Sitting of 27 May 1853

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1° Copies of Specifications Repeal; Battersea Park.
2° Registration of Assurances.

ELECTION COMMITTEES.
MR. SPEAKERhaving requested that Members of Election Committees who had not been sworn should come to the table for that purpose.
MR. TATTON EGERTONcalled the attention of the House to the fact that Mr. George Duncan, one of the Members of the Durham Committee, was also a Member of a Committee on a group of railways which was still sitting, and had attended its meetings so closely from the commencement that, were he withdrawn, it would be like taking away the right hand of the Chairman. He begged to move, therefore, that

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the Committee appointed to try and determine the petition against the return of the election for the City of Durham be discharged, and the said petition be referred again to the General Committee of Elections.
SIR JOHN TROLLOPEdid not intend to oppose the Motion, but he protested against its being made a precedent, because it was calculated to create delay and expense. The General Committee on Elections in every instance where previous intimation had been given that it would be inconvenient for Members to serve upon Election Committees, had attended to those representations. Scarcely a day had passed, indeed, in which he had not received a vast number of such applications, both verbal and written; and he thought that the Members who had made these applications would acknowledge that they had always met with courtesy and consideration at his hands. It would, he repeated, be attended with great public inconvenience if Members, after they had been chosen to serve upon Election Committees, were to be discharged from attending to that duty; but considering the peculiar urgency of the present case, it was not his intention to oppose the Motion which had been made.
SIR FRANCIS BARINGregretted that no communication had been made to the Chairman of the General Committee on Elections, with respect to the inability of the hon. Member for Dundee to serve upon the Durham Committee, for in that case the General Committee could have selected another Member, and so not have interfered with the transaction of other business. The question now before the House was one of considerable importance, and in a case of contending duties the House should decide at once which was the first and more important. If they would read the Act of Parliament, they would see that the first duty of the House was, by means of Special Committees, to ascertain who were really Members of the House, and that all other duties were subordinate to that one. On the whole, he thought the House should pause before it resolved to interfere with the selections made by the General Committee on Elections.
MR. EVELYN DENISONagreed with the last speaker in regard to the importance of Election Committees; but in the present instance he thought the House would exercise a wise discretion by assenting to the Motion of the hon. Member for Cheshire (Mr. T. Egerton).
MR. LABOUCHEREwas inclined to think that the House could not do better than listen to the advice of the hon. Baronet the Member for Portsmouth. It was unquestionably the first and most paramount duty of the House to attend to the business of Election Committees, and, considering the spirit of all their legislation and practice with respect to that subject, he thought they would do wrong in releasing any Member from the duty of serving upon an Election Committee, no matter how he might otherwise be engaged.
MR. BROTHERTONurged the importance of allowing Members serving upon private Committees to give their undivided attention to the business brought before them in those Committees.
MR. SOTHERONthought the House would establish a good precedent if it now declared its opinion that the fact of a Member serving upon a private Committee should be held as a sufficient reason why he should not be appointed to serve upon an Election Committee.
MR. DUNCANregretted that his name should be mixed up with a discussion in that House; but the present question arose from no wish of his to shirk his fair share of public duty. He was willing to serve cither upon an Election Committee or upon a private Committee, and he would cheer-fully abide by the decision of the House, only reminding them that he could not be in two places at once.
Ordered—That the attendance of George Duncan, Esq., on the said Committee, be dispensed with.

BURY ST. EDMUND'S ELECTION COMMITTEE.
MR. STRUTTsaid, that one of the Members appointed to serve upon this Committee, the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Martin), was in precisely the same position as the hon. Member for Dundee, being at present engaged upon a private Committee. He therefore moved—"That the attendance of Mr. Martin on the Bury St. Edmund's Election Committee be dispensed with."
MR. E. ELLICEseconded the Motion.
MR. THORNELYthought that as hon. Members were well aware that their names were placed upon panels to serve upon Election Committees, they ought, if they were engaged on railway or other private Committees, to apprise the General Committee of Elections of the fact, and they would then probably be exempted from

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serving on Election Committees. He must say, however, that he thought Election Committees had paramount claims to the service of Members beyond railway or any private Committees.
Ordered—That the attendance of John Martin, Esq., on the said Committee, be dispensed with.

RUSSIA AND THE PORTE.
MR. J. WILSONthen moved that the House at its rising adjourn till Monday next.
MR. DISRAELI: I am very unwilling, Sir, at any time to take advantage of this Motion for the purpose of entering into any general discussion; and nothing but a sense of public duty could induce me to touch upon the topic to which I am about to refer. And even with that sense of duty, I shall now endeavour to confine myself as much as possible to making an inquiry of Her Majesty's Government, making only one or two observations for the purpose of making that inquiry perfectly clear. The subject to which I wish to call the attention of the House and of Her Majesty's Government is, the state of our relations with the Ottoman Porte. The House will recollect that very early in the spring considerable alarm was created, not only in this country, but also in other States of Europe, by the arrival of an Extraordinary Ambassador from the Court of Russia at the Court of Constantinople; but that alarm was allayed by the confident declarations which were made by persons in authority, that this mission, though apparently commenced with circumstances of great pomp and urgency, really did not refer to any subject of general interest or importance, but merely to the relations which ought to subsist between the members of the Greek Church, who were subjects of the Ottoman Porte, and the members of other Christian Churches at the Holy Places in Jerusalem. With that general impression, which obtained currency, I think I may say that the public mind assumed an aspect of tranquillity. However, it so happened, Sir, that about six weeks or more ago, Colonel Rose, who in the absence of Lord Stratford, Her Majesty's Ambassador at the Porte, was really the British Minister at Constantinople, and of whom I am bound to say, as all who have been brought into connexion with him, will bear witness, that he is a man of very great ability, and of considerable knowledge with respect to the coun-
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try in which he has been placed in a very responsible position—Colonel Rose, I say, was announced to have suddenly communicated with our Admiral at Malta, and requested the instant presence of the British fleet; it being also announced that, in concert with Colonel Rose, the French Ambassador had communicated with the French Admiral at Toulon, and requested his immediate presence, with the fleet, at Constantinople. Well, of course, circumstances of this kind immediately revived that alarm which had been prevalent at the preceding period, and to which I have referred. These circumstances were of course duly considered by Her Majesty's Government; and it was generally understood that the Government had arrived at the opinion that there was no necessity for the appeal which was made by Colonel Rose to the British Admiral. The British Admiral, according to his instructions, could not depart from Malta without previous communication with the authorities at home, and he did not leave Malta. The French fleet left Toulon, and arrived in the vicinity of Constantinople. Well, Sir, the country, placing, I think, a wise confidence in those who hold the responsible office of Her Majesty's advisers on such subjects, from whatever party that Ministry might be formed, did not in any way press the Government for disclosures, and seemed inclined to believe that the view taken by Colonel Rose had been of a precipitate character. Shortly afterwards, Lord Stratford, Her Majesty's Ambassador, arrived at Constantinople; and although at the same time the Russian Ambassador Extraordinary did not quit the Turkish capital, still the question of the Holy Places was said to be a matter of negotiation; and there were still circumstances which caused disquietude among those who gave attention to these questions, and were familiar with some of the details of these transactions. Very recently, however, it appears that the question at Constantinople, which absorbed the interest of the representatives of the great Powers, and occupied the attention of the Porte, has assumed an altogether different character; and instead of its being a limited and local question, connected with the Holy Places of Jerusalem, and the relations which the subjects of the Porte who profess the Greek religion necessarily bear to those places, it was announced, without circumlocution, that the Ambassador Extrordinary of Russia had called upon the

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Porte to enter into a convention which—not to weary the attention of the House with details—may be briefly described as a convention which, if agreed to and carried into execution, would transfer the allegiance of a vast majority of the subjects of the Porte in European Turkey from the Sultan to the Emperor of Russia. When this became known, there was, no doubt, considerable alarm, which has not been in any way allayed by the announcement which has been made—I know not with what authority, but which has been made and credited—that Her Majesty's Government did feel that Colonel Rose, when he applied at a previous period for the presence of the British fleet, was justified in the policy he recommended, and the course which he proposed, and that we have sent ships to Constantinople. Now, Sir, I have mentioned these circumstances that I may put before the House as clearly as I can, without presuming to give an opinion on the subject, what has transpired; and having made that statement, which I have endeavoured to make as briefly as possible, offering no opinion whatever on these transactions, I wish to ask these two questions of Her Majesty's Government:—I wish to know whether the English and French Ambassadors at Constantinople are at this moment acting in concert together; and if that be the case, then I should wish to know further whether there is any difficulty, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, in communicating to the House the general scope and tendency of the instructions which they are now fulfilling in concert? These are the two questions which I feel it my duty to put to the Government, and to which I ask a reply from the noble Lord.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: In reply to the questions of the right hon. Gentleman I will communicate to the House as much as it is possible to communicate at present on this subject without injury to the public service. The right hon. Gentleman has made a statement with regard to certain facts which requires some, though not material, correction, on my part. The English Government were informed by the Government of Russia that the Emperor had thought necessary to despatch a special mission, under charge of an Ambassador, to Constantinople, in order to obtain a confirmation of those concessions which had been made at former times to the members of the Greek Church at the Holy Places of Jerusalem. We were informed at the
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same time the Ambassador of Russia—as there was occasion to complain that former concessions had been either withdrawn or materially modified by certain orders given by the Sultan in February of last year—was instructed to say that it would be necessary to have some security that the concessions which were again to be confirmed should not be again withdrawn or modified; but what the nature of that security was to be, the Russian Government, as is usual in diplomatic transactions, did not state specifically to any other Government. The Russian Ambassador arrived at Constantinople; and certain circumstances which then occurred, induced the Grand Vizier to feel very considerable apprehensions as to what was about to take place, and he applied to Colonel Rose to ask for the presence of the English fleet near the Dardanelles. Colonel Rose did not communicate the message to Malta by telegraph, but he sent a steamer to Malta with despatches, and with a request to the Admiral at that place that he would proceed, as the Grand Vizier had desired, to the neighbourhood of Constantinople. Admiral Dundas forwarded those despatches to London, and stated that he should wait for orders from the Government before he left Malta. Her Majesty's Government entirely approved of the discretion which Admiral Dundas had exercised, and Colonel Rose was himself informed by the Grand Vizier, I think it not more than two or three days afterwards, that there was no necessity for the English fleet leaving Malta; and accordingly he again despatched a special messenger by steamboat to Malta with a request to Admiral Dundas that he would not change any movements he was instructed to make, and that he would not prosecute his voyage to the neighbourhood of Constantinople. I believe both that Admiral Dundas exercised a wise discretion, and that Colonel Rose was perfectly justified in that second order which he sent—namely, that the English fleet should not be despatched from Malta. The negotiation proceeded; and it appeared that after the arrival of Lord Stratford at Constantinople, his Lordship—as the House will well believe from his ability, from his long experience in Turkish affairs, and from the weight which his opinions and advice have with those who hold responsible positions at the Porte—Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was able to materially assist these negotiations, and enabled Prince Menschikoff to obtain those declarations and acts which

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were to be considered sufficient, and to which the French Ambassador on his part interposed no material difficulty. It was to be hoped, then, and it was hoped both in London and in the other Courts of Europe, that this affair would occasion no difference between the Courts of Europe, and that this matter of the Holy Places, which had been a source of considerable disquietude, had been settled, and having been settled, the mission of Prince Menschikoff would terminate there. But it appeared that further proposals which Prince Menschikoff made—it is to be presumed in accordance with his instructions, and which in the opinion of the Russian Government were no more than were necessary in order to secure the fulfilment of those declarations which the Porte had made in regard to the Holy Places—were, in the opinion of the Turkish Government, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople, and in the opinion of the Ambassador of the Emperor of the French, of a nature which could not but be considered to be dangerous to the independence of the Ottoman Porte, and as infringing in some degree those stipulations which all the great Powers of Europe agreed to twenty years ago. With respect to the present slate of affairs, no official information has been received more recent than the 9th instant, which is the date of the last despatch received from Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. However, in answer to the question of the right hon. Gentleman, I can slate that there has been the most perfect concert and accordance of views between Her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople and the Ambassador of the Emperor of the French; and that both have taken the same view of the terms of the Convention which were proposed by the Ambassador of the Emperor of Russia. I should say, further, that in the present state of the negotiations it would not be consistent with due discretion or the good of the public service that Her Majesty's Government should produce the instructions under which Lord Stratford has been acting. I will only say that they may be generally described as instructions leaving much to his discretion, but at the same time, pressing upon him, that it is the fixed policy of Her Majesty's Government to abide by and maintain inviolate the faith of treaties, and to support the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire, and the rights of the Sultan as an independent Sovereign, I may, per-
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haps, be permitted to say, that although we have received no official intimation, there is reason to believe that no rupture of the relations between Russia and Turkey has at the present moment taken place; and I trust that the Russian Government will finally ask no other securities from Turkey than are compatible with the full and independent authority of the Sultan as the Sovereign of Turkey, and with the maintenance of the peace of Europe.

REGISTRATION OF ASSURANCES BILL.—QUESTION.
MR. BRIGHTsaid, he wished to ask the noble Lord at the head of the Government a question with regard to the Registration of Assurances Bill. He had received on Thursday night, and again that evening, a message by telegraph from persons at Manchester who were concerned in the land and building societies there. Whole streets, in fact some of the suburbs of Manchester, had been built by building societies, and the anxiety there with regard to this Bill appeared to be extreme. He understood that not less than 6,000 or 7,000 of the electors of Manchester were concerned in those societies, and what they desired was this—to be informed whether the Bill was to be read a second time pro formâ, and referred to a Select Committee; and, if so, whether they would be permitted to give evidence with regard to its operation upon those particular societies and other societies that were concerned in small transactions in land and building?
LORD JOHN RUSSELLsaid, the Bill referred to had been introduced in the House of Lords, and was founded on the reports of several Commissions that had been appointed to inquire into this subject. Those inquiries had been made by persons most competent to deal with the matter. What he now proposed was, that the Bill should be read a second time that evening, and then referred to a Select Committee, who would go through every clause, as the hon. Gentleman was aware; and it would be necessary that the Bill should come back to the House, and be submitted to the consideration of a Committee of the whole House. He (Lord J. Russell) thought it would be very inconvenient, after so much evidence had been already taken on the subject, to take any further evidence before the Select Committee. If the hon. Gentleman would suggest to those who had communicated with him on this subject the

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desirableness of presenting their views to the House in the shape of a petition, he (Lord J. Russell) would have no objection to such petition being referred to the consideration of the Select Committee.
MR. BRIGHTbelieved that a deputation from the Manchester building societies was already on its way to London, and he thought they ought to be permitted to be examined before the Select Committee.
SIR FITZROY KELLYasked whether the noble Lord intended to move the Select Committee before the discussion took place on the Income Tax Bill? Was there to be any discussion on that Motion, or was the matter to be proceeded with simply pro formâ?
MR. HADFIELDsaid, he had presented five petitions from parties whose interests in land and building societies amounted to 850,000 l; and these parties thought it was of great importance that their evidence should be received by the Committee.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: What I propose is not to enter upon any discussion on the Bill, but simply to move the second reading of the Bill, in order that it may be referred to a Select Committee. The whole question will, of course, in that case, be considered by the Committee.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS.
MR. HUMEsaid, the House would recollect that, some time ago, a very important subject—namely, that of reforming the ecclesiastical courts—was brought before the House. They were then promised by the Government that a Bill would be brought in upon the subject. He therefore wished to ask the noble Lord at the head of the Government what prospect there was of such a Bill being brought forward?
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: I have already stated to the House on a former occasion that a Commission had been appointed by the late Government on the subject; that they had made up their minds with regard to the general outline of the measure to be proposed, but not as to its details, which would require very great consideration. I then said that it would take not less than three or four months to go through all the details of the measure. Under these circumstances it had been determined not to bring in a Bill on the subject at present.
Motion for the adjournment to Monday next was then agreed to.

