. She did pay £6,500,000, and borrowed £10,500,000 more. I think anyone who reads these figures will come at the conclusion that the Irish people did their duty gallantly, and that the taunt ignorantly thrown out against them, that they preferred to tax posterity rather than themselves, is undeserved. For what do we find? In 15 years after the Union, Ireland was called upon to pay £148,000,000 in taxation; in the 15 years before the Union she paid £41,000,000 only—less than £2,250,000 a-year. I said before, that Lord Castle-reagh promised that the taxation of Ireland should be apportioned to the financial ability of the country. Was that promise kept? An objection was taken at the time that if a country having a small income was to be compelled to join a country with a very large income, and that if the country with a large income entered into war with another country—as this country did with France —then the country with the small income would be ruined. It is like the case of two individuals. A gentleman with an income of £500 a-year is asked to join in relative expenses with a gentleman with 15,000 a-year. But there are many expenses which may be proper for a man with an income of £5,000, and very improper for a man with an income of £500, and which he would never think of incurring. The Irish nation never wished to go to war with France. They never wished to be placed in the position of being united with England, and of incurring an enormous burden of debt, in order to dictate to the French people which form of Government they should have. When the Union took place, the Debt of Ireland was £22,500,000, and the Debt of England was £450,500,000; therefore, Ireland, a poor country with a small Debt, was called upon to join a country having a Debt without a parallel in magnitude. The Home Secretary has been asked several Questions recently by a Member of this House (Mr. Locke) about the privileges of the Channel Islands; and the right hon. Gentleman in his reply, while saying that the Islands had Home Rule, which he did not seem to like, added that there were no taxes in the Channel Islands. That is not actually true, but it is very nearly true. The people living in the Channel Islands do not wish to have Home Rule abolished and taxation imposed. Suppose, however, an enterprizing Home Secretary some day takes it into his head that this condition of things in the Channel Islands should be reformed, and that they should be joined to the united Parliament, you would financially ruin the Channel Islands in just the same way that you have ruined Ireland.

Sir, I think I have established the facts as to the income of Ireland and as to the Debt of England. But now what was the proportion in which it was said by Lord Castlereagh Ireland should contribute to English taxes? His proposition was that it should be two-seventeenths of the joint expenditure. He said he fixed on this proportion because that was about the proportionate wealth of the two countries. That was a gross, a transparent, a most iniquitous and shameful deception. But it was carried by sheer brute force—by an unreasoning majority against everyone who knew anything about the finances of the country; against the protests of the Irish House of Lords, of Mr. Grattan, and of the people outside the House of Commons. Mr. Grattan said very truly— If this Union is brought about Ireland loses its liberties. The country that loses its liberties loses its revenues. I shall quote, however, the opinion of one who will command the regard of hon. Members opposite. Dr. Johnson said to a friend— I advise you not to unite with us. We should only unite with you to rob you. We should have robbed the Scotch if they had anything of which we could have robbed them. I do not, however, agree with that. The Scotch took care that you should not rob them. They resisted you, and resisted you successfully. They took care that you should neither rob them nor interfere with their religion, but the Irish were riot strong enough to resist, and you have succeeded in robbing them as well as in persecuting them on account of their religion. The Speaker of the Irish House of Commons (Mr. Foster) on this subject, speaking on the 17th of February, 1800, said, referring to the calculations of Castlereagh:— We do not want these speculative calculations; we have a better criterion than any of the calculations of the noble Lord to show what would have been our actual situation on the 25th of March last had the proposed arrangements then taken place. In six years, from 1783 to 1799, England increased her Debt by £180,000,000. During the same period Ireland increased her Debt by £14,000,000, making a total of £200,000,000. Well, if this blessed Union had taken place at this time Ireland would have been called upon to pay £23,500,000 instead of £14,000,000."—[Irish Debates.] Now, that cannot be refuted; and in 1817, when the Debt of Ireland was two-seventeenths of that of England, the two Exchequers were united, Ireland having a Debt of £112,000,000, and England a Debt of £734,000,000. By the provisions made in the Act of Union the two Debts were amalgamated, and England became responsible for £112,000,000 of Irish debt, and Ireland became responsible for £734,000,000 of English debt, for which she has to pay at this moment her proportion of the interest. Nothing more iniquitous ever occurred in the history of any nation, and what explanation can be given of it on the ground of justice I am at a loss to know. The Irish public at last are beginning to understand how they were fleeced and plundered; and they know now why they have to provide immense taxes up to this day to cover debts which they never incurred, and to pay off responsibilities which ought to be cleared off by England alone.

