Lords Sitting of 22 March 1842

MINUTES.
BILLS. Public. —1a. Queen's Prison. Private. —1a. Vere's Divorce; Coward's Divorce; Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal; Windsor Bridge; Duke of Bedford's Estate.
2a. Imperial Assurance Company; Cottenham Inclosure.
3a. and passed: —Stalybridge Gas.

PETITIONS PRESENTED.
By the Earl of Bandon, from Passage, that the Cove of Cork may be appointed a Packet Station; and from several Parishes in the Diocese of Cork, and Ross, in favour of the Church Education Society in Ireland.—From St. Andrew's, and other places in Scotland, for the Repeal of the Corn and Provision Laws.—By the Bishop of London, from Wethersfield, against any further Grant to Maynooth College.—By Lords Prudhoe, and Stafford, from Newtown, Limarody, and other places, for an Alteration of the Law of Marriages (Ireland).—By Lord Brougham, from the Literary and Scientific Institution of Liverpool, against the Rates and Taxes to which such Institutions were subjected; and from Clergymen near Leeds, that no Clergyman may be Appointed for Wales who cannot Speak the Welsh Language.—By a noble Lord, from Parishes in Westminster, and Southwark, for a Repeal of the Tolls on Waterloo, and other Metropolitan Bridges.—From S. Bannister, praying for Inquiry into the Intercourse of British Colonists with the Coloured Natives.

MECHANICS' INSTITUTIONS. —INCOME TAX.
Lord Broughamhaving presented a petition from certain members of Mechanics' Institutions, praying that those institutions might be exempt from the window and other assessed taxes, said, he would take that opportunity of expressing a hope that some clause would be introduced into the proposed Income Tax Bill to exempt the funds belonging to these useful institutions from the tax. All charitable institutions, and a great number of the institutions of a collegiate character had been exempted from the former income tax. Mechanics' Institutions were not in existence at that time, the first having been established in England in 1823 or 1824. There were now upwards of four hundred Mechanics' Institutions in existence, and he hoped some measure would be adopted to exempt them from the income tax. He trusted that during the recess his noble Friend would give his attention to the income tax proposition, in order that it might press less inquisitorially on the higher class of merchants, whom in fact it would principally annoy. Some of those had been saved from 1,000 l. to 3,000 l. a-year by the reduction of the postage rates, and he was sure they would rather agree to pay what had been saved to them thus, than to have their private affairs exposed by the agents of the income tax. —Petition laid on the Table.
Adjourned.