INCOME TAX BILL.
Order for Committee read.
House in Committee.
Clause 3.
MR. NEWDEGATEasked whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer would object to allow occupiers of land to have their land valued by competent persons appointed by the commissioners in case they thought themselves overcharged. At present it was left to the discretion of the commissioners.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERhad never had this point stated to him by any one, and he was not aware that the occupiers of land felt themselves aggrieved in this respect. He would rather not give a positive answer without inquiry, but he would consider the matter, and give the hon. Gentleman an answer. The commissioners alluded to were not officers of the Government, but local commissioners.
Clause agreed to; as was also Clause 4.
Clause 5 (Duties to be assessed and raised under the provisions of Acts recited 5 & 6 Vict., c. 35).
MR. BRIGHTsaid, this clause was of a nature which, he thought, the House would be generally of opinion was objectionable. It professed to tell the House and the public many things which were not contained in it, and which would require that any man who had a chance of discovering what it meant should be not only very laborious, but also have a good deal of practice in construing Acts of Parliament. The clause stated—
"The said duties hereby granted shall be assessed, raised, levied, and collected under the regulations and provisions of the Act passed in the Session of Parliament held in the 5th and 6th years of Her Majesty, c. 35, and of the several Acts therein mentioned or referred to, and also of any Act or Acts subsequently passed explaining, altering, amending, or continuing the said first-mentioned Act; and for this purpose all the said several Acts shall be revived, and shall be deemed to have been and to be continued in force from the day of, 1853."
Now, all the Acts which were thus referred to were absolutely not in existence as law at this period, because they had run their terms, and were positively dead. Not less than eight Acts were referred to in this clause, beginning with the 5 & 6 Vict., c. 35; and then several others followed, which were amending Acts and continuing Acts for three years and one year. He believed it altogether impossible for more than one in ten, perhaps for

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more than one in fifty, of all the income-tax payers in the country to ascertain what was really the law under which they were called upon to pay the income tax. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had, no doubt, shown a great deal of acuteness, but he had not evinced his accustomed habits of business and administrative ability in proposing such a clause as this. He (Mr. Bright) was of opinion that every new Act of Parliament should be substantially a complete measure in itself, so that any person wishing to know what the law was he had to obey, might be able to do so by referring to that one Act only. The Chairman of Committees in the other House had laid down such a rule with regard to private Bills; and last year, in the case of the Rochdale Improvement Bills which had passed this House, when it got to the other, the Chairman insisted that the Bill should be withdrawn, because it stated repealed Acts, and re-enacted parts of other Acts, and gave as a reason, that the people of the town which was to be taxed ought to know what the law under which they were taxed was, and he insisted that the Bill should be made complete in itself. His (Mr. Bright's) right hon. Colleague and himself had insisted last year on this point with regard to the Militia Bill; and as they were now passing a Bill imposing a tax for seven years (if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said for seventeen or seventy years, he would have been quite safe), they had a right to have the Bill complete. Appeals and other questions might arise, which gave on every page of the income tax a right to have a law with a distinct meaning, and a very little labour would effect that. He had another objection to the Bill—namely, that this clause re-enacted the machinery of the tax. He objected strongly to the machinery so far as the local commissioners were concerned; and he had stated on a former occasion a plan which would, he knew, be satisfactory to the commercial classes in the north. The local commissioners were chosen from the land-tax commissioners, who were appointed in some hocus-pocus manner at the end of every Session by certain Members, to whom some names of persons were sent. In his district that mode of appointment caused great dissatisfaction, and there were some suspicions entertained as to the impartiality of the commissioners. He had proposed that the local commissioners should be appointed by the payers of income tax; and that the surveyor of a dis-
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trict should send a list to all the persons who paid income tax in the previous year, with a request that each person should place his initials opposite any number of names of persons whom he wished to be appointed commissioners; and that list having been sent back to the surveyor, he should count the votes and publish in the Gazette, or the local papers, the commissioners so chosen for the ensuing year or two years. He (Mr. Bright) was in favour of the income tax, and disagreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to its being abolished in 1860. He should prefer its remaining so long as there was a single indirect tax; and what he proposed was proposed in good faith towards the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government, and he proposed it because he knew what was the feeling now in his own neighbourhood; while if the local commissioners were appointed in the manner he suggested, there would be a feeling in favour of the justice and impartiality of the commissioners, which was impossible under the present system. He believed also that the right hon. Gentleman would find that under commissioners so selected the management would be better, and the revenue greater. If there was any objection to his plan, he should be glad to hear it from the Chan cellor of the Exchequer. He did not wish to move that the Chairman report progress, for it was his desire that this measure should pass speedily; but still he thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to give an assurance that if the Bill was allowed to pass in its present shape, he would undertake to give them a consolidated Bill at an early period, and also that he would fairly consider the subject of the appointment of the local commissioners. By this Bill there was practically no appeal to special commissioners if a return was sent in to the local commissioners; and there ought not to be any restriction on appeals to the special commissioners. He should not make any Motion, but he felt it to be his duty to appeal strongly and earnestly, but in no feeling of hostility, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to explain the views he held, and to give a pledge that he would effect a consolidation of the measure, and consider the question of a better mode of appointments of the local commissioners. He (Mr. Bright) had brought the subject forward, because he was anxious to make this measure as little irritating to the public, and as advantageous to the revenue as possible.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that he did not for a moment question the motives with which the hon. Gentleman had made his statement to the Committee; and was satisfied that when he had heard the explanations which he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was about to offer, that he would see that his criticisms upon this Bill were not well founded, although the objects which he had in view might be perfectly rational, and, he fully granted, quite open to consideration. In the first place, the hon. Gentleman was entirely in error if he supposed that because this was a supplemental and amendment Bill, therefore he was precluded from introducing improvements into its provisions. The Bill certainly revived several old Acts, but it revived them subject to any provisions or alterations which the Committee might choose to introduce into the present measure; and so far from precluding the making of amendments, the bulk of the Bill which he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had introduced consisted of amendments of the existing law; and it was perfectly competent for any person to propose still further amendments. With regard to the proposal for a consolidated Bill, such a Bill must be considered in two ways: first, with respect to the convenience of hon. Members, as well as of persons out of doors, so as to present a clear intelligence as to what was to be done; and, next, with reference to whet was still more important, namely, the functions which this Bill had to perform as a Ways and Means Act for the services of the year, and the limitation of time, which on account of those functions must necessarily be confined. On the first ground, he thought it more for the convenience of the House that they should see the new enactments standing by themselves. If he had introduced a consolidation Bill, with about 250 old and 50 new clauses, how many hon. Members would have been able to make themselves masters of such a document? And would be not have been told that by bringing the whole of the law before the House, instead of the parts upon which he proposed new enactments, the new and old had been inextricably mixed and confounded together? But then as to the other consideration. It would have been impossible to introduce such a Bill, looking to it as a means of levying revenue to be brought into the Exchequer by a certain period, so as to have it passed in time. The present Go-
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vernment, when they came into office in January last, had to investigate the very foundation of the tax, and to examine at large into all the considerations connected with its structure. It was impossible for them to come to a conclusion on all these questions without taking time; and they could not in justice to the House, after they had arrived at their conclusion, have delayed the announcement of it for a period of two or three months, until a consolidation Bill had been drawn. He did not think the hon. Gentleman himself would have approved of the course of the Government if, after coming to a conclusion as to the substance of the measure they meant to propose, they had sent to the Solicitor of the Board of Inland Revenue instructions to go to work and draw a consolidating Bill. Why, such a Bill could hardly have been ready in the course of the month of June. [Mr. BRIGHT was understood to say that all that might have been done before.] Did the hon. Gentleman mean to say that they might have drawn the Bill before they knew what they were going to propose? It would have been most unwise, impracticable, and absurd for the Government, having determined on the substance of a measure upon which the whole finance of the year depended, to have taken three months in preparing its form. The hon. Gentleman also said that the machinery for levying the tax ought to be changed—and certainly the demand which he made for improvements in this respect was to a considerable degree reasonable. A great part of the discontent with the present machinery, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) believed, arose from its not, being so extensively known as it ought to be that parties liable to be assessed had the power of referring their cases to the special commissioners, instead of going before the local commissioners. But, irrespective of that, it was quite open to any one to urge that great improvement might be made in the machinery as far as concerned the local commissioners. The hon. Gentleman asked why not choose the local commissioners from lists of all those who had paid the tax in the previous year, and by allowing all those assessed for the coming year to vote? He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had not come to any conclusion on the subject; but he would just point out certain difficulties that did not appear to have occurred to the hon. Gentleman in his statement of the case. It was perfectly possible to tell who paid income tax under Schedule D in the

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previous year, but no one could know who had paid under Schedules A or C; and would the hon. Gentleman have one set of commissioners with their officers attached to deal with Schedule D, and other sets to deal with the other schedules; thus doubling, or in fact trebling, the organisation, and causing great increase of expense? Again, in other respects how would the hon. Gentleman's plan operate? Those who had met with severe losses last year, and had not paid the tax at all, would be known to the world as not having been in the receipt of 150 l. that year. That he did not think would be very acceptable in such cases. Again, there was another large class of persons who claimed exemption as receiving under 150 l. a year; and he was not quite sure that lists being publicly circulated, the non-appearance upon which of any person's name would be a proof to his neighbours and rivals that his income did not reach 150 l., would be very agreeable to that class. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would say they had no right to object to publicity. That was an abstract proposition, which might or might not be maintained; but during the many years that this tax had existed, it had proceeded on the principle of secrecy, and of not disclosing private affairs beyond what was strictly demanded by public necessity. The plan of the hon. Gentleman, however, looking at what appeared upon the surface of it, was objectionable, because it would expose the circumstances of parties to their neighbours, which might not at all be agreeable. Again, there was an objection to the introduction of a new machinery much the same as the objection to a consolidating Act, namely, that whereas by the existing system they could go to work and proceed to make the assessment at once, if they dispensed with the present organisation a considerable interval must elapse before the new boards could be put into operation, and there would be a corresponding delay in levying the tax. Again, he had already made his financial calculations as to the amount which the income tax would yield to the public Exchequer by the beginning of April next, and he had gone upon the assumption that the House would agree to an Act upon which they could proceed to work at once; but if the Committee insisted upon the machinery being changed before the Bill was passed, he would not be able to balance the revenue and the expenditure of the country and they would have entered into the
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month of July before anything could be done. He admitted that the existing machinery did require considerable attention, and he had in this Bill proposed certain improvements, which could be effected without delay. One improvement that he proposed had reference to the filling up of vacancies which occurred in the number of Commissioners who were originally appointed in the year 1842. At the same time, he believed, there was elected a long list of persons to fill up from time to time the successive vacancies as they occurred in the list. It appeared to him, that there was no reason at all for retaining those lists for filling up vacancies, which of course merely showed the opinion of the board at the time, and that a better way would be for the Land-tax Commissioners to provide the lists. He wished to call the attention of the hon. Member for Manchester to another difficulty in the case: the whole question of the local machinery of the income tax must be considered in reference to the local machinery for the collection of the other taxes. It was very questionable whether the machinery under which commissioners were now appointed by the name of Land-tax Commissioners, for discharging a great number of important functions, should not be submitted to modifications, as well as the more limited machinery applied for collecting the income tax, which also depended on that of the land tax. This was a very grave and complicated question, which could not be settled without considerable delay; he quite agreed with the hon. Member that it required serious consideration, and whenever he should be in a position to give it that consideration, he should be happy to find himself able to propose a plan adequate for its purpose, and such, also, as would give satisfaction to the House. He did not like to be required to give any pledge on the subject of the consolidation of the various statutes bearing on the subject of the income tax. He was afraid the demand made was one which he should not be able to satisfy, for the hon. Gentleman said that laws of this kind ought to be made intelligible to all persons who had not received a legal education. To bring the construction of these laws within the reach of such persons, was no doubt extremely desirable, but very far from being easy. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would say that they were mere taxing Acts, and easy of comprehension. Customs Acts, indeed, were as intelligible to a layman as