But now I come to modern times, and ask how has Ireland been treated of late? The answer is—In the last 25 years the taxation of Ireland has been doubled. She pays now £8,500,000 a-year to the finances of this country against £4,000,000 which she paid 25 years ago. But that is not all. During this period—that is the last 25 years — the population of Ireland has diminished by about one-half. If, therefore, the population is diminished one-half, and the taxation has doubled, that means that Ireland is paying four times as much taxes as she paid 25 years ago. The taxation of Ireland really is not quite so much as this, but it has arisen from 9s. 6d. per head to 32s. per head, or more than 300 per cent. During this time what has happened to us? We have had a famine — that dreadful affliction, which produced untold misery and suffering to the people, and which reflected the utmost disgrace on England. I remember the late Mr. John Martin being blamed in this House because he said what was literally true—namely, that the English Government was, to a great extent, responsible for the Irish famine. What he meant was this—float the abominable system of Government which was introduced and fostered, first by one party and then by another, had reduced the country to such a state that when the famine arrived it found Ireland an easy prey, and that therefore England was responsible for the consequences of her own acts, and that is quite true. If a man by neglect and mismanagement brings up his family in such a way that the first appearance of distress lays them low, he is responsible. But is it maintained that this doubling of the taxation is a proof of the prosperity of the country? There are people who say so. I believe the late Member for Dublin (Mr. Pim), who seemed to take about as cheerful a view as any one—as cheerful as the most hopeful Viceroy that ever made a speech at the Mansion House—(they are always stereotyped speeches at the dinner of the Lord Mayor of Dublin—Ireland is always prosperous and prospering—the patient is always dying of good symptoms)—even he cannot maintain that the increase of prosperity has been very great. In fact, it has been very small. Half the population is gone, and my complaint is this—that this enormous taxation, which I have shown to be totally out of proportion to the taxation of England, falls on the poorer classes. It is the poor working people who are taxed, and that is the class you always find discontented, and always miserable, and who are driven to emigration, and sometimes to crime. Last year Ireland paid the largest Excise duty ever known in that country. She paid £6,500,000, while a few years ago it was only £4,500,000. It is said that this Excise duty is a voluntary tax. I hear some one cheer what I have said; but I hope the hon. Member will wait until I have established my argument, for I contend that there is no greater fallacy than such a contention. Whatever my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Sullivan) and others may say, alcohol, in some form or another, has formed a portion of the diet of man, if not from the creation of the world, at all events from the days of Noah, and it will very likely remain portion of the diet of man until there is no man left to feed. It is a monstrous thing to think that the particular beverage of the Irish people—the only beverage they make—should be taxed in this way; and I am perfectly astounded when I hear hon. and right hon. Gentlemen say, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) said the other night, that this tax on whiskey was imposed on moral grounds. There never was a statement more unblushingly or more scandalously unjust. The Excise duty on whiskey has been raised for no other purpose than to raise a greater revenue from Ireland. In 1853 the spirit duties were first increased. They were then raised from 2s. 8d. to 3s. 4d. per gallon. In 1854 they were raised to 4s., in 1855 to 6s. 2d., in 1858 to 8s., and in 1859 to 10s., and now they produce £4,500,000 a-year. If anyone tells me that this change was made on moral grounds, I should look on him as one of the most credulous individuals that could be found. When you talk of the Irish people drinking spirits, it must be remembered that they do not drink in anything like the way the Scotch drink, nor do they drink anything like what the English drink. The Irish people, if not amongst the most abstemious people in the world, are certainly the most abstemious people in the Three Kingdoms. Will you show me another part of the United Kingdom in which the people voluntarily close the public houses on Sunday? This is done in a considerable portion of Ireland, and these are the people you say are given over to this imaginary drunkenness, and by that drunkenness voluntarily increase the taxation. Look how you treat the Englishman who drinks his beer. Let us consider how that is taxed. The alcohol in beer is taxed at 1s. 9d. per gallon, but the alcohol in whiskey is taxed at the rate of 10s. per gallon. If you tax the Englishman's beer as you tax the Irishman's whiskey, you would raise £90,000,000 a-year. You could pay all taxes and have a good balance to devote to the National Debt, and at the same time you would ease your moral conscience, which is so much disturbed, because your neighbours take their alcohol in the form of spirits rather than as beer, which is not to be obtained in country districts. You have raised the duty on the poor Irishman's whiskey from 2s. 8d. to 10s. per gallon, and your reason for that is that you act on moral grounds. Well, the Irish people do not ask you to remove the duty on whiskey. They do not deal with this great subject in any such paltry way, but they do ask you to deal justly with all.

I have already pointed out that we contribute £8,500,000 to the public Exchequer, but there is no use in talking about the taxes of a country unless you know what the income is. What is the income of Ireland now? The most conclusive test that you can apply to that is the test of the Income Tax. There are, however, two tests which may be taken, but the most popular one is the Income Tax, and it has been quoted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for some years past. Now the Return of the Income Tax assessment for 1874 in Ireland was £28,500,000. We were called on to pay on that figure. In England the income was set down as £543,000,000. That was the relative wealth of the two countries ! The income of Ireland in the year I take was £28,500,000, and in England the income was over £500,000,000. But it is objected that the Income Tax in Ireland is not fairly assessed. It is said that the funded property in Ireland is not included in this Return, nor profits on office, and that the valuation of Ireland is a great deal too small, and therefore that our Return of the Income Tax is an unfair one. But suppose we make allowance for this on the most liberal scale. We are not particular to £2,000,000, and we will add £2,000,000 more to cover all that is likely to spring from a re-valuation. I think it is likely that if the Government Valuation Bill passes we should be taxed on £2,000,000 more; but allowing for all this, perhaps the highest estimate will be reached if' I allow the income to be brought up to £32,000,000 in Ireland as against £543,000,000 in England. How does the argument stand then? Why, Ireland pays £8,500,000 a-year out of £32,000,000, and England £78,000,000 out of £543,000,000—that is to say, England pays one-eighth of her income in Imperial taxes, while Ireland pays one-fourth. No one pretends that the income of Ireland is anything like one-eighth that of England, yet she pays at least one-eighth of the taxes. The wealth of Ireland is, indeed, more like one-seventeenth. But mark another fact. Such is the great wealth of England and Scotland that the assessment there has risen by £88,000,000 in five years—it has risen, in fact, to £543,000,000. That is a growth compared with which the growth of Ireland is infinitesimal. Ireland is the least progressive country in the whole of Europe, and yet Ireland contributes 5s. 3d. out of every pound liable to the Income Tax, while England pays only 2s. 7d.

But there is another test as to the welfare of the country, and that is the test which has been applied by Mr. Dudley Baxter, who was very popular with financiers at the other side of the House. In 1869 Mr. Dudley Baxter, in estimating the total income of Great Britain from all sources, including wages, and so on, assessed the Income Tax at only £400,000,000, whereas now we know it is £543,000,000. I must, therefore—calculating on the same basis, and allowing for this increase—take the income of Great Britain at no less than £1,000,000,000 a-year. I make a similar careful calculation for Ireland, and I find that the income of Ireland is in that way £54,000,000 a-year. Now, £54,000,000 a-year is a large and an over estimate for the annual wealth of Ireland, and I have shown what it is has to be contrasted with the £1,000,000,000 a-year of Great Britain. Again, Ireland pays for local taxation £3,500,000, and England pays £34,000,000. You will, therefore, find that the Irish pay £8,500,000 of Imperial and £3,500,000 of local taxation, making a total of £12,000,000 out of an income of £54,000,000. Ireland, therefore, pays £1 out of every £4 108. which she possesses—a sum equal to 4s. 5d. in the pound taxation for Imperial and local purposes. England, on the contrary, pays only £1 out of every £10. England pays at the rate of 2s. in the pound in the year for local taxation and Imperial, and Ireland pays 4s. 5d.; and I may thus say that I have proved my first proposition.

I have thrown what I wish to lay before the House into the form of three propositions, and these three propositions taken together contain an epitome of the financial case of Ireland. They are divided into three heads, and each one is like a proposition in Euclid, which must be proved; and those who answer, any one head must show that the proposition is incorrect. I have shown that the burden of Imperial taxation imposed upon Ireland is excessive. Will anybody say that it is not excessive taxation when more than a quarter of our income goes in taxes? I have also shown, in regard to her financial position, that she is not able to bear this taxation, and certainly it is out of proportion to her ability to pay as regards England. The taxation imposed on Ireland takes a larger proportion out of her income than taxation takes out of the pocket of England. I would rather, however, strengthen my case by quoting the opinions of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. I will take the Report drawn up by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer for the Irish Taxation Committee of 1862. He said— The pressure of taxation will be felt most by the weakest part of the community, and as the average wealth of the Irish taxpayer is less than the average wealth of the English taxpayer, the ability of Ireland to bear heavy taxation is evidently less than the ability of England. Mr. Senior, whose evidence on the position of Ireland will be found very suggestive, remarks that the taxation of England is both the heaviest and the lightest n Europe—the heaviest as regards the amount raised, the lightest as regards the ability to bear that amount; but that in the case of Ireland it is heavy both as regards the amount and as regards the ability of the contributor; and he adds that England is the most lightly and Ireland the most heavily taxed country in Europe, although both are nominally liable to equal taxation. And now I should like to answer one or two objections. It is said that Ireland has a certain number of exemptions from taxes, and it is perfectly true that Ireland has not assessed taxes and some others to pay. Let us look closely at what they are. The taxes from which Ireland is exempt is the land tax, the railway passenger duty, and, formerly, also the assessed taxes—some of which latter Ireland was supposed to be unable to pay. The practical result of those exemptions is very little—perhaps they would make an additional £326,000 a-year if estimated on the scale of their produce in England; but to say that this would have any effect on my argument is perfectly idle.