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to a lawyer; but he was afraid the subject of the income tax was not so easily dealt with. The nature of property in this country, and its very complicated forms, rendered it almost impossible to deal with it for the purpose of the income tax in a very simple manner; but he concurred with the hon. Gentleman in thinking that whatever could be done should be done; and also that when the House had determined what change it would make in the law, they should then proceed as soon as possible to get a consolidated law, not to be passed in a hurry, but to be deliberately considered, so that everything might be brought into the clearest and most connected form.
MR. BRIGHTdenied that he had passed any censure upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer for not altering the machinery of the income tax, because that subject bad probably not been brought before the notice of the right hon. Gentleman. He still, however, must consider him faulty in not having endeavoured to consolidate these Acts, because he maintained there were many persons who, within twenty-four or forty-eight hours, would have produced a complete Bill upon the subject. With regard to the secrecy necessary, it was well known that at present there was little or no practical secrecy, the returns made by persons under the income tax constantly turning up in the most unexpected places; and he had not asked that very man's assessment should be printed, but that there should be such lists as would suffice for guidance as to voting purposes. The right hon. Gentleman was bound to attempt something in the way of consolidation and of the amendment of the machinery by next Session. The opinions of the Judges had been given that this was not framed as an Act of Parliament should be; and it was unquestionably unconstitutional to tax men by Acts which they could not comprehend. As to the alteration of the machinery, he did not say the matter would not require consideration to put it in its best possible form, but he certainly hoped the right hon. Gentleman would do something with regard both to the machinery of the Act and to consolidation in the course of the next Session.
MR. G. A. HAMILTONfelt bound to confirm in the strongest manner, as regarded Ireland, the objections which the hon. Member for Manchester had brought, as regarded England, to the manner in
724
which the Act was framed. Since the Bill had been laid on the table, he had devoted much time in endeavouring to ascertain its bearings on Ireland, and he had come to the conclusion that it would be found in practice that an amount of confusion, litigation, and difficulty would be created in reference to the application of this Act to Ireland which Her Majesty's Government did not at present contemplate. By the Income Tax Act the owner of land in England was given the power of deducting income tax for interest paid to mortgagees; and he wished to know whether it was contemplated by the Bill that the same power should be given to the landowner in Ireland of deducting the tax from those who held the ordinary securities of bonds and judgments? This was one source of embarrassment that struck him, and many others were likely to occur.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, no doubt it was intended that the same power should be given to landlords in Ireland of deducting the tax on the interest of mortgages and bonds, as existed in England. In regard to the objections brought against the construction of the Act, the hon. Member did not say what other course could be pursued. Did he think that the matter would have been simplified and consolidated if they had attempted to construct a totally new system of income tax for Ireland? The opinion of those whom they had consulted was in favour of an opposite course, and they were recommended to take such provisions of the existing law as might be applicable to the circumstances of Ireland, and to apply any other special provisions which might be necessary.
MR. J. PHILLIMOREcould not help bearing his testimony to the loose and slovenly way in which this clause had been drawn. It was certainly quite contrary to the spirit and letter of the constitution that the people should be called upon to pay taxes under such an authority as this. The tax was to be assessed and collected under the provisions of the 5 & 6 Vict., c. 35, and of the several Acts therein referred to, "and also of any Act or Acts subsequently passed explaining, altering, amending, or continuing" that Act, for which purpose all these Acts were to be revived; and then followed this extraordinary provision:—
"And all powers, authorities, rules, regulations, directions, penalties, clauses, matters, and things

725
contained in or enacted by the said several Acts before recited or referred to, or any of them, shall, notwithstanding that the same may have expired, severally and respectively be and become in full force and effect with respect to the duties hereby granted, and shall in all cases not expressly provided for by this Act, and so far as the same are not superseded by and are consistent with the express provisions of this Act, severally and respectively be duly observed, applied, practised, and put in execution throughout the respective parts of the United Kingdom."
What evil could be worse than that a man who wanted to know what his rights were was to be referred to such a clause as this? The answer which the right hon. Gentleman had given to the hon. Member for Manchester, did not appear to him perfectly satisfactory, because he believed it was perfectly possible for any three lawyers, with far less administrative ability than was possessed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in conjunction with the Attorney and Solicitor General, within forty-eight hours to have made this Act quite intelligible, and to have put it before the House in a less disgraceful shape than that in which it now appeared. If this Act had been prepared by a Hindoo, he believed it would have been urged as a proof of the incapacity of the Hindoo mind. If it was important that any Act should be intelligible, it was so in the case of one affecting the interests of five or six millions of British subjects. It was perfectly possible to have embodied in this clause the sense of the Acts referred to; therefore the House had great reason to complain of being called upon to pass an Act drawn in so slovenly and disgraceful a manner.
SIR FITZROY KELLYsaid, that as regarded that portion of the Act which applied to England, he would be rather disposed to trust to the alterations which might probably be effected by the Chancellor of the Exchequer hereafter, than to have the measure delayed, as the right hon. Gentleman said would have been necessary if he had sought to introduce a consolidated Bill; but, with regard to Ireland, the case was altogether different. He would submit to the right hon. Gentleman whether he could not even now introduce into this Bill a few clauses which would be quite sufficient to place the case of Ireland upon a separate and distinct footing with regard to the operation and practical working of this tax. The right hon. Gentleman had not, he thought, an-
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swered the question put by the hon. Member near him (Mr. Hamilton). Securities on land in Ireland were on an entirely different footing from similar securities in England; and the hon. Member had asked whether, by the provisions of this Bill, or any other measure, the Government proposed to enable the owners of land in Ireland to deduct the interest paid, not upon mortgages, but upon other encumbrances on land which were of a nature unknown in England. One evil arising from the course of legislation of which the hon. Member opposite had complained was, that by this 5th clause the Act of the 5 & 6 Vict., and all the other Acts referred to or incorporated in that Bill, were also incorporated and made part of the present measure, and that not only as far as related to England, but to Ireland. Now, among the 190 odd clauses contained in the 5 & 6 Vict., was a clause referring to four or five earlier Acts of Parliament relating to assessed taxes or land tax, and applying the machinery and regulations contained therein to the present renewal of the income tax. Of course, there was no difficulty in applying this to England; but, what was to be done in the case of Ireland, where there were no assessed taxes and no land tax? Before it was too late, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would confer with the legal Members of the Government, and see whether it would not be preferable to insert a series of clauses in the Bill applying distinctly to Ireland, and showing by what machinery the income tax was to be raised there. Unless this course was adopted, he believed a degree of confusion, difficulty, and uncertainty would be created which the Government at this moment could scarcely anticipate.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the hon. and learned Gentleman would find, by the wording of the Bill, that the Acts to which he referred were not revived at all with reference to Ireland; but, even supposing they were, nothing could be more barren of effect, inasmuch as no assessed taxes or land tax existed in that country. If they were revived, which he denied was the case, they would, therefore, merely be revived in an abstract manner, and no difficulty whatever could arise. With reference to the question which had been put by the hon. Member for Dublin University (Mr. Hamilton), and repeated by the hon. and learned Gen-

727
tleman, that subject had been considered, and it was now provided for in the Bill as it at present stood.
SIR DENHAM NORREYSobjected to this Bill being made to depend upon other Bills. If it were necessary to introduce the income tax into Ireland, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have taken the trouble to form a measure which should be in itself an entire one, and not dependent upon other Acts. English gentlemen now were accustomed to pay the income tax, and did not care much about it; but Irish gentlemen were different, and he doubted if it would be expedient to press the income tax upon that country. The tax would fall with great severity upon the tenantry, who were too poor to pay it, so that they would actually have to advance the amount from their capital, and in some cases a tenant would be compelled to pay the entire income tax due upon 100 l. upon a very much less sum.
COLONEL DUNNEconsidered that the complaint urged against the Bill—namely, that it was unintelligible, was a very reasonable one. There was one clause in it which no one could possibly understand; and the reason which had been given for not explaining the obscurity in which it was involved was, that the difficulties were so great that very few were capable of understanding them. Would he be told that the Government were unable to set forward in a clear manner the machinery employed in working this tax? In his opinion the operation and execution of this tax were as had as the principle of it. He would call upon the right hon. Gentleman for some explanation on this point, although it seemed to him that the right hon. Gentleman, who was a great master of language, had used his power in this Bill on the principle of the diplomatist who declared that the use of language was to conceal and not to express our ideas.
MR. BLACKETTsaid, he thought that the verbal and technical arrangements of the present Bill, faulty as it was as regards this country, appeared to him to be still more so as regards Ireland. He acknowledged the courtesy with which the right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had referred to the observations which he had addressed to the House; and he had listened to his speech with great attention at the beginning, and great surprise at the close. He must confess himself at a loss to conceive how the right
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hon. Gentleman, with his statesmanship, with a large and well-disciplined majority, could have foregone the opportunity of reaping a rich harvest of popular favour, as he certainly would have gained from the mercantile classes if he had made any attempt to grapple with the machinery of this odious tax. The plea of want of time was about the last he should have expected them to put forward, because, when he remembered that the Government had undertaken to bring forward a scheme of a most gigantic character during the next week—that of introducing a Bill for the government of India—they must, in his opinion, possess a large surplus of energy and of time. The right hon. Gentleman had expressed a hope that next year he might be in a position to consolidate the statutes relating to this tax, and deal with its machinery. Nothing could be further from his intention than to throw any doubt upon the sincerity of the right hon. Gentleman; but before the House consented to the change proposed, it should consider how the income tax stood at present, and whether there was a probability of ever having a better opportunity or a more favourable time for its modification. At the time when this measure was first passed, it was under circumstances which afforded some excuse for its defective machinery—at a time when there was a great deficiency in the public revenue, and when no one had had any experience of the working of a tax of this description. The question of the income tax must have occupied a prominent place in the deliberations both of the late and of the present Government. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer made this tax the keystone of his policy, and proposed to renew it for a term of years so long as to be almost equivalent to renewing it for a perpetuity. In his opinion, if they let slip the present opportunity, the consideration of the working of this tax might be deferred till the Greek kalends, and certainly there would never be a better opportunity than the present for remodelling the machinery of this tax. There was one thing he wished to press upon the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; that, although there might be objections to the amendments of the hon. Member for Manchester, not one of the amendments introduced a new principle, or interfered with a single penny which was to be gathered under this Act. He complained, therefore,

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that they should be called upon at once to pass a clause sanctioning the renewal of the whole of that machinery by which the mercantile classes had been irritated and harassed for the last ten years. For instance, the present manner in which commissioners of the income tax were appointed gave great annoyance and dissatisfaction to those classes. They wished to have those commissioners appointed in a more satisfactory manner. This Bill attempted, in a very clumsy manner, to define what allowances were to be made for losses in trades: that ought to be more satisfactorily dealt with. It was also desirable that a better arrangement should be made with reference to the provision of a court for the hearing of appeals against assessments under Schedule D. Almost all Members connected with commercial constituencies had come to that House pledged up to their necks to do their best to procure a graduated scale of assessment. From that pledge their constituents had practically released them, and had agreed to accept the income tax with a uniform pressure, severely as that pressure had in many cases been felt, and unjustly as it operated; but the greater the liberality that their constituents had shown towards them, and the more ample the concessions that they had allowed them to make for the convenience of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the more had they a right to demand that their representatives should use their utmost exertions to sweep away all unnecessary defects in this Bill, and to mitigate, as much as possible, the working of this odious tax.
MR. MICHELLwas understood to suggest that the clause should be altogether expunged, in order that other and more simple and perfect provisions might be introduced. As for secrecy under the present machinery of the tax, it was out of the question. The returns men made were often found in the butter shop, and cheese had been sent to his own house wrapped up in his own return. He agreed, for the most part, in the observations of the hon. Member with respect to the machinery of the tax, which he thought most objectionable.
MR. CAYLEYwished to draw the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to a case of a somewhat singular character, and one which he hoped might excite his sympathy. The Motion of his right hon. Friend the Member for Berkshire (Mr. R. Palmer) was to the effect
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that the tax should be levied upon net, not upon gross income; and if it were so levied, the case which he was about to mention could not occur. It was that of a small holder living upon his own land, who had for eight years received nothing, and yet had been paying income tax.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that in the case to which the hon. Member alluded, although the person referred to made nothing but his rent, he had at the same time paid the expenses of his living. If the small occupiers of land were so extremely poor, he was sorry for them; but although the case which the hon. Member had brought forth might excite his sympathy, yet it would badly be enough to guide him in forming an opinion upon rules of State.
SIR JOHN PAKINGTONrose for the purpose of putting a question of great importance to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—one which was viewed with deep interest by a large number of persons. His question related to the 41st clause. But though it related to so late a clause in the Bill, he thought it desirable to have an explanation from the right hon. Gentleman before they arrived at it. The 41st clause empowered persons before they paid the income tax to deduct the amount of any premium upon life assurance from the income upon which they were taxed. The question was, to what incomes did the Chancellor of the Exchequer intend to confine or limit the power of making the deduction? The clause did not in this respect appear to him to be very clear. His conviction was that the clause, as the right hon. Gentleman had framed it, was meant only to extend exemptions to incomes under Schedules D and E; but the words of the latter part of the clause seemed to have a different meaning, and to imply that all persons paying premiums on life assurance were to be allowed to make the deduction. An impression prevailed in the country that the owners and occupiers of real property were to have no such exemption. It was upon this head, particularly, that he wished to be informed.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I need not now enter into details, but briefly reply to the question of the right hon. Baronet, that there cannot be the least doubt but that the exemption in question is applicable to all the schedules of the Bill.
MR. I. BUTTsaid, that he doubted whether there was a single hon. Gentle-

731
man who knew precisely what he was going to vote upon; and he was strongly opposed to legislation upon matters of great importance, not directly, but by implication. This was what they were asked to do now; for if they agreed to the clause now before the House, they would by that simple vote re-enact a Bill of 194 clauses, with the provisions of which he was sure not a single Member of that House was acquainted. Nay, more, they were to re-enact "all Acts subsequently passed, explaining, altering, amending, or continuing the said first-mentioned Act;" therefore Members must actually have recourse to an index of the statutes to ascertain what was re-enacted by this clause, which further provided that the provisions of these various Acts were only to be of force so far as they were consistent with those of this Act. So that it would be necessary that Members should be minutely acquainted with the whole of the various provisions of these several Acts of Parliament, that they might know which of them were or were not inconsistent with the provisions of the present Bill, and therefore were or were not re-enacted by this clause. But the power of this Bill had reserved for Ireland "confusion worse confounded," for it declared that the provisions of the various Acts passed previously were to be applicable to that country in all cases not provided for by this Act, and so far as they were consistent with its express provisions. It really seemed as if the draughtsman was anxious to furnish a practical proof of the necessity for the measure introduced by the Government for the consolidation of the statutes. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer had really made up his mind as to what clauses in the various Acts that had been passed on this subject he wished to repeal and what to retain, there would have been no difficulty in preparing a Bill which should have clearly set forth what was re-enacted and what was not. Feeling the importance of not legislating on such important matters by implication, he would, if it were consistent with the rules of the House, and would not impede public business, move that the consideration of this clause should be postponed.
MR. BOUVERIE(the Chairman of the Committee) said, that it was not competent for the hon. Member to move that the clause be postponed. That could only be done by order of the House.
LORD JOHN RUSSELLsaid, that he
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understood the hon. and learned Member to say, that if it would not impede the progress of public business, he would move that this clause be postponed; but since he could not move the postponement of the clause, he must therefore move that the clause be negatived. But that would in fact be to negative the whole Bill, for the purport of the clause was to re-enact the powers and authorities of the Income Tax Act which had already expired. The Income Tax Act was very much considered in 1842. All its clauses were gone through in the shape of a Bill, and it was then stated by Sir Robert Peel, that in framing the Bill he had considered the provisions both of Mr. Pitt's Income Tax Act, and of that introduced in 1806 by Earl Grenville and the Marquess of Lansdowne, who were not persons likely to frame measures in every way clumsy and absurd, and it was not therefore to be presumed that every clause in these Acts was a mistake and a blunder. Since 1842, the House had repeatedly considered the question of the income tax; and upon these various occasions they had contented themselves with re-enacting the provisions of the Act of 1842, without much alteration. The question now was—whether it was desirable at the present time to go over the whole of the provisions of the Act of 1842, to re-enact certain portions of it, to reconsider and alter other parts, and in fact to have new machinery altogether. In his opinion that course would lead to great public inconvenience. The Chancellor of the Exchequer could not well have brought forward the Budget for the year until towards the end of April; the Income Tax Act expired on the 5th of April, and he had heard it stated in 1848, 1851, and in other years, that everybody concerned in the collection of the revenue concurred in representing the great importance of having the Income Tax Act passed before the 5th July; because, if it were not, the greatest difficulty would arise in making up the books, and collecting the outstanding tax. He therefore thought it was the best course to revive the Act as it at present stood on the Statute-book, to renew and confirm that Act, and to take all the powers and authorities under it. He did not say that the hon. Member for Manchester might not be right in the proposition which he had made; but it was a subject which required very great consideration, and was one which should certainly be separated from the mere question of the renewal of the