Again, it is said Ireland receives great contributions from the Exchequer. Now, what are the contributions that Ireland receives? Ireland, you may say, gets £2,000,000 a-year from the Exchequer; England gets £3,100,000. Well, of course that is a larger contribution than Ireland would naturally be entitled to. But what is one half of this money given for? Why, £1,000,000 goes to maintain the Irish Constabulary—that army of occupation which England deems it necessary to keep in Ireland. In Ireland we do not manage our own police; but England keeps the police—armed as they are with carbine, sword, and pistol—as an army of occupation, and the police perform the duties of an army of occupation. I say that this £1,000,000 a-year ought to be added to the Army Estimates. England, in point of fact, thinks she is obliged to pay this money to keep the Irish in subjection; and to talk of Ireland receiving this as a contribution from the Exchequer is like buying the taws out of the schoolboy's pocket-money. I make not the slightest reflection upon the Irish Constabulary; I only say they are armed as soldiers and drilled as soldiers, because England thinks that unless they were armed in this way she could not keep the Irish in subjection. Therefore, all that Ireland gets is £1,000,000. But there is another objection, and that is one taken by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Lowe). That right hon. Gentleman discovered that it is not a country that is taxed, but that it is the people who live in that country. He says—"It is all fudge. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer was quite mistaken when he drew up these Resolutions on General Dunne's Committee. An Irishman pays no more for his whiskey, tea, or sugar than an Englishman does or than a Scotchman does. He has nothing at all to complain of." Anybody can see what a piece of jugglery this is. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowe) seems to think that Ireland is like an English county—that Ireland is like Shropshire, and that Ireland ought to bear exactly the same burdens as England. But, Sir, that was not the arrangement of the Union, and until you repeal the Union and get rid of it, you must submit to the terms—I will not say contract, because a contract requires two parties. But you must accept the terms you imposed upon Ireland; and if the Irish people are foolish enough to give up the question of geographical taxation their case is gone. Ireland was to be taxed in proportion to her financial ability as compared with England. It is not a question of individual taxation. It is a question of the taxation of the nation. It is a fraud, Mr. Speaker, for any hon. or right hon. Gentleman so to represent it. Ireland is a separate country, and was to be taxed as a separate country. It is separated by a wide space of ocean, by national feeling, by religion, and by those institutions, and the absence of institutions, which pointedly mark the separation between two countries. But, above all, it is separated by Treaty. You cannot abrogate the rights of Ireland any more than you can abrogate the rights of Scotland. Let me see this House interfering, or attempting to interfere, with the established religion of Scotland, and see what you will hear of it; and unless you felt strong enough to brave Irish indignation, you would not attempt to abolish geographical taxation. Ireland is to be taxed as a country, and not as a collection of individuals; and to tax a poor country like Ireland as you would tax a rich country like England is manifestly unphilosophical, besides being a breach of your honour. But there is still another tax on Ireland to which I have not referred. There is the absentee tax. There is £3,500,000 taken out of Ireland by gentlemen who never go near it, and this sum brings Irish taxation up to £12,000,000 a-year. This is what is taken out of the soil—out of the annual produce of the soil and manufactures of Ireland. My second proposition, then, is this— That this inequality is a violation of the promises made at the Union, and occasions a loss of capital which, accompanied by the annual absentee drain, is the main cause of the small material progress of the country. I need not dwell further on that, for anyone can see that this drain must be a main cause of the small progress of the country. My third proposition is— That to tax a poor country on the same scale as a rich one is in itself unjust and opposed to sound economic principles; whilst the fact that the excessive taxation raised in Ireland is in great measure expended out of Ireland forms an aggravation of the injustice, and makes permanent improvement hopeless until the present mode of dealing with Irish Revenues is altered. That is my last point, and I shall be brief. No Chancellor of the Exchequer over touches that consideration. You take £8,500,000 out of Ireland, and that money, for the greater part, is spent in England. I quite agree that Ireland receives in protection from foreign enemies as great advantages as England herself. Ireland has the same interest as England in the maintenance of the monarchy and in foreign affairs, and to that extent we wish to unite ourselves with England, provided our rights are respected. But where are all your manufactories? Where are all the dockyards? Where is everything that requires the expenditure of public money? Why, in England. You treat Ireland as a man treats a field when he takes a crop of grass off it every year, and never brings any manure to put on the ground. The man expects the field to go on yielding him crops, but in time it becomes barren. One of the reasons for the present condition of Ireland is that she has not her fair share of national expenditure. You actually argue that you are not justified in making a dockyard in Ireland unless it is shown to have superior advantages over England—that you ought to place the dockyard wherever, in an economic point of view, you can get the best return consistent with the centralization in England. That is all very well for you; but it is not so for the people of Ireland. We claim no reduction of the duty on spirits; but we do claim that some portion of the enormous sums raised from Ireland is spent in a rational and statesmanlike mode for the development of the resources of the country. We may fitly look to the Conservative Party for something of that sort. They never feel bound by the cast-iron rules of political economy when the landed interest is concerned, which are so much in vogue with the Party lately in power. One of your statesmen, Lord George Bentinck, tried to carry a comprehensive plan of railways for Ireland; but, shameful to say, he was defeated by the Irish Members themselves. They were bought off or influenced by the Government of the day, but such things are not to be done now. If the Ballot has not given a representation quite so agreeable to the amenities of social life, at any rate it has given Ireland a more real representation. Bring forward some sensible proposition; enforce the provisions of the Health Act; carry out a system of communication between town and town; provide for higher education, and remedy the dearth of middle-class schools. In India you spend money on public works, and you may do it wisely or unwisely; still your sentiments are worthy and philanthropic. I appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take a wider view of this question. We do not, I repeat, ask you to reduce the duty on spirits. We do not want to become drunk, or to have adulterated whiskey. We ask the Chief Secretary to see, at all events, that it shall not be adulterated. Let them, as I have said, put in force the provisions of the Health Act, which they have never yet done. We want railway communications—we want harbours. We have not money to make them ourselves, and such is our poverty that I solemnly declare—and it is not only my belief, but that of many others—that two bad harvests do not stand between Ireland and starvation, so entirely dependent are we upon the bounty of Heaven. If the rains are excessive, or if the sun withhold for two years its heat, in spite of all your legislation, and in spite of all your speeches of your Viceroys at Lord Mayors' dinners, my belief is you would witness a great calamity, such as would rudely dispel your notions of Irish prosperity; and on this ground, as well as on their absolute justice, I commend these Resolutions to the House.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the burden of Imperial Taxation imposed on Ireland is excessive, and out of proportion to her financial ability to bear it as compared with England."—(Mr. Mitchell Henry.)

After a pause—

THE CHANCELLOR OF TIIE EXCHEQUER

said, he should have preferred that some Gentlemen from Ireland had followed the hon. Member for Galway. Having, however, listened to the hon. Member, and seen the ingenious way in which he had brought forward his Motion, he could well understand that other hon. Members might be content to leave the question in the position in which he had placed it. He confessed the hon. Gentleman had stated his case with considerable ingenuity, ability, and plausibility; but, at the same time, he could hardly connect the speech of the hon. Member with the Motion which had been submitted to the House, and he confessed that the hon. Member had failed altogether to make out the case which he desired that it should accept. The point he endeavoured to establish was this—not that the taxation of the two countries should be altered, but that a good deal more public money should be expended in Ireland than was spent at present, and that, irrespective of the works being such as it would be best for the interests of the country at large to undertake. That was a proposition which it was difficult for the Government to accept. They would all agree that a certain amount of taxation should be raised, and that that amount should be as small as possible. But then, he asked, was it not undesirable to expend any part of the money so raised upon anything that was not in itself the most desirable object of expenditure? If £100,000, say, were spent in Ireland to attain an object which could be better attained for £50,000 or £60,000 in another portion of the United Kingdom, it would, he thought, be rather difficult to satisfy the House that that was a proper course to adopt in the interests of the taxpayers generally. But then, said the hon. Gentleman in effect—"I am not considering the interests of the taxpayer generally, but only of a section of the taxpayers; and I ask you, because of the peculiar position of the Irish taxpayers, not to reduce their burdens, but to spend a little more of the general taxpayers' money in their country." Well, if they took an extreme case and, in order to attain some material result in which all were interested, they expended, say, 50 per cent more to have dockyards in Ireland, rather than elsewhere in the United Kingdom, they would render it necessary to raise 50 per cent more by taxation. But if they did, they would increase rather than diminish the taxation of the people generally, and therefore of the people of Ireland, who bore their proportion of the general expenditure. That was an argument against which he resolutely protested, and against which he hoped all future Chancellors of the Exchequer would resolutely protest. When they considered how the Imperial expenditure ought to be regulated, they should provide that it should be employed in the manner most generally advantageous to the Empire so as to get as nearly as possible the best shilling's worth for their shilling. The hon. Member said that the Irish taxpayers paid more on account of their whiskey than did the English taxpayers for their beer. Well, that argument contained a fallacy, and the hon. Gentleman did not press it. What he asked was that a little more of the money so raised should be spent on public works in Ireland. That was a question which the hon. Gentleman fairly admitted was not a new one. In one form or other it had been considered since the time of the Union, and for the last 15 years, at least, in the shape in which it had been now brought under the notice of Parliament. General Dunne, a valued friend of his (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), had obtained a Committee to consider the subject, the Report of which Committee it fell to his lot to draw up; and one question considered by that Committee was, whether the taxation raised as between England and Ireland might not be compared to the taxation raised as between one English county and another? But anyone looking at the question might well remember that they lived in a United Kingdom, having one common Debt and one naval and military Service. The question might be asked why this complaint of unfair taxation was so often raised on the part of Ireland. Ireland, it was true, did not contain so large a number of wealthy men as an equal portion of the North of England or Middlesex, but the same might be said of portions of Scotland, Wales, and England itself. Why, then, were they told that if equal taxes were laid upon both countries the incidence of taxation fell unfairly on that portion of the Kingdom? The House must remember the manner in which the union of the two countries was effected. Ireland 100 years ago had a very small Debt and raised a small revenue, and when the two countries were united, the proportion of Debt borne by each was very different. The question was most carefully discussed by General Dunne's Committee, and the conclusion to which that Committee came, and which was founded upon the evidence, had never been shaken. The whole matter rested on the 7th Article of the Treaty of Union, which provided that certain proportions should be maintained between the revenues of one country and the other. It was enacted that for the space of 20 years after the Union the contributions of Great Britain and Ireland towards the expenditure of the United Kingdom should be defrayed in the proportion of 15 parts by Great Britain and two parts by Ireland. After the experience of 20 years it was provided that these proportions should be revised according to certain rules laid down, unless Parliament declared that the expenditure of the two countries should be defrayed in two equal parts. This evidently contemplated that a system of indiscriminate duties might possibly be found equitable and desirable. A provision was also made that in the event of either country raising a loan, the portion of the loan raised for the particular country should be kept distinct and added to the Debt of that country. It was also declared to be in the power of Parliament to declare that the whole of the Debts of the two countries should be amalgamated. What happened? At the time the Union was made England was about to plunge into a very serious and expensive war. The Union was not brought about with that particular view, but the war broke out and it subjected this country to a large expenditure. Well, up to that time there had been two Exchequers. The Irish Exchequer had been replenished by the taxation of Ireland, and the English Exchequer had been replenished by the taxation of England, and a common fund was to be provided in fixed proportions by the two countries. The English portion was provided partly by loans and partly by heavy taxation, particularly by the Income Tax. In point of fact, the Irish Exchequer was not replenished in the same way, and the Irish proportion was raised by an addition to the separate Debt of Ireland.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