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income tax. He begged the House to observe, that in the first enactment of the Act, that which was the foundation of it was the Act for imposing the assessed taxes. Those who prepared that Act thought it of great importance that the persons concerned in the collection of those taxes should not be persons immediately depending upon or in any way connected with the Government. Whether that was wise or not, was a fair subject for consideration; but he thought it was rather too large a question to be considered on the present occasion. He was far from saying, however, that it was not a fair question to bring before the House on another occasion. The question of the extension of the tax to Ireland was also quite a separate question from the re-enactment of the powers of the old Act. With respect to that point, he did not think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could have taken a more convenient course than to say that, with such alterations as appeared obviously to be necessary, the general powers and authorities given by that Act should be extended to Ireland. It would, he thought, have been cumbrous and unnecessary to have gone through all the clauses of the Act of 1842, and to have re-enacted them for Ireland. If special provisions were required for that country, let them be considered; but that did not seem to be opposed to the general view, that the most convenient way to extend the tax to Ireland, was to re-enact that general measure, and then to make any alterations which the different circumstances of Ireland might render necessary.
MR. MAGUIREthought that when the House was imposing the income tax on Ireland for the first time, it was not too much for the Irish Members to ask that they should be enabled to understand it. Now he defied any Irish Member to know what he was voting for when he assented to this clause. For himself, he declared solemnly that he did not understand a single word of what he was going to vote for, and he was therefore desirous for some further explanation of what would be its effect.
MR. KIRKsaid, that he had as an Irish Member voted for the imposition of the tax upon Ireland, under the belief that he would thus relieve the tenant farmers from the burden of the consolidated annuities, and of the other direct taxes under which they were labouring. He still retained full confidence that the expressed intention
734
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to do this would be carried out in the details of the Bill. He found, however, that by the 13th clause of the present Bill the tax was to be assessed on rateable hereditaments, according to the valuations under the Poor Relief Act; and that the assessment was to be made on the occupier or other person rated to the relief of the poor. Now, in order really to effect what he understood to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer's intention, it would be absolutely necessary to release the tenant from the direct payment of the landlord's income tax, which might be done by substituting the word "owner" for that of "occupier," in the 13th clause. Any attempt to collect income tax from the small occupiers of land in Ireland, would entail great hardship upon them, while it would be attended with so much expense, that the tax would hardly pay the cost of collection. The only objection which he had heard to this was, that it would be impossible to ascertain the owners of the soil; but he believed that this might be done without any difficulty through the medium of the police.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERthought that this question would be much more conveniently discussed when they arrived at the 13th clause. He was quite alive to the importance of this question, and to the weight of the considerations which might be urged in favour of that view of it which was taken by the hon. Member. The only object of the Government was to provide the best, fairest, and simplest mode of collecting the income tax in Ireland; and there were no doubt a great many points in connexion with the operation of the clause which had been referred to, upon which they were most desirous to have the aid of Irish Members. That, however, was not the question immediately before the House. The clause they were then discussing went to the root and framework of the Bill, and was decisive as to the time at which this tax would be levied, and as to when it would be available for the purposes of the State. It therefore formed the very base of the financial propositions of Government. It was, however, quite open to the Government, or to the Committee, to levy the tax in Ireland either upon the owner or occupier without interfering with the progress of the Bill; and he therefore thought that the discussion of this point might very well stand over.
MR. LUCASgave the right hon. Gen-

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tleman full credit for a desire to pass this Bill in a way most suitable to the circumstances of Ireland. In order to do this, he (Mr. Lucas) would propose that the clauses relative to Ireland should be withdrawn from the present measure, and that a separate Bill with regard to Ireland should be introduced. This would meet the greater part of the practical difficulties which had been referred to. Here they had a Bill by which a new tax was to be applied to Ireland, and which, if drawn out at length, would consist of 190 or 200 clauses, and those clauses were not, in fact, to pass through Committee at all. They were not to have an opportunity of considering those clauses in detail, and therefore, without having any wish to offer an unfair obstruction to the proposition of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he had brought before him a proposal to which the right hon. Gentleman ought to give his consent. If this proposition were assented to, he would not oppose the clause; but otherwise he should feel it his duty to take the sense of the Committee on the question.
Question put, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 96; Noes 26: Majority 70.
Clause agreed to; as was also Clause 6.
Clause 7.
COLONEL DUNNEmade an inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining whether the tax was to be charged according to the residence of the person, or the locality of the property.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERreplied, that with regard to real property, it would be placed in the same position as real property was in England under the present Act. Property derived from the profits of land in Ireland would be charged in Ireland. The taxation of other species of property would depend upon the residence of the possessor.
COLONEL DUNNEsaid, that if the property were charged according to the residence of a person, when that person was resident in England no credit would be given to Ireland for the tax. In the Excise and Customs a great deal was in that way credited to England, and not credited to Ireland.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERexplained, that the persons who now, under Schedule A, pay the income tax in England in respect to land in Ireland, will, of course, continue so to pay it;
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but that which now wrongly appears as an English tax would hereafter appear as an Irish tax.
MR. G. A. HAMILTONapprehended that what his gallant Friend wished to ascertain was, whether there should not be a distinct separation in the accounts of in-income tax paid in England and Ireland; that there should be a Schedule A for Ireland as well as for England, and so on, in order that each country might be exactly credited with the amount it paid. He believed, however, that the object of his hon. and gallant Friend could be attained without the insertion of a specific clause, as arrangements might be entered into by the Treasury for the purpose.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, there could be no doubt as to the propriety of putting all returns under the income tax from Ireland in the same account, and he could assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that his suggestion would not be lost sight of.
Clause agreed to; as were also Clauses 8 to 11 inclusive.
Clause 12.
LORD NAASsaid, that as this was the first clause which raised the question of how far the existing machinery in Ireland would enable them to collect the income tax, he proposed to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman, upon which some explanation was requisite, in order to satisfy the people of Ireland. When the proposal to extend the income tax to Ireland was on a former occasion discussed, it was urged over and over again by the highest financial authorities in the country that, laying aside the policy or the impolicy of that measure, if the House were to decide upon such an extension, it would be found in the end to be wholly unproductive to the revenue. It was, therefore, before proceeding further, not an unwise question to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he was prepared to lay before the Committee some estimate or some calculation which would enable it to form an idea as to the actual amount that would accrue to the Exchequer in consequence of the extension of the income tax to Ireland. Now the right hon. Gentleman ought to tell the Committee whether the expense of collection, under the clauses before the House, would not be likely to swallow up a great portion of the sums derivable from the tax. In 1845, when the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) brought forward his Amendment to extend the tax to Ireland,

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the greatest financial authorities gave it as their decided opinion that such an imposition would not in any such way increase the resources of the Treasury as would at all counterbalance the evils attendant upon its collection. And the then Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goulburn) spoke on the subject in the most explicit manner. He stated, that he had gone into the inquiry, and that he found the imposition of the income tax upon that part of the United Kingdom might indeed lay upon the people of Ireland a heavy burden: but that, looking to the Exchequer, the amount that would be available would be indeed very small:—
"That, unlike the indirect taxes that were collected in that country, it would be got in at such an enormous expense in proportion to the amount, that the ultimate payment into the Exchequer would not by any means be equal to the burden imposed on the people. They had had some experience as to the collection of such taxes in Ireland already. They had had the assessed taxes in Ireland already at a former period, and the result was that they imposed a heavy burden on the people, and got nothing whatever into the Exchequer. If they had imposed a property tax on Ireland, having to create anew the whole of the machinery necessary for its collection, what would be the result? Why, they would have oppressed the people, and got nothing for the Government."—[3 Mansard, lxxvii. 790.]
What he wanted the right hon. Gentleman opposite, therefore, to show was, that the altered circumstances of Ireland were such as to justify him in throwing overboard those high financial authorities who had spoken in 1845, and in coming to the conclusion that beneficial effects would accrue to the Treasury from the extension of the tax to Ireland. His (Lord Naas's) opinion was, that, so far from having better grounds to adopt the proposal, it was actually the reverse; for though the improvements which had taken place within the last two years were undoubtedly great, still the country was by no means in as rich or prosperous a condition as it was in 1845. He believed that the taxpaying capability of Ireland was much greater then than it was at present, and, therefore, the objections of those high financial authorities would prevail and apply with far greater force now; and to show this, it was only necessary to remind the Committee that the circulation of Ireland was one-third less than it was in 1845; that the exportation of cattle and corn was also nearly one-third less, and that whereas in 1845, 3,000,000 quarters of grain and malt had been exported, only 1,324,000 quarters had been exported last year. So
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that, in point of fact, it was impossible to make out the case, that the taxpaying capacity of Ireland had been enlarged since 1845. He was justified, therefore, in asking what were the causes which had enabled the Government to come to a different conclusion from that of the Government of 1845; and also what was the amount expected to be realised from an Irish income tax?
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that with respect to the question of the amount that was to be levied from the income tax in Ireland, he had frankly avowed that which was upon the surface of the case, namely, that on all these questions generally every man must entertain and form his own opinion. They were all on an equality in respect of their power of judging what would be the probable produce of the income tax in Ireland, and he did not enjoy from his official position any advantage that would enable him to arrive at a conclusion such as the House ought to receive on his authority and on the authority of the Government. He had already stated that there was but a meagre list of documents and of documentary evidence to which he could refer; and he need not now repeat it, because the noble Lord, he had no doubt, must be perfectly aware of it. The noble Lord had quoted the authority of his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Goulburn), and the sentiments he had expressed on the question in 1845. His right hon. Friend was then simply recommending to the House to pass a continuing and reviving Act; there was nothing in the nature of reconstruction or extension contemplated by his proposition; there was no man who would give a more conscientious judgment; but the bias of his mind was to view strongly and favourably those reasons that would discourage an alteration in the income tax at that time. With respect to the condition of Ireland, and the change it had undergone since that period, and with respect to their means generally of forming a judgment of the practicability of levying the income tax in Ireland, he did think there was something to be said over and above what could be said in 1845. Various changes had taken place since 1845, all of which tended very much in the direction of facilitating the imposition of the income tax at present, and amongst the deplorable consequences of the famine, there were consequences also that were not deplorable. For exam-

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ple, there was a great diminution in small holdings in Ireland: the better defining of title, and the simplifying of possession in Ireland, was advantageous: and the progress that had been made in the construction of a trustworthy valuation in that country was of advantage. The improved and strengthened machinery of the poor-law was in operation; but, above all, they had, with respect to Ireland, that which he ventured to say was better than the opinion even of such men as his right hon. Friend and of Sir Robert Peel, when the opinion was merely anterior to experience, namely, the example of what bad occurred with respect to the consolidated annuities, which they were now going to remit. He did not hesitate to say that the mode in which the consolidated annuities were collected under the authority of the law, offered a strong presumption, and he would almost say a demonstration, of the probability of levying the income tax in Ireland, and threw a light on the question that was quite sufficient to enable them to judge that no ruinous or excessive costs would attend its collection. He did not now speak of the effect of the removal of the consolidated annuities, but referred to the subject as affording most valuable and conclusive evidence, which, in 1845, was wanting, as to the practicability of levying such a tax. Another instance to which he might refer was the collection of the rate in aid. The result of attempting to levy a rate in aid was a result arising from an attempt that was made under circumstances infinitely more unfavourable than the circumstances under which they proposed the present law for imposing the income tax. The distress at the time was greater, and the public opinion with respect to the rate in aid was not of a nature to facilitate the levying of it. He would only now refer to the working of the rate in aid. He believed he was correct in stating that the calculation was, that the proceeds of the rate in aid would be about 421,000 l. That was the calculation formed before the rate in aid was imposed. The Act passed, the rate was levied, and when the account came finally to be rendered, it was found that 420,000 l. had been brought into the Treasury. He must confess that he would be perfectly satisfied if the production of the income tax came as near to the estimate.
MR. J. BALLwished to offer a suggestion in reference to the next clause.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHE- QUERbegged to interpose for a moment, to offer a suggestion. As the Government were anxious to derive all the advantage they could from the representations of the best-informed persons, he would propose to postpone the 13th clause.
MR. J. BALLthought it would be better to pass over that evening the whole of the clauses referring to Ireland. He denied that the measure involved any increase of taxation in Ireland; on the contrary, he was quite certain that it involved a remission of taxation in Ireland. He sat down with pen and paper to calculate, half-year by half-year, the result of the various financial changes that had been proposed. In the first year he found the increase would be 37,800 l.; in the next year, 144,000 l.; and in the next, 40,000 l. During the remaining four years, ending in 1860, there would be a continual diminution of taxes in Ireland, leaving, at the end of the time, a balance of about 170,000 l. But as there would be at that period an arrear of income tax due, the final result would be to leave no balance whatever on either side. But they should recollect that the proposition would produce the important effect of removing taxation from the industrial classes, and placing it on the owners of property.
MR. MACARTNEYbegged to explain that the rate in aid was levied so effectively, because a stoppage was made for it out of the rates collected under the poor law, and the amount thus obtained was placed before Parliament to show that Ireland was able to pay a rate in aid.
SIR DENHAM NORREYSwished to know if a tenant occupied a farm worth 30 l. a year, which was about the average value of farms in Ireland, and paid, as he supposed he must, according to the proposed system, thirty sevenpences for the landlord, how was he to recover the money; and further, what would be have to pay for the value of his occupation?
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, no tenant whose property was valued to the poor-law at less than 100 l. a year would be charged with profits of occupation. As to the mode in which the tenant was to recover what he paid on the value of the land itself, that would of course be deducted from the rent, and was not so serious a question as the hon. Gentleman proposed: though, of course, it had a serious bearing on the question whether the tax ought to be paid in the first instance by the landlord or the tenant. It was with