begged to assure the right hon. Gentleman that Irish taxation was increased just as much as English taxation.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, this matter had been gone into fully by General Dunne's Committee, and if the hon. Gentleman would take the trouble to refer to the Report of that Committee, he would observe what the expenditure was, and he would see that Ireland did not by any means raise the whole amount of her expenditure by taxation, but by a system of borrowing, and the consequence was that Ireland had to bear a charge for interest which, at compound interest, involved Ireland in a very heavy liability. The Debt of Ireland, which at first bore a small proportion to that of England, had, in this way, run up by the year 1816 or 1817 to the proportion of two to 12 instead of two to 15; and consequently the Parliament of that day found that Ireland was being crushed by the amount of her Debt. Now, he did not defend the arrangement which was made at the time of the Union. He owned that he thought it was not a fair one for Ireland; but it was one which would no doubt have ultimately crushed Ireland by reason of the largo amount of Debt imposed upon her. The Parliament, therefore, of 1816 and 1817, recognizing this fact, inquired into the subject, and they agreed to do that which had been contemplated at the time the monetary arrangements were made at the time of the Union, and amalgamate the Exchequers and Debt, and a certain portion of Ireland's Debt was there and then paid off. That was, in his opinion, a perfectly wise and equitable arrangement, and England did well to adopt it. 'What was the state of things from that time forward? There was no longer a sepa- rate system of taxation for the two countries. It became necessary that we should tax the whole country but the taxes were not equally laid; they were laid with great discrimination in favour of Ireland; many were imposed in England from which Ireland was exempt; though, from time to time, as the two countries became more equal, these discriminations had been done away with, and taxes peculiar to England had been either repealed or extended to Ireland, and the lower taxes imposed at first on Irish manufacturers had been equalized with those paid by English manufacturers. Still, there were some, and not inconsiderable, taxes which were borne by England and not by Ireland, and these included the house duty, the railway passenger duty, the land tax, and assessed taxes. As a matter of fact, this was one of the marked differences which had been made between the two countries, and that being so, he could not understand how it was that Gentlemen from Ireland could come forward and make the complaint which the hon. Member for Galway had made that evening. The hon. Member said that Imperial taxation in Ireland was excessive as compared with England. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) could never make out how that statement could be justified; for whether they looked at direct taxation, or at taxes on articles of consumption, the taxation, so far as he could see, was the same; and if Irishmen preferred to drink whiskey instead of beer or stout, he could not see that they were ill-used if they had to pay the same amount in taxation as Englishmen had to pay on spirits. Whiskey might be more suited to the climate than beer; but surely the hon. Member would scarcely contend that it was an absolute necessity of life. All he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) said was that if Irishmen chose to drink whiskey, they contributed to the Revenue according to their own taste and choice, though he did not see why they should not take their alcohol in the form of that porter which was a celebrated production of Ireland, or why they should call upon the Englishman as a beermaker to relieve them of taxation. If the taxation was uniform, there was no ground of complaint in the fact that a larger proportion came from the people of Ireland than from the people of England, even Through the people of Ireland might be poorer, just as the people of England, in some parts of England, were poorer than in others. Excluding such sources of revenue as the Post Office and the Telegraphs, he found that the people of Great Britain were taxed £2 a-head, and those of Ireland £1 8s.; and he, therefore, could not see the inequality complained of. The bargain made at the time of the Union had been modified for the benefit, not of England, but of Ireland, and he believed the proportion of 15 to two in the Revenue paid by Ireland as compared with that paid by Great Britain, was still maintained. The grants made out of the Imperial Exchequer for Irish local purposes were much larger than the grants for similar purposes to England and Scotland, setting aside that for the Irish Constabulary. The Income Tax, Customs, and Excise Returns, showed that Ireland had advanced in prosperity, perhaps more than England, during the last year or two. In short, Ireland was not being crushed in the way the hon. Gentleman wished to represent her, and she was not being overwhelmed by this great amount of taxation. It was quite true, as stated in the passage he introduced into the Report of General Dunne's Committee, that the same taxation would bear more hardly on a poorer country than on a richer one; but it was also laid down in that Report that the poor of any country suffered more than the rich; and that was a good reason for keeping down taxation and for having regard to the weakest link, in the chain, but it would be unfair and unjust, for the sake of benefiting Ireland, to increase the taxation of the United Kingdom. These arguments had been presented on former occasions and accepted by the House; but the hon. Member, like the man with an idée fixé, who would persist in believing that his friend wore a white hat in winter, still returned to the charge, and, in spite of all that was said to the contrary, would affirm that Ireland was overtaxed. They proved to the hon. Gentleman that Ireland was not overtaxed; that the arrangements at the Union, which, if maintained, would have crushed Ireland, had been changed for the benefit of Ireland; they proved to him that the taxation of the two countries had since been uniform, and they proved to him that if his remedy were adopted they would injure both the Irish taxpayer and the poorer British taxpayer also; but all this was in. vain, they knew very well that next year the hon. Gentleman would again come forward with precisely the same proposition.

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA

said, he would mention a few matters of fact about which there could be no question. Referring to alcoholic liquors, the tax on spirits consumed in England was lower than that on spirits consumed in Ireland. Between 1841 and the present time the tax on alcoholic drinks consumed in England had been largely reduced; while, during the same period, it had been immensely increased in Ireland, there being an increase in spirits alone of £2,500,000 a-year. The taxation per head of Great Britain was, no doubt, considerably greater than that of Ireland; but no argument could be drawn from that in favour of England, if he proved that the taxation per head on the people of Ireland had enormously increased during that period and had decreased in England within the same period. Taxation in Ireland, during the last 30 years, had been enormously increased per head, while in England it had been largely decreased. In 1841 the taxation per head in Ireland was 10s. 1d.; in 1871 it was £1 4s. 6d.; while in England in 1811 the taxation per head was £2 4s., and in 1871 it was only £2 1s. After the Famine in Ireland the taxation in that country was raised from £4,000,000 to £7,000,000, while the population had been reduced 2,500,000 within the last 30 years, which he attributed to the conduct of those who generally occupied the front Opposition bench in that House, but which, at that particular time, was empty. It was monstrous to suppose that separating at first the Exchequer of Ireland from that of England, and afterwards consolidating them, had done any good for Ireland. The Exchequer of Ireland was kept separate until Ireland was swamped by reaching a public Debt in the same proportion as a country that was better able to bear it; and when it was brought up to a figure that appeared to justify the act the two Exchequers were consolidated, and the same taxes were laid on both countries, though, he admitted, not altogether at once. The duty on claret had been reduced from 5s. to 1s. 2d. per gallon, while the duty on spirits had been increased from 2s. 10d. to 10s. 1d. per gallon. The fact was that Englishmen paid 4s. per gallon on port and sherry, whilst Irishmen had to pay 10s. per gallon on whiskey used for the purpose of making grog up to the same strength as the Englishmen's wine. It was said that the climatic condition of a country had a great deal to do with the kind of liquor consumed, and it did not suit the people of Ireland and Scotland to take their stimulants in the same form that suited the English, but he could not understand why the two counties should not be taxed in the same proportion. He thought the hon. Member for Galway, in saying that one of the remedies he would seek for would be a greater expenditure upon public works in Ireland, scarcely meant so much as had been attributed to him by the right hon. Baronet. He thought he merely meant that it would be the means of levelling up the disparity which he did not wish to level down by cheapening alcoholic liquors. For his own part, he thought that a remedy might be found in giving any surplus obtained by this unequal taxation in aid of local taxation in Ireland. The right hon. Baronet had referred to the fact that there were certain portions of the community in this country who suffered quite as much as Ireland from inability to pay taxes. He was asserting a proposition which nobody ever attempted to refute. To say that in some parts of England, and in some parts of the North of Scotland the people were as badly off as in Ireland, was no answer to the question. The poor they would always have with them. What they had to do was to raise the standard of the prosperity of the communities as a whole. Let the Chancellor of the Exchequer consider this fact as the net result of the taxation system. If they had added together all the valuations of property in England, as set forth in the various Schedules under the Income Tax Act and in other ways, and which perhaps amounted to between £400,000,000 and £500,000,000, it would be found that the Imperial taxation of Great Britain was 2s. 6¼d. in the pound. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had an honest and candid mind, but the bench upon which he sat was not favourable to that quality of mind in its highest degree; and it was his duty to answer their indictment both for the past and present state of things as best he could, but the right hon. Gentleman must see the the injustice of it when he knew that if all the valuations of property in Ireland were added together the Imperial taxation was no less than 5s. 3d. in the pound. He granted that Ireland was exempted from the railway passenger duty and from the assessed taxes; but if those imposts were added to the present burden of the Irish taxpayers they would only increase that burden to about 5s. 3½d. in the pound, instead of 5s. 3d., so that the advantage of those existing exemptions to Ireland was represented by a very small sum indeed. In conclusion, he did not rest the case on the history of the remote past, but on what had been done within the last 30 years, and the not result of that was that the taxation per head had been proportionately lessened in Great Britain and enormously increased in Ireland.