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a view to the more full consideration of this question that he proposed to postpone the clauses.
MR. I. BUTTasked a question in reference to an Amendment of which he had given notice, in the 13th clause. It was a great hardship for a tenant to have to pay income tax according to a rating that was beyond the actual rent which he paid. No doubt that in the case of a tenant being charged for income tax, whose income was below 100 l. a year, he had the power of recovering the money which he had paid as income tax back again. The fact, however, of compelling him to pay this tax in the first instance was a hardship. He (Mr. Butt) proposed that such person might be allowed to come in the first instance before the assessor, and to claim exemption from the tax by showing that his income was below 100 l. a year.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERwas understood to say that he had read the Amendment, and that he would consider it in connexion with the general subject.
MR. MAGUIREasked what was the minimum amount of rate to which an occupier would be liable?
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that point would be determined by the poor-law rating, which fixed the minimum at 4l. 10 s.
LORD NAASproposed at the end of Clause 12 to add these words:—
"Provided always, that as soon as the valuation of any poor-law union in Ireland shall have been completed, under the provisions of an Act passed in the Session of Parliament held in the 15th and 16th years of Her Majesty, chapter 63, in order to the assessing of the duties chargeable under schedules (A and B) of this Act in Ireland, the commissioners of valuation in Ireland shall, instead of the clerk of the union as aforesaid, between the 1st day of April and the first day of June in every succeeding year, transmit to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, at the head office in Dublin, true copies of the last final list of all the tenements and rateable hereditaments comprised within the said poor-law union, which the said commissioner of valuation had transmitted to the clerk of such poor-law union, in conformity with the provisions of the afore-mentioned Act."
The noble Lord said, he had great objections to the employment of any of the poor-law officials, except for purposes of the poor-law. That principle, which he considered objectionable, was now, he believed, for the first time to be introduced into an Act of Parliament. There was a Bill passed last year for a general valuation of all the land of Ireland to be rated for county
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and poor-law purposes. It was therein enacted that the commissioners of valuation, after having duly valued the land, should transmit to the boards of guardians a final list of all the property in the several unions rated for the relief of the poor. He thought that the same mode of obtaining information for the purposes of the present Bill ought to be adopted.
LORD NAASconsented, at the suggestion of the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, to allow the Amendment to stand over for further consideration.
MR. MAGUIREwas anxious to point out to the Chancellor of the Exchequer a grievance which would arise to the occupiers of small tenements under the latter portion of the 13th clause. The clause said that the tax should be paid by the occupier. Now, suppose a man had property yielding 90 l. a year. In that case he would not be liable to pay any income tax; but, further, suppose that he let his land to several tenants, say at 10 l. a year each, these tenants, by this clause, would be liable to pay the income tax on their several holdings. Now, inasmuch as the landlord would not be liable to pay the income tax, the question he wished to ask was, whether these tenants could legally deduct from their rent the money they had paid on account of that tax? If not, in what manner were they to obtain redress?
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, there was not the least doubt about the question, supposing the Bill should pass as it now stood; for in that case the occupier would be liable to have the tax levied on him irrespective of the question whether the landlord was or was not liable. It was the same thing in England. If the tenant, paid 7d. in the pound on his 20 l. rent, he would make a deduction of what he so paid from his rent, and the landlord not being liable, because his income was under 100 l., would, of course, get the money back from the commissioners. It was a hardship, no doubt; but still the evil was not so great as one might suppose, as such a case could only happen but once. Persons having once been exempted from the tax were seldom charged again. At the same time it was a very serious question, whether they should adopt the 13th clause, which, however, was not then before the Committee, or whether they should enact the non-liability of tenants in respect to the occupation of their farms.
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 13 and 14 were postponed.
Clause 15 (The Commissioners of Inland Revenue may direct revaluations where existing valuations are incorrect).
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERproposed to add a proviso, empowering the parties to make an appeal from the valuation of the commissioner of valuation to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, with a view to a revaluation of the property.
LORD NAASsaid, although the proviso just proposed in some degree lessened his objection to the clause, still he thought there were good grounds for opposing it. He did not think it right to give power to persons to do that in respect to the income tax which the parochial ratepayers had not a right to do in respect to parochial rates. He should move that the clause be omitted.
MR. F. SCULLYsupported the clause as it stood. At present a man had no appeal, but was bound for fourteen years. He considered the clause as a fair one, and believed it to be in perfect unison with the Bill of the noble Lord (Lord Naas) of last year.
SIR ARTHUR BROOKEwished to know whether the expense of the revaluation was to be paid by the Government?
MR. KIRKasked if the right of appeal was to be given when parties were rated too low, as well as when they were rated too high? By lowering the rate in boroughs from 8l. to 7l. 15 s., it might be the means of virtually disfranchising the parties.
MR. CAIRNSsaid, the objection to the clause was this. If the commissioners thought that a particular property was valued too low, they had a right to direct its revaluation, and then the Government proposed to give the owner a right of appeal against the revaluation. But suppose the owner was of opinion that his property was valued too high, where was his right of appeal? The Amendment of the Government did not give it; it was only where the commissioners directed a revaluation that he had it; but if there was no revaluation, then there was no right of appeal. But if it was right to give the commissioners power to order a revaluation, in the event of their being of opinion that the former valuation was too low, surely it was equally just that a similar power should be given to the taxpayer, in the event of his thinking that the former valuation was too high. The Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to give a right of appeal in the one case, but to refuse it in
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the other, and was therefore so far defective.
MR. G. A. HAMILTONsaid, it was not very clear whether the clause under consideration was intended to apply to valuations made by poor-law guardians, or to those made by the commissioner of valuations in Ireland. There was a great difference between the two classes of valuations; and if the clause was intended to apply only to the valuations made by poor-law guardians, there might be no grounds for objecting to it; but if it was intended to apply to the valuations made by the commissioner, then he hoped the House would not adopt it.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERtrusted the Committee would not act upon the advice of the hon. Gentleman opposite, for it was plain that the clause was necessary as a protection to the revenue. If they were dealing with the case of Ireland after the whole of Ireland had been valued by the commissioners of valuations, then all parties might join together and say that they should accept the valuation of the commissioner as being impartial and sufficient; but the Committee had to consider that over a considerable part of Ireland there was no valuation at all by the commissioner, though there was one by the poor-law guardians. Now, he thought it would be absurd to subject the levying of the income tax to the standard of the poor-law valuation, or, in other words, to leave the fixing of the valuation for the income tax simply and purely in the hands of local authorities. There could be nothing in his opinion more fair than to say that the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, where they thought that the valuation was too low, should be entitled to step in and demand that a revaluation should be made by that authority which Parliament had already recognised and established as a proper authority for making valuations in Ireland. In reply to the remarks of the hon. Member for Dublin University (Mr. Hamilton), he had to state, that the clause was not intended to apply to valuations made by the commissioners of valuations; but it was plain that if they were not to give power to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to order a revaluation in the case of a poor-law valuation being too low, they would place the revenue in a most disadvantageous position. The hon. Member for Belfast (Mr. Cairns) complained that they did not intend to give the taxpayer

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the right to appeal against the existing valuations; but there really did not appear to be any sufficient reason why such a right should be granted. He was entitled to assume that the present valuations were not unjust or unfair to parties, inasmuch as they had been made either by the taxpayers themselves, or under the provisions of the Act recently passed, and which had been carefully framed with the view of enabling the parties to be heard. He assumed, therefore, that the existing valuations were perfectly fair, and that the interests of parties were reasonably secured. But the Government wanted some security for themselves. The clause under consideration gave them that security; though he admitted to the noble Lord the Member for Coleraine (Lord Naas), that, perhaps, it would be well to add a few words to make it clear that the power of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to order a revaluation only applied to valuations made by poor-law guardians, and not to valuations made by the commissioners appointed under the recent Act of Parliament.
LORD NAASthought the plan of Government would distract the commissioners, who were rating Ireland as rapidly as possible.
COLONEL DUNNEsaid, it was perfectly clear the clause was framed by some one who had very little knowledge of Ireland. Griffith's valuation was nearly finished. The clause was most impolitic, and he advised the right hon. Gentleman to consult the Secretary for Ireland, who knew something about the question.
MR. J. BALLwas afraid, from the terms in which the clause was expressed, that it would lead many to suppose, what he was sure was not intended, that the commissioners were to have power to order a revaluation of single tenements. He suggested that words should be introduced to the effect that the revaluations ordered by the commissioners should be revaluations of districts.
MR. CAIRNSagreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it was fair to assume that parties were satisfied with the existing valuations made inter se for poor-law purposes; but when they came to apply those valuations to a different purpose, such as the imposition of an income tax, it did not follow that they would afford an equal amount of satisfaction to those who had to pay the tax. In the case of a poor-law rate it did not much matter to indi-
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vidual ratepayers what the valuation might be, provided it was equal over the whole union, for there was there a congeniality of interests; but in the case of an income tax each man stood for himself, and it was therefore important that the valuation should be a sound and just one for individuals.
SIR DENHAM NORREYStaunted the noble Lord the Member for Coleraine with having passed his Valuation Bill of last year in hot haste, and without allowing the Irish representatives an opportunity to discuss it properly. It was too bad for the noble Lord to come forward now and say that his defective legislation should net be corrected; and he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not give way to the pressure from the opposite side of the House.
COLONEL DUNNEasked to whom the expense of the contemplated revaluations was to be charged?
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERreplied, that when the House had settled the principle upon which the revaluations were to be conducted, it would then be time enough to make provision for the payment of the expenses.
MR. F. SCULLYrecommended that the clause should be postponed for further consideration.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaw no reason why the clause should be postponed; and, indeed, the Committee were not competent to do it. The truth was, that parties at present had power by law to apply for a revaluation—[Cries of "No, no!"] Why, poor-law guardians might procure a new valuation, and be took them to be adequate representatives of local interests. He, therefore, saw no necessity for making a special provision with the view of granting a right already possessed by parties.
LORD NAASrepeated the expression of his willingness to withdraw his opposition to the clause, on the understanding that it was intended to apply only to the valuations made by poor-law guardians.
MR. CAIRNSsaid, that if the right hon. Gentleman persisted in forcing the clause through the Committee, notwithstanding the objections which had been stated, he should feel it to be his duty, when the Report was brought up, to propose an Amendment for giving to parties a power of appeal similar to that conferred upon the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.
Clause agreed to; as was also Clause 16.
Clause 17 was postponed.
Clauses 18 and 19 were agreed to.
Clause 20, providing that appeals in Ireland are to be heard and determined by the Commissioners for Special Purposes,
MR. MAGUIREasked on what principle it was intended to value incomes derived from trades and professions in Ireland?
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the hon. Gentleman was probably aware that there were a great variety of provisions which were all set out in the present Income Tax Act for the valuation of incomes derived from trades and professions. The same principle, as appeared upon the face of these provisions regarding England, would apply to Ireland, and he did not know that there was any reason for, or possibility of, having a different set of rules for that country. When they came to the execution of the Act, some differences might arise out of the peculiar circumstances of Ireland, and out of the fact that they had not the same means of levying the tax as they had in England; and it might be found necessary to adopt some more summary, though not more stringent, methods of obtaining information. That was a matter for consideration in detail, but he saw no reason for adopting a different standard as regarded trades and professions in Ireland from that which prevailed in this country.
On an Amendment of Mr. I. BUTT, to the effect that assessments should be made in Ireland by special commissioners in certain cases, similar to the provisions of the clause in regard to England,
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the effect would be to distribute all over Ireland, officers of a higher class, and receiving higher pay, to perform duties ordinarily performed in England by persons of a different class. It seemed to him more natural that the assessment should be made by the same class of people as in England, and that an appeal should be allowed; that such appeals should be heard by the assistant barrister, who should be bound to hear applications, not in open court, but in private, although he would decide judicially upon them. If, however, any better system could be proposed, he was willing to consider it.
MR. I. BUTTwanted nothing for Ireland that England had not got; but by the English Act, any person might be assessed by a Commissioner for Special Purposes, by sending in a return to him, and passing by the local commissioners. He believed
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that there was such a provision in the English Act; but if not, his argument failed.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERstated, that it was intended that Ireland should be on the same footing with England, and he would take care that the words should be introduced into the Irish Bill.
Amendment withdrawn; Clause agreed to.
Clause 21.
In answer to Mr. G. A. HAMILTON,
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that appeals against assessments, he believed, must be heard at quarter-sessions, and it would be necessary for the assistant banister, before deciding such appeal, to take the oaths or affirmation required to be taken by the Commissioners for Special Purposes.
COLONEL DUNNEwished to know if any arrangements as to costs had been made?
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERconsidered it unnecessary to make any arrangement with regard to costs. They would be, no doubt, arranged as in England.
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 22, 23, and 24 were also agreed to.
Clause 25.
MR. BROCKLEHURST MR. BROCKLEHURST moved Amendments, giving power to the General Commissioners to compound with parties. For the last few years the income tax had been allowed to pass for one year; but now, when it was proposed to pass it for seven, he wished to see it in a satisfactory state. If the machinery at present in use were to be applied when the operation of the tax extended to incomes of 100 l. a year, it would cause a great deal of discontent, which might be removed by allowing persons to compound for the last year, according to the decision of the Commissioners.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERconsidered that the proposal of the hon. Member would give a power to the commissioners which they had never enjoyed before. It was a fact that, although the income tax had been in operation for eleven years, there were many people taxed under Schedule D, who did not know that there was a power of appeal to the Special Commissioners; and, while this state of information continued, there might be great misapprehension caused by adopting the proposal of the hon. Member.
Amendment withdrawn; Clause agreed to.
MR. I. BUTT MR. I. BUTT moved an Amendment to exempt income under 150 l. a year derived from precarious sources, and all clerical incomes, from the operation of the tax. The question he proposed to raise was one of very considerable importance; and he would show the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he had for his proposal authority which he at least must respect. At present all incomes under 150 l. a year were exempt. This had been the limit fixed by Sir Robert Peel, in 1842. He (Mr. Butt) would much prefer that limit had been adhered to in this Bill; but whatever might be said as to the propriety of lowering it in the case of religious property, he felt confident the Chancellor of the Exchequer had shown no just reason for his proposal to include those who possessed precarious incomes between 100 l. and 150 l. a year. Clerical incomes, no matter from what source derived, were strictly professional incomes, subject to all the incidents of such; and whatever rule they applied to the incomes of other professional men, it was plainly right to apply to those of clergymen, without reference to the source from which their income was derived. His (Mr. Butt's) Amendment, therefore, was, in substance, to prevent the extension of the income tax from applying to those whose income was derived from precarious sources. He was now dealing, the House would observe, with the imposition of the tax upon new classes; as to some of these classes he was resisting that imposition. He earnestly asked their attention to the circumstances of those whom it was now proposed to subject to this tax for the first time—he meant those having precarious incomes exceeding 100 l. and under 150 l. a year. This was the extension of the tax, if he might use the term, to a great, even a numerous, community. It actually brought more new persons within the operation of the tax than did the extension of it to Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman calculated that by extending the tax to this class of incomes, he would increase its amount 250,000 l. But to obtain that sum 100,000 persons must be taxed. The question, therefore, was, whether they could now extend the income tax to these 100,000 persons—persons who were the least able to bear it—and the very class upon whom its imposition would be most unpopular. He (Mr. Butt) said that he had high authority for resisting this proposal. He
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confidently claimed the vote of the right hon. Baronet the First Lord of the Admiralty (Sir James Graham). He was not about to quote from former volumes of Hansard declamations of an ancient date, which might have been made under different circumstances. The opinions he was about to quote had been uttered, he might say, in the course of this very debate, in the very discussion in which they were now engaged. In November last, the House had resolved itself into a Committee of Ways and Means. For what purpose? To consider by what means they might raise the supplies for the current year—exactly the declamation in which they were now engaged. This Bill was the first result of the discussions of that Committee. In that Committee, upon the very subject which they were now discussing—in the very proceedings which constituted the early stage of the Bill now before the House, the right hon. Baronet solemnly and emphatically warned them not to impose the income tax upon the class to whom he (Mr. Butt) proposed to continue the exemptions. This was the advice authoritatively given to the House of Commons by the right hon. Baronet, on the subject of raising any of the supplies for 1853 by a tax on incomes below 150 l.:—
"I think there are very good reasons why those exemptions should be maintained. I am of opinion that the class having incomes between 100 l. and 150 l. in this country consists exactly of that class of persons whose position is that of the greatest struggle in maintaining their position. It is exactly the point where skilled labour ends—where, if I may so express myself, the fustian jacket ceases to be worn, and broad cloth comes into use amongst the working classes. It is more or less a class of persons who are driven by the force of circumstances to maintain a position somewhat higher than their means allow. As an instance of what I mean, I will say that clerks in counting-houses, the humbler clerks in public offices, many of the ministers of the Established Church, and nearly all the dissenting ministers, have to maintain a position somewhat higher than their humble means will easily permit."
These were just the classes whom he (Mr. Butt) proposed to exempt. The right hon. Baronet proceeded to point cut to them the evils of unduly increasing direct taxation, and concluded with this warning:—
"Guided by that experience, do not press unduly your direct taxation in time of peace. It is your great resource in time of war. And I entreat yon on these grounds to pause before you consent to the resolution now proposed."
This was the advice to which he (Mr. Butt) had listened with attention when the House was in Committee considering the very sub-

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ject upon which they were still engaged. But, independently of any authority, he was prepared to contend that the description he had read of this class of persons was a just one. There was hardly any one possessing an income within the range now proposed to be affected, who was not struggling to mate both ends meet in the effort to maintain a position a little above his means. He confidently asked them, was the clergyman struggling to maintain himself and his family upon 120 l. a year—pinched to support the position of a gentleman—with constant demands of charity open his ill-replenished purse—was he a fit subject for this taxation which they were now about to impose for the first time upon his slender means? These, too, were the classes by whom the inquisitorial character of the tax would be most felt—who would be most reluctant to expose the truth that they were on the verge of competence, and that the appearance which they struggled to keep up was one above the little income on which they lived. Was it worth while, for the sum to be raised, to bring disquiet and the sense of oppression into the homes of the numerous class whom they were about to tax? He must remind hon. Gentlemen that he was not proposing anything inconsistent with the general financial scheme of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman, without disturbing that scheme, would even spare the entire amount to be raised from this class. But, if necessary, there were other reductions which could easily be dispensed with. Revenue was remitted upon articles of luxury—upon the importation of articles never heard of, except at the banquets of the rich, to an amount equal to that which they proposed to raise by grinding the poor clergyman and the humble and hardworking clerk. Again, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave up 50,000 l, a year in the tax upon attorneys, 70,000 l. on the assessed taxes, and 40,000 l. on the supplements of the newspapers—give up these reductions, and he did not want the tax upon the 100,000 families living on less than 150 l. a year. He (Mr. Butt) was not proposing anything the adoption of which would subvert the general plan of the Budget—nothing which might not be supported by the most ardent admirers of the Budget as a whole. At this stage of their proceedings he was bound to satisfy the House that the alteration he proposed was not subversive of the general scheme to which the House had assented.
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He confidently said he had done so. It might be said that he was proposing a principle of "differentialism," as it was termed, when he made a distinction in favour of precarious incomes. But his proposal entailed of necessity no such consequence. He only affirmed that there was a particular class whom it was unjust and oppressive to tax, and therefore he asked that they should not be taxed. If they were determined to maintain the principle of making no difference between fixed and precarious incomes—and if his Amendment was carried—those who thought so would then propose, as a necessary consequence of that vote, to exempt also realised incomes below 150 l. a year. He must, of course, be prepared for that consequence; and he would remind the House that in all his calculations and arguments he had estimated the loss of revenue resulting from his proposal at the full amount of 250,000 l. a year—the loss which would follow if all incomes below 150 l. a year were exempted. He, himself, did not feel called on to propose this exemption of all; but if any hon. Gentleman thought that it followed as a necessary consequence, he was quite content to meet the case in argument with that consequence, and say, "You must give up taxing these precarious incomes—so strong are the arguments of justice and expediency against it—even if you think this will oblige you to give up at the same time the tax upon realised incomes of the same amount." His assertion was, that it was unjust and inexpedient to tax the former with this; and with this only was he concerned, except as he might be called on to answer an objection by proving that even if it should carry with it the other remission, this constituted no valid reason against it. There was still one consideration to which he must earnestly entreat the attention of the House. In lowering the limit of the tax to 100 l. a year, they were, for the first time, applying it to the wages of skilled labour. In Sheffield, and in many other of their manufacturing towns, there were many, very many, artisans receiving regular wages above two pounds a week, principally in occupations attended with great risk, or of so unhealthy a character as to shorten the lives of those engaged in them. The House ought not to shut their eyes to this—that in fixing the line of exemption at 100 l. a year, they were bringing down the taxation to this class. He might be told that there were artisans whose wages were high enough to bring

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them even within the present line. These, however, were very rare and exceptional cases, and in practice the tax was not attempted to be enforced. But when they fixed the limit at 100 l a year, they included wages which were not of a very rare and, certainly, not an exceptional character; they extended their taxation to a class too numerous to justify them in conniving at this evasion of the law without an attempt to enforce it; and he therefore warned the House that they were now establishing the principle of imposing an income tax upon the wages of skilled labour—a tax which they must either enforce under circumstances of the most grievous oppression, or permit a numerous class to treat their law as a mockery. He now submitted his proposal to the House: as an opponent of the income tax, he ought, perhaps, to wish that it should be rejected, and that the tax should be left in a form as unpopular as possible. Now—retaining, as he owned he did, all his sympathies with what were now termed the obsolete doctrines of protection—he ought not, perhaps, to feel very anxious to prevent the artisan classes from suffering in direct taxation some of the inconveniences of the system of free trade. He would not feel justified in acting on such motives. Once Parliament directed that an income tax was to form a part of our financial system, he believed it his duty as a Member of that House to use every effort in his power to improve its working, and make it as little burdensome and as little unpopular as it could be made. With these convictions he proposed to retain the exemption in the case of precarious incomes at the limit at which it now stood, believing that this would at least mitigate, in the imposition of the tax, the injustice which he admitted it was now in their power altogether to remove.
Amendment proposed—
"Page 14, line 1, to leave out from the words 'shall be' to the end of the Clause, in order to add the words 'continued as therein provided to all such persons in the United Kingdom in respect of any duties chargeable under Schedules (D) and (E):
"It shall also be continued to all such persons in the United Kingdom in respect of any duties chargeable in any manner by this Act upon any income, stipend, or emolument received by any clergyman, minister, or religious teacher of any denomination, from or in right of any ecclesiastical benefice, preferment, or in respect of his occupation as such minister or religious teacher,' instead thereof."
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERwished to know what the hon. and
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learned Gentleman had really moved? In the notice he had given on the paper the hon. and learned Gentleman stated it was his intention to move "the following; clause."
MR. I. BUTTsaid, he meant "clauses," The effect of his Amendments was, that, as regarded precarious incomes of less than 150 l. a year, and as to clerical incomes, the exemptions in the old income tax were continued.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman had spoken of this in the paper as a single clause, and then, at the moment of proposing his Amendment, he had made a fundamental alteration in it. He should view the Amendment as one complete plan of exemptions which the hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to apply to the Bill. First, then, as to the exemption of precarious and clerical incomes, he regretted, for the sake of a small object, that the hon. and learned Gentleman had involved the House in all the difficulties from which he thought they had escaped in the reconstruction of the income tax, and in the hopeless task of investigating the taxing different trades and property derived from different sources. The hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to exempt clerical in comes; but did he consider incomes arising from small ecclesiastical benefices as precarious incomes? Why should these incomes be exempted because they were clerical? He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was not prepared to accede to the exemption of clerical incomes as such. He believed that such an exemption would neither be wise nor desirable, nor would it before the interest of the clergymen themselves to place them in such a position. If the House were to reconstruct the tax, would it not be mockery to leave out of the exemptions the smaller class of annuitants—widows, for example, with small annuities of 100 l.? He could assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that where he might lay one invidious claim by his exemptions, he would raise half-a-dozen others. Did the hon. and learned Gentleman propose that the exemption of clergy men having incomes under 150 l. should be absolute?
MR. I. BUTThad framed the clause on purpose so as not to make the exemption absolute. The 150 l. would be the income from all sources. He had only continued the exemption of the old Act.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHE- QUER: The intentions of the hon. and learned Gentleman became more equivocal in the next portion of his Amendment. He proposed an exemption in respect of property chargeable under Schedule A, where the poor-rate was 5s. in the pound and upwards. So that in the case of a parish where the poor-rates were extremely high, the hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to compensate them for their bad management by exemption from income tax. Then, coming to Ireland, the hon. and learned Gentleman proposed that an exemption should be granted to all clergymen where their income from all ecclesiastical sources did not amount to 250 l. a year. That was, at all events, an absolute exemption. So that if a clergyman in Ireland had a benefice bringing him in 245 l. a year, and a private fortune of 1,000 l. or 2,000 l. besides, he was to be exempted from the payment of all income tax in respect to the proceeds of his benefice. He objected to making these exemptions at all; but the hon. and learned Gentleman, though his objects were humane, had not succeeded in selecting objects which had the greatest claims on their humanity. With regard to the extension of the income-tax down to persons in the receipt of 100 l. a year, it was the duty of the House to consider what was just to those who had an income of 150 l. a year, as well as those who had 100 l. For eleven years persons in the receipt of 150 l. a year had been paying a serious and considerable tax, partly to relieve themselves, but much more to relieve the men of 100 l. a year from taxes upon articles of general consumption. He knew no more dangerous and democratic principle than that taxes should be laid on persons in easy circumstances only. The House must look to the relative ability of men to bear taxation. The class of persons in the receipt of incomes between 100 l. and 150 l. a year were cognisant of the intention of the House to levy a duty of 5d. in the pound upon their incomes, and he believed he might say that the proposal of the Government had met generally with their acquiescence, partly because they believed it to be equitable, and partly because they looked to the great remissions and relief which they enjoyed in return. He believed that those persons, and others in the receipt of small incomes from trades and professions, saw that without raising hopeless questions, the Government were going to give them effective and permanent relief by increasing
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the charge on the property of the country. A succession tax would impose a charge upon real property, which would in a few years produce 2,000,000 l. a year, more secure and permanent than the income tax. These were the general reasons why it was impossible for the Government to accede to the proposition of the hon. and learned Gentleman.
MR. SPOONERsupported the Amendment. He urged the hardness of imposing the tax for the first time upon artisans, clerks, and small shopkeepers, with incomes between 100 l. and 150 l. a year—a class which, in his opinion, called rather for the sympathy and protection of the House. This provision of the Bill would be certain to render the tax unpopular, as it certainly would render it oppressive.
MR. I. BUTTsaid, that before the Committee divided, he wished to set himself right on one or two points with the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had misapprehended the meaning of his Amendment. The Amendment he had just moved was in no way whatever connected with the other Amendments of which he had given notice; it was entirely owing to a misprint that they came to appear in the paper as one Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman had charged him with asking him to reconstruct the tax by making a distinction and graduation between incomes of different amount. The fact was that it was the right hon. Gentleman himself who had done that, because he proposed that incomes below 150 l. should be taxed at 5d. in the pound, while incomes above 150 l., were to be assessed at 7d. He (Mr. Butt) wished the exemptions to remain as they were.
The MARQUESS of GRANBYsaid, that the object of the hon. Gentleman and himself were, he believed, identical. They were both in favour of indirect as opposed to direct taxation, and both of them were anxious as soon as possible to get rid of the income tax. But he owned that, in his opinion, the best method of doing so was to make all classes feel its inequalities, pressure, and injustice. On this ground he should feel himself bound to vote against the Amendment. Before he sat down he wished to explain the vote he gave on the Motion of the hon. Baronet the Member for Herefordshire (Sir E. B. Lytton). He voted in favour of that Motion, although differing from its object, solely because he was opposed to the Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, just as the hon.

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Member for Montrose had voted against the Motion, although agreeing with it, because he was in favour of the Budget.
MR. KIRKmade an appeal to the Committee in favour of the clergymen of all persuasions, who he thought ought not to bear this tax when their incomes did not exceed 150 l.
Question put, "That the words 'limited and restricted under this Act' stand part of the Clause."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 205; Noes 49: Majority 156.
MR. BARROWwas understood to be enforcing on the Government the necessity of introducing a provision into the clause allowing farmers to make deductions from their profits of any interest which they might have had to pay for money borrowed. He thought that the principle of assessing farmers on the rent, rather than by profits, subjected them in this respect to much injustice; and he could not see why, at all events, where money had been raised by them, that they should not be placed in as advantageous a position as landlords under similar circumstances.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERbegged to be excused if he did not apprehend very readily the suggestions of the hon. Member. As far as he understood the proposition, the hon. Member stated that a landlord who was charged with income tax on 120 l. a year on rents accruing, would obtain a return of the tax on proving that he was liable to the payment of 25 l. a year for money borrowed, and he asked why the tenant should not have the same privilege? His answer was that the tenant had the same privilege, by means of appeal, when he might show what he really had and what he owed; but if it was desired that the tenant should have an allowances for his debts, irrespective of the amount of his income, that he confessed seemed to him a very unfair principle.
Amendment withdrawn.
MR. W. MICHELLthen proposed—
"To leave out from the word "than," the word "as," in line 11, in order to insert "five hundred pounds a year for the year of the assessment of his profits or gains, shall be entitled to be relieved from all the said duties assessed upon or paid by him on the first hundred pounds, and from so much of the said duties on four hundred pounds a year assessed upon and paid by him."
The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to remit duties
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from such trashy articles as camphor and rose-water, while he imposed taxation upon the poor miserable clerk, who slaved for 100 l. a year.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERopposed the Motion.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman report progress."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 31; Noes 130: Majority 99.
The House resumed. Committee report progress.
The House adjourned at half after One o'clock till Monday next.