MR. BUTT

rose to say a few words before the discussion closed, but felt that he spoke under a disadvantage, seeing that the front Opposition bench was then empty. He regretted that circumstance the more because the usual occupants of that bench were in power when the taxation of Ireland was increased; and if the Leaders of the Liberal Party in that House wished to conciliate the people of that country they would hardly attain their end by being "conspicuous by their absence" from a debate at which it was their duty to be present. The first Resolution before the House affirmed— That the burden of Imperial Taxation imposed on Ireland is excessive, and out of proportion to her financial ability to bear it as coin-pared with England. That was a simple matter of fact, and quite independent of any deduction which might be sought to be drawn from it. Whether they ought to reduce the Irish spirit duties, or to expend more money for Imperial purposes in Ireland, or to give relief to local rates in that country, was a question which was not involved in that Resolution. It was idle to assert that they treated England and Ireland as one country in financial matters, because they assumed that had two distinct countries to deal with when they exempted Ireland from the assessed taxes. It was the greatest fallacy to say, as the right hon. Member for the University of London (Mr. Lowe) held, that as long as they had a system of individual taxation, no injustice was done to Ireland. But suppose they taxed everybody who went to mass, would not that be an injustice to Ireland, even although the Chancellor of the Exchequer might say that people went to mass of their own choice, and that the tax was levied in both countries? If they selected any tax which fell heavier on the people of Ireland than on the people of England they undoubtedly placed a greater burden on the one country than on the other. They were now levying from Ireland about £8,000,000 out of the £70,000,000, which was about the total sum raised in the shape of Imperial taxation. How could that be said to be the fair proportion which Ireland should pay relatively to her ability to contribute as compared with England? Take the case of the income tax, for example. According to the relative abilities of the two countries, we ought to levy between £4,500,000 and £5,000,000 in Ireland; whereas, in fact, we were levying no less than £8,000,000. Ireland paid 3s. 2d. out of every pound of her income, while Great Britain paid only 1s. 8d. These were facts, and they were not contradicted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. When the Exchequers were consolidated the very first step taken by the United Parliament was to relieve Ireland from a great portion of the burden of taxation by which she had been endeavouring to meet the two-seventeenths of the total Revenue. From 1817 to 1842 Ireland contributed less than. two-seventeenths. In 1853 the income tax was extended to Ireland. He had a strong impression than an income tax took far more from a poor country than it did from a rich country in proportion to its income. With regard to the duty on spirits, which had, he thought, been raised gradually from 2s. 6d. to 10s., it fell particularly heavily on the Irish people. If it was asked why they drank whiskey, he would reply that it was because they chose to do it, and because it was their habit. It was necessary to take the habits of a people into account in taxing them, and was wrong to force their habits by means of taxation. The facts by which the Resolution was supported were clear and undeniable, and although it might have been an intelligible course in opposing it to move the Previous Question, he altogether failed to perceive on what grounds an absolute negative to it could be given.

MR. ANDERSON

said, there was one argument underlying all the speeches of the hon. Gentlemen who had addressed the House—namely, that the duty paid on spirits in Ireland as against the duty payable on spirits in England was excessive. That was a perfectly sound argument. There was no doubt that the duty paid on alcohol in Ireland was a much larger tax per gallon than that paid per gallon on the alcohol consumed in England, and it was most inequitable that the English should have their alcohol at a lower tax, merely because they took it in the form of beer; and if the Mover of the Resolution had confined it to that point, and had asked simply for an equalization of the duty on spirits, he should have been ready to support him. He considered that a real and grave injustice. But on that point, which was a just though a narrow one, they were asked to assent to a much larger proposition, for which he could not vote. In 1872 a Return was laid before the House which showed that the state of things was in reality very different from that which the hon. Gentleman had represented it to be. In that year the revenue from England was £47,500,000, from Scotland £7,250,000, and from Ireland only £6,000,000; and at the same time the expenditure on the Civil Service Estimates and from the Consolidated Fund, as far as special to each country, was £3,700,000 in England, £598,000 in Scotland, and £2,400,000 in Ireland. He thought that showed that while the revenue from Ireland, particularly as compared with Scotland, was unduly small, the expenditure on Ireland as compared with Scotland was unduly large. Under these circumstances, he could not support the Resolution as it stood; but if it were confined to the equalization of the duty on spirits he would have supported it.

CAPTAIN NOLAN

would go further than the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken. He believed there were £4,000,000 spent in Ireland. This included £2,000,000 on the Civil Service, £1,000,000 on the Army, £500,000 on the Navy, including the coastguard. As the taxation of Ireland was over £8,000,000, this showed that there was an annual drain out of Ireland into England of between £3,500,000 and £4,000,000. This was their great grievance. The Civil Service Estimates were not too large in the gross, but they were badly distributed. Too little was spent on education, and too much on law establishments, the expenditure on which was in a great measure a bribe held out to certain classes. They spent very little money on the Army in Ireland, all the manufacturing establishments, both for the Army and Navy, being in England. If they were governed by purely economic principles, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer asserted, the establishment at Enfield would be removed to Sheffield, Woolwich to a coal district, and the dockyards of Portsmouth and Plymouth probably on the Clyde. There was no better place than Cork for a naval station on strategic grounds; but the object of the Government was to concentrate all their naval and military stations near London, and that inflicted a grave financial injustice on Ireland. It was not to get value for their money that these establishments were kept in England, but in order to concentrate them, partly for political reasons, and partly to conciliate electioneering interests which had grown up in certain places.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

, in reply, complained that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not met his Motion with the only arguments that could be properly adduced against it — namely, figures. As to Ireland being a poor country, as a matter of fact in 1853, the taxation of that country was raised, and raised in the most iniquitous way, by increasing the duty on spirits from 2s. 8d. per gallon to 10s., spirits being the only article on which they could pay increased taxation. This question was one full of complications, and a vast amount of labour was required to get behind it; but it would recur, and become better understood every year by the Irish people, and he believed they would soon learn the various forms the question assumed, and make it worth while for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to meet their complaints.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 34; Noes 152: Majority 118.—(Division List, No. 153.)

Back to