MINUTES.
Took the Oaths.—The Lord Kilmaine.
PUBLIC BILLS.—3a County Elections Polls (Scotland).

CRYSTAL PALACE (SYDENHAM).
The EARL of SHAFTESBURY presented a petition from Chaplains of Her Majesty's Prisons in and near the Metropolis against the opening of the Exhibition (Sydenham) on any part of the Lord's Day.
LORD BROUGHAM presented a petition of a different nature, from a Gentleman who certainly was well entitled to be heard on any subject connected with education, having been one of its greatest promoters not only in England but in Europe—he meant Mr. Robert Owen. That gentleman stated in his petition, that he considered that the Crystal Palace was better adapted for the education of the working classes and the poor, than any other means that could be resorted to; and he prayed their Lordships, therefore, that the Crystal Palace might be opened on Sunday, though not at such times as to interfere with divine service. He believed that exhibitions of this kind, would prove a great cheek on the temptations held out by the gin palaces, and would lead the lower classes to look to higher sources of enjoyment. He was shocked to perceive, from statistics lately published in Scotland, the extent to which this vicious habit was carried in that country. In Glasgow, the people began upon Saturday, and continued over Sunday immured in those receptacles of debauchery and immorality. In Edinburgh, a calculation had been made upon exact enumeration, and it had been found that upon one Sunday, the frightful number of 44,000 persons entered the doors of the public-houses in that city on the Lord's Day. Mr. Owen and others—for he was not singular in his views—were of opinion, that

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it would be impossible to devise a worse mode of keeping the Sabbath than at present, and that it would be far better and more useful if people would resort to such places as the Crystal Palace. He (Lord Brougham) had always been of opinion that the Crystal Palace was likely to be in other respects highly beneficial, and, above all, he was anxious to set up the Crystal Palace as a rival of the gin palace. The only question was, whether it ought to be opened on the Sunday. In favour of that view he had adduced the Scotch statistics, and he would only further mention the authority of the Rev. J. Griffith, the venerable incumbent of Aberdare, in North Wales, a parish in which there were more extensive mining operations carried on than in almost any other in the kingdom, and in which there were 16,000 workmen. That clergyman was a very great enemy to shutting up the Crystal Palace on the Sunday, except during divine service; and he was further in favour of Sunday trains, stating that, were it not for them, we should have ten times more Sabbath-breaking in this country than at present.
Petitions ordered to lie on the table.

RUSSIA AND THE PORTE.
The EARL of MALMESBURY: My Lords, I must beg pardon of your Lordships for proposing to transpose the order of the notices which I gave your Lordships for this evening; but I believe that it will be more convenient to my noble Friend opposite (the Earl of Clarendon) that I should commence the business of the night by putting the question to him which stands upon the Votes, with reference to the negotiations now pending between Russia and the Porte. Your Lordships, in common with the public, must have been for the last fortnight well aware of the importance of the affairs now said to be going on at Constantinople. We have heard that negotiations of a most important character have been proceeding there for some short time; but we have received no account as yet which can reassure the public mind with respect to the issue of those proceedings. My Lords, upon the 25th of April the noble Earl opposite, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in answer to a question which was put to him, reassured the public and the House by telling us that he had received the most solemn promise from the Emperor of Russia with respect to his intentions and propositions—his in-
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tentions towards the Porte, and his propositions to that Power. I was, unfortunately, not present myself, when the noble Earl (the Earl of Clarendon) spoke upon that occasion, because no notice had been given by the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Clanricarde) of the question he was about to put. I was consequently absent—a circumstance which I much regret, seeing that the whole question was peculiarly interesting to me. But, upon that occasion what the noble Earl stated to the House certainly reassured us with respect to any suspicions that might have been entertained of the policy and intentions of Russia towards the Ottoman Porte. I regret to say—a regret which is shared in common with me by thousands in this country—that whatever may be the issue of the events, appearances have not as yet justified the promise held out to the public by the noble Earl. We understood, if we understood anything, that the object of the embassy of Prince Menschikoff to Constantinople was principally to settle disputes concerning the Holy Shrines with the French Government. If his object were confined to that point, it was clear to everybody that England could have no interest, personally, in the matter; and therefore, if no other question were to be considered at Constantinople, we, when we heard that statement, were reassured upon the subject. But since the speech of the noble Earl, namely, upon the 5th of this month, I believe, Prince Menschikoff, having settled his differences with the French Government and the Ottoman Porte on the question of the Holy Shrines, came forward with a perfectly different and new proposition, involving other points of much greater importance to Europe generally and to this country, of course, as one of the great Powers of Europe. Of course, I speak, my Lords, under correction, becaese what I say upon the subject with respect to the facts of the propositions of Prince Menschikoff, I have only learnt from the same sources which are open to all your Lordships; but I have not seen the statements contradicted, as they probably would have been if they had been incorrect. It appears, then, that upon the 5th of May Prince Menschik off proposed to, or rather, I should say, demanded of the Ottoman Porte that a convention should be signed between the Sultan and the Emperor of Prussia securing to the Greek subjects of the Porte all the privileges and immunities which they had enjoyed at any

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time previous to the present Sultan's reign, or which by himself had been granted to those subjects, and accepting Russia as the guarantee, through a treaty, for seeing those privileges and immunities perpetually secured, I will not detain your Lordships by describing what I consider the result of such a treaty would be if it were signed by those two Powers, further than to say that I consider it exactly analogous to a proposition or demand being made by some great Catholic country to the Sovereign of England insisting that our Sovereign should sign with them a treaty which should secure to our Roman Catholic subjects in Ireland the immunities and privileges which Parliament has hitherto granted them—privileges like those given by the Bill of 1829, and others of a similar nature. My Lords, it must be evident to all your Lordships, that if such a treaty as that Prince Menschikoff has proposed were signed between Turkey and Russia, Russia would become the arbiter between the Sultan and his subjects—would become, indeed, de facto the ruler of a great part of that Sovereign's subjects; and I need not tell your Lordships what effect that must have upon the general balance of power in Europe, and upon all those opinions which, I believe, are entertained upon both sides of the House with respect to the great importance of keeping, the Turkish empire in a state of integrity and independence. Another remarkable circumstance with reference to that proposition is, that it was made at once an ultimatum. I do not pretend to any great experience in diplomatic customs, but it certainly struck me as most unusual that the first proposition should be at the same time an ultimatum. If a treaty had been violated, or if there had been any dispute as to the interpretation of a treaty, I could understand that a proposition might be made in an arbitrary manner demanding an ultimatum, But this was entirely a new proposition. It had never been heard of, or suspected, or apprehended before; and the way, as I understand it, if I am rightly informed, in which it was proposed to the Porte, was in the offensive character of an ultimatum. The questions which I wish to put the noble Earl are, in the first place, whether I have given a correct description of the demands made by Prince Menschikoff upon the Porte; and, in the next place, whether, considering as I do, that the interests of France and this country are identical upon this subject—I do not mean
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with reference to the Holy Shrines, but with reference to the proposition of Prince Menschikoff—considering, I say, that our interests are identical, I wish to ask the noble Earl whether the instructions given to Lord Stratford are identical with those given to the French Ambassador at Constantinople—whether these two diplomatists are acting in union upon this matter—and whether, when thus acting under their instructions, they are supporting the credit and independence of the Porte?
The EARL of CLARENDON: My Lords, I can assure your Lordships that there is no unwillingness on my part to answer the inquiries which have been addressed to me by my noble Friend opposite, still less to withhold from your Lordships any information upon a subject with respect to which, as my noble Friend said, you must naturally be most anxious, and which has claims of an important nature upon your attention. I am sure, therefore, I shall not be accused of a want of courtesy to my noble Friend who so recently filled the office which I have now the honour to hold, or to your Lordships, if I ask him not at this time to press for information which I believe it would be contrary to the interests of the public service for me to give with respect to negotiations that may still be pending. Your Lordships will, I am sure, still less urge me to express the opinion that my noble Friend has called for, when I tell your Lordships that the dates of the last official despatches which we have received from Lord Stratford are of the 9th of May. A short time prior to that, as my noble Friend has stated, the question of the Holy Places, which involved a grave offence offered to the Emperor of Russia by the violation of an engagement towards him by the Turkish Government, had been satisfactorily settled. I am happy to state that the friendly and judicious offices of Lord Stratford had promoted that settlement, and that those good offices had been duly acknowledged. It is also true, as my noble Friend has stated, that on the 5th of May a project of convention was presented to the Porte by Prince Menschikoff; but it has not been proved that it was presented as an ultimatum. It is true an answer was required in five days; but the best proof that it was not an ultimatum is, that I believe other notes have since been exchanged. Lord Stratford, writing upon the 9th inst., states, that he is not able to inform us what answer would be given by the Porte; and that is really the whole

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of the official information that we have received. Other information has of course reached Her Majesty's Government, in common with the public, by means of the electric telegraph, because, now-a-days, no small portion of diplomatic business is transacted by means of that discovery. This is a very useful and convenient appliance in some respects, but it is perplexing in others, because, though it announces facts and events, it seldom announces the causes which have led to those events, and it is difficult to act, therefore, with confidence upon the information which it conveys. Upon the 10th, for instance, we received by the telegraph an announcement that Prince Menschikoff's note had been absolutely rejected by the Porte; but we do not at all know upon what ground the step had been taken. We know, also, that Redschid Pacha is now Minister for Foreign Affairs; we know that a fresh note has been presented, and that a fresh delay has occurred; and we know that on the 20th Prince Menschikoff was still at Constantinople; but we do not know whether all negotiations are at an end. I think I can, therefore, in these circumstances, appeal to your Lordships whether it would not be in the highest degree improper and impolitic on my part if I were to pretend to give a correct account of the events which had occurred at Constantinople, and still more to express an opinion upon them. But, in answer to my noble Friend's question whether the policy to which I alluded in answer to the speech of the noble Marquess near me some weeks ago was still the policy of this country, I conceive it is hardly necessary for me to say that the policy of this Government has undergone no change; that we look upon it as the true policy, and to the manifest advantage of this country, as due not only to our own interests but to the best interests of Europe, and as necessary to its tranquillity, to uphold the independence of the Turkish empire. In answer to the question as to the understanding of the Ambassadors of France and England at the Porte, I have no hesitation in stating that they take the same view of the question, that they act in concert in the matter, and, so far, have carried out the wishes and intentions of their respective Governments, between whom there exists a complete identity of feeling on this subject, and a cordial concert in action.
The EARL of HARDWICKE: My Lords, while I accept the answer of the noble
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Earl as the only answer he is in a position to give, and will not, of course, press for fuller information, I must at the same time say that I think it will prove very unsatisfactory to the people at large on a question of this nature. It is impossible to look at the whole state of the question with reference to Turkey without remarking with astonishment the manner in which these approaches have been made on the part, of Russia to the Sultan. Not only has there been sent as ambassador to Constantinople one of the most eminent officers of the Russian Empire, but he is accompanied with an enormous retinue—the general who commands the forces being one of its members—and officers have been despatched to various parts of the Turkish dominions for the purpose of ascertaining the feelings of the people with regard to their rulers and with regard to Russia; and from the information we possess we are led to believe that a large fleet of ships is ready to act at a moment's notice. Whatever may have been the diplomatic movements, no exertions of any description have been made to meet the emergencies which may follow. What has this country-done to extend security to our ancient ally? Where is that active determination which we have heretofore manifested to uphold the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire? The impression now made on the mind of the Emperor of Russia must be very different to that made on his mind on a former occasion. It has invariably been the policy of this country not only to hold by the integrity of the Turkish Empire, but from time to time, whenever it has been threatened, we have thought it right to despatch our naval forces in order to show that we were prepared not only to talk but to act. At the latter end of the year 1849, simply because the Sultan refused to eject from his dominions three individuals, we thought it necessary not only to hold the strongest language to both Austria and Russia, but to couple that language with a most powerful and efficient force, which not only appeared in the Archipelago, but actually entered the Dardanelles. The question was at once settled; and I believe if the same course of policy had been pursued in the present instance, we should never have heard threats held out, or seen demonstration made, of invading the independence of the Porte by the description of embassy which has now visited. Constantinople. It is not surprising that the

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public and your Lordships should feel a deep interest in Turkish affairs. Any one who knows the condition of the Russian force, and the facility with which Constantinople can be reached, must know that if once taken possession of by that Power, it would be utterly in vain to proceed to the rescue. In such an event, Russia would become possessed of the largest maritime places that exist in those countries, and the Emperor could immediately man his ships and increase his forces to an incalculable extent, for he would become the owner and possessor of the great maritime places in the Mediterranean, now held by the Turks, and of the islands of the Greek Archipelago and their race of seamen, the best in that part of the world. I should like to know what would be the inevitable consequences of such a course to this country and France, Our entire system of policy would be overthrown, and in these days we should hare a hard fight to maintain our own position.
LORD BEAUMONT: I agree with the noble Earl opposite both in the gravity of the circumstances and the necessity for our being firm and resolute. I go further, and even agree with him in the opinion that if, at an early period, we, in concert with France, had made a demonstration, we might have prevented the difficulties which have arisen, and which now exist. But, though I regret the indecision which marked our actions in the commencement of this serious affair, I have little doubt of the final result, and have no difficulty in placing my firm confidence both in the noble Earl who conducts the Foreign Affairs of the country, and in the noble Lord who is now our representative at Constantinople. When I hear the noble Earl repeat his clear conviction and his resolution to act in conformity with that conviction, as to the necessity of maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, I can have no doubt that he, and the Government to which he belongs, will exert every means to carry out that resolution, and spare no effort to maintain that integrity; and I have as little doubt that those means will be sufficient, and those efforts successful. I am sure, also, that due instructions have been given to our. Ambassador at Constantinople how to act under the carious circumstances which may possibly arise. What those instructions are, I know not but of this I am convinced, that they are such as suit the dignity of this country, and do not derogate from the independence
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of the Porte. Although I regret to see that the affair has been prolonged, I still feel confident that the result will be that which your Lordships most warmly desire, namely, the maintenance of the independence and integrity of our important ally. I must say, however, that though I regret that this painful affair has been protracted, yet I believe that good has come out of evil, and that something has been gained even by the wrong that has been done. I believe that the insolent act of sending an embassy composed of the commanders of the naval and military forces, and of sending agents throughout the country to ascertain the feelings of the people towards their sovereign, has had a very advantageous result. If I am rightly informed—and I have every reason to believe that my information is correct—the result of the investigation made by the naval and military men both in the capital and in the provinces, has conveyed to the mind of the Russian Minister—and through him will be conveyed to the Emperor of Russia—the conviction that Turkey is not the weak Power he had anticipated, but that she possesses the means of a great and protracted resistance, should the autocrat violate his plighted word, and proceed to hostilities. But something more has been done. Europe as well as the Emperor have been undeceived as to the state of the Turkish population. Throughout the length and breadth of the Turkish Empire the most perfect tranquillity exists; the Sultan's subjects are content with his rule, and prepared to manifest their adherence to his rule. Although the Russian emissaries have been trying to raise up the feeling of the Christian population against the Sovereign, the result has been that the very Christian population itself has declared openly and unreservedly that they prefer to be under the government of the Sultan, rather than under the protection of Russia. More than that—the Synod and Patriarch of the Greek Church have not only emphatically expressed their cordial attachment to the rule of the Porte, whose moderation towards the dissenters from the Ottoman faith who live within its rule is so well known to all travellers within the Ottoman dominions, but have disclaimed the wish to be put under the protection of Russia, declaring that they enjoy the most complete toleration that any religious denomination can enjoy; they assert that the most sincere as well as universal veneration for their liberal and enlightened Sovereign

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exists amongst the people of all denominations in that country; and with regard to religious feeling, that their rites are never interfered with, but the Greek Churches are assured and confirmed in all their privileges. But still more, the Greek Church—and let the Emperor of Russia know this—does not consider him as the head of the Greek Church, but hold the Patriarch at Constantinople to be the head of that Church. I believe that the result of a full examination into the resources of the Porte would be a conviction that the conquest of Constantinople is not such an easy matter as some politicians seem to think. For my own part, I believe most firmly that at this present moment Turkey is much stronger than she has been for many years back, and that if there is to be a struggle between her and Russia, that struggle will be a very long one. I could easily bring before your Lordships many facts in confirmation of this opinion; but I shall abstain from asking any further explanations from my noble Friend, because I believe he, in common with all of us, has this question truly at heart; and that if he withholds from us any information, be does so cm the best grounds, and not that he entertains any doubts with regard to what ought to be the real policy of the country. Although, as I have just said, I readily accept the refusal of my noble Friend to go into the matter further on the present occasion, I am glad the question has been put, because the speech in which the question was conveyed, manifests that if the necessity should arise, Her Majesty's Government, in any more active policy they may deem it expedient to adopt, will receive the support of noble Lords opposite.
LORD BROUGHAMsuggested the propriety, or at any rate the great convenience, of here closing this discussion, which was premature, at all events, inasmuch as they were in absolute ignorance of nine parts out of ten of the whole facts of the case; and which might be mischievous, inasmuch as there Were now pending negotiations on the subject which were as important as they were difficult, and as delicate as they were important. Considering the evident inutility and the possible mischief of such a discussion, he thought they should let it drop.

SUCCESSION TAX ON REAL PROPERTY.
The EARL of MALMESBURY The EARL of MALMESBURY moved, that a Select Committee be appointed to in-
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quire into the probable effect of extending to the case of successions to real property and property under settlement the stamp duties now payable in respect of legacies. In bringing forward this Motion, be was not influenced, in the remotest degree, by any party or political spirit, and he could therefore promise that, as far as he was concerned, none such should enter into the discussion of it. His feeling was, simply, that their Lordships' House was the most fitting place for a preparatory inquiry into the very important subject in question, because it evidently was composed of persons the least in the world personally interested in the question. The greater number of their Lordships had already succeeded to the property which they could in the course of nature expect, and therefore they could not be suspected, in discussing the question, of allowing any of those selfish motives to influence them, of which others might, though unjustly, be accused. When the late Government fell, in consequence of their financial policy not being accepted by the House of Commons, it became obvious that one of the very first questions which the succeeding Government most take up, was that of financial policy. His right hon. Friend (Mr. Disraeli), with all his genius and talent, having prepared and brought forward a proposition of finance of such comprehensiveness and magnitude, it was naturally to be expected that his great Parliamentary antagonist would attempt, in an honest and honourable rivalry, to bring forward a measure equally important. He was not surprised, therefore, that Mr. Gladstone should have brought all his powers of mind to bear upon the subject, and originated a proposition of similar magnitude. But he had not expected, any more than their Lordships, any more than the public, or, he believed, any more than some of the right hon. Gentleman's Colleagues, that he would have dealt with the subject of a succession tax on real and settled property, inasmuch as the difficulties of that subject had never been exaggerated, though painted in vivid colours by every statesman whose speeches were left to us for the last century. But the right hon. Gentleman had faced that difficulty; and a Bill was now printed which proposed that a succession tax on real and settled property should become the law of the land. He (the Earl of Malmesbury) at once admitted the justice, abstractedly, of the principle of taxing the succession to one kind of

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property, if you taxed that to another. But this was not merely an abstract question; it was one of necessity first, and of possibility afterwards. Supposing it to appear absolutely necessary, Parliament had then to consider the difficulties which stood in the way. It appeared to him that this question of a tax on succession to realty was one of which both Houses, and indeed the whole country, were profoundly ignorant—certainly, in comparison with the other great questions to which, of late years, they had applied their attention. It had not been before Parliament since 1796, which involved a lapse of time including two generations; and perhaps that would account for the evident inferiority of the recent debates upon this subject in another place to those upon other subjects, not more important, but upon which there was more general information. That information, sufficient to afford them a fair insight into the probable working of Mr. Gladstone's proposition, it was most desirable that they should in some measure obtain, and nowhere, he thought, could they do so, better than before a Committee of their Lordships' House, to whose Members no personal motives could be imputed, and whose powers would enable them to examine witnesses upon oath. That Committee could examine the first solicitors and conveyancers of the country; men of great experience in these matters, and who could give such information on the subject as would be useful to the Government, to the Opposition, and to all interested in the operation of this measure. For himself, he was not in a position to offer any opposition, for he confessed himself as ignorant as most people must be upon the measure. This much, though, was to be said against it, that we had extant the opinions of men and the history of facts which certainly did not encourage us to proceed—at least not rashly—in supporting Mr. Gladstone's proposition. The question was brought before Parliament on the 21st of April, 1796, when Pitt proposed that a succession tax should be laid on real property. Mart the events then taking place to justify the proposition. Bonaparte was at that moment crossing the Alps into Italy; Nelson had not gained any of those great victories which were to sweep the French navy from the sea. An immense war and an invasion were threatening this country. England stood alone among all nations, as she had lately done to her honour and happiness, the only point on which the hopes of Eu-
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rope rested. It was impossible for a Minister, under such circumstances, not to feel that any tax which the emergencies of the country required was justified. Mr. Pitt brought forward that proposition. He was met by Mr. Sheridan, by Mr. Grey, and by Mr. Fox. He was defeated, and could not carry this tax even in the plenitude of his power; but the hon. Member said he was beaten by the country Gentlemen. That was not the case. The first person who opposed the proposition was Alderman Newman—a person of great personal property in the city of London; he opposed it with great vehemence, and he made this memorable remark, that if they had the succession tax, this country, which was the best to live in, would be the worst to die in. Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan opposed the measure; and he would read the few pithy words in which Mr. Fox expressed his opinion as to a succession tax on realty. He said—"Of all the shapes in which despotism could exist, a tax on the succession to land was the most odious." What did Mr. Sheridan say? He said, that "the present was the most execrable measure of finance that ever came before Parliament." That showed the animus of the speakers; and Mr. Fox was no leviathan of land, Mr. Sheridan was no territorial aristocrat; but they were men who opposed injustice wherever they met with it, and detested it the more when it was practised under the garb of official impartiality. The opinions of such men did warrant some apprehension as to the effect of such a tax, and justified him in asking their Lordships, before deciding on the question, to inquire calmly into it. He had no doubt that, if the Committee were granted, they would go into the whole question of the justice of any succession tax at all. It could hardly be avoided, and he saw no objection whatever to that result. He thought a succession tax was one that was commonly called a war tax—one which urgent necessity alone could justify. That was the manner in which it was defended by Mr. Pitt, and he saw no reason for thinking it had changed its nature and properties; but if they went into the question, and also into the justice and policy of a succession tax upon real property as well as upon personal property, they would find the case was one of great difficulty. The first impression made on his mind, when he heard of a succession tax on real property was, that it would at once change the entire character of the estates which

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were held in this country. Their Lordships did not, as was formerly the case, hold directly under the Crown. In former days the Crown might and did—it was the condition of the tenure—send a commission to have a valuation of the rental of a Lord who had died, and a succession tax upon that was paid; but many of their Lordships had inherited their estates, large and small—and it was the same with the humblest freeholder as with the Peer—absolutely, with a right to give away the same, or mortgage them, as they pleased; but surely now the whole nature of that property would be altered, when they put a tax upon it which was to be paid by the heir before he could take possession of the estate to which he had succeeded: with a succession tax, on the payment of which depended the right to hold the property, the property became of the same nature as that for which a fine was payable on renewal. But he must do the justice to the right hon. Gentleman who proposed this tax to say that he had not overlooked the difficulties of the question, and that some of them had met him in a very disagreeable manner. He had read with very great care the first and second speeches of the right hon. Gentleman on this subject, and, having also read the Bill which the right hon. Gentleman was about to bring into the House of Commons, he found that the right hon. Gentleman had thought fit—and as he considered wisely—to alter it very considerably from what he had at first intended to propose. For example, the right hon. Gentleman intended at one time, after having taken the value of a man's life interest in an estate which he inherited—supposing the estate were entailed—to leave it alone until he converted his estate, or any part of it, into money, and when that took place the succession tax was to be paid on the purchase money received. He saw the right hon. Gentleman had abandoned that point, and he thought he was right, for it would have led to endless litigation and inconvenience. But the right hon. Gentleman was also mistaken in another point. If he understood the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman rightly, the right hon. Gentleman said he considered the term of a generation was thirty years. He was convinced the right hon. Gentleman was wrong in that calculation. Their Lordships well knew that the average at an insurance office of human life, taking one with another, was generally about seven and a half years. They had
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only to take the record of themselves and their families, called the Peerage, and to read fifty pages of that book, and they would find, although their Lordships had the best chance, above all the rest of Her Majesty's subjects, to live long and happy lives, they would see how much the Chancellor of the Exchequer was mistaken in calculating a term of thirty years to a generation, and that the average was twenty-two years. But one of the principal arguments used by the right hon. Gentleman was, that great frauds were committed, and that more stringent, and consequently more expensive, machinery was required to prevent them. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had exaggerated the amount of frauds under the present system. He had seen several solicitors upon this point, and they had all told him that nothing could exceed the exaggeration of the fear that a man would, to evade the succession tax, hand over his property by deed of gift to any person during his own life. Out of five solicitors whom he had spoken to on the subject, there was only one who knew of any such case, and that one, who was in extensive practice, knew but of two such cases in an experience of thirty-four years. But he would point out what appeared to him to be some of the most evident difficulties in carrying out this scheme. If the Bill should pass, let them consider the case of property heavily mortgaged—mortgaged as far as it would bear—up to three-fourths of the value. Suppose the property was in the hands of a minor—and he would assume, as the right hon. Gentleman was made to say, that the succession tax was to be made the first charge—how was the money to be raised upon the narrow margin left to the minor; the margin meaning all that was left to satisfy the previous mortgagees, who were to be ousted as far as the succession tax was concerned? The minor would be hard pressed between the two fires of the mortgagees and the Government to obtain the little rental that remained. Then, again, originally the term for which the estate was to have been held, was restricted to four years. It was true the right hon. Gentleman had added another year of grace, because, apparently, not having any land of his own, he was not aware that the year a man came into his inheritance was the worst of his life, for he lost the amount his father gave him, and did not get a shilling of his rents. But if any period was to be fixed, why should it be four years?

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Why should not the period he ten, or twenty, or thirty years? The reason of naming four years was to get as much as possible out of the land during a man's life; and, therefore, the best thing that could happen to the Government would be that every man should die after he had held his property four years. But there was a case that struck him as one of great cruelty, and for which he did not see that any provision was made by this Bill. It was the case of officers killed in action. He could instance cases of two, three, or even four brothers falling in battle within a very short time of each other, leaving children wholly dependent upon the property successively coming to these brothers. He could give them proof of officers falling in battle, having very small properties—as was particularly the case in the Highlands—worth perhaps 100 l. a year; and was it right or just that, when they fell in the cause of their country, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should hasten to put his hands into the pockets of the orphan, and take from him, young as he was, and therefore the more helpless, a poundage on the miserable property left to him by his parent? But what seemed most to have staggered the public with regard to this scheme—for no one would dispute the abstract principle that realty should be taxed as well as personalty—had been mainly the tax upon settled property. In the eye of the law that property amounted to a purchase. It had been purchased by some persons for many years. In the case of marriage settlements, men who had been married thirty years or more, but who had not yet come into possession of their wives' property, would find themselves become subject to post facto legislation, this being as to them a retrospective law. Every one of their Lordships and Her Majesty's other subjects, who had not yet touched any part of their property settled upon themselves at their marriage, and who were waiting for the determination of the previous estates, would have to pay a succession tax upon that property whenever it came to them; and that after they had made in the eye of the law a purchase of that property. Although the right hon. Gentleman did not scruple to lay his hands upon that purchased and settled property hitherto held sacred, he did exempt some property to an enormous amount, and that was in the case of corporations—they were only to pay for property that accrued to them hereafter: the
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law had no retrospective action for them. Then he did not quite understand how the right hon. Gentleman meant to deal with the property of the Church. The right, rev. Prelates were corporations sole. Were, they to be exempted from the operation of the Bill? But if Church property was not to be exempt, he would tell the right rev. Prelates that they would stand in this position—as they did not inherit by relationship they would be burdened with the full 10 per cent tax; and if he were told that the tax would be paid by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners because the bishops were paid fixed sums, yet that could not be said of the working clergy. He wanted to know, therefore, whether Church property was to pay the tax, and, if so, was the tax to be 10 per cent? There was another class of property which, so far as he could see mentioned in the Bill, must be taxed if the system was consistently carried out. He wanted to know whether heirlooms, such as pictures, books, plate, &c., coming to a man holding an estate in tail, were to be taxed? It appeared to him that if the Bill was consistently carried out they must be valued, and the tax paid upon them; but that would be hardly just, because the party coming into possession of them had no power to sell them, nor raise one shilling upon them. With respect to timber, on looking at this Bill, he saw that ornamental timber on an estate was to be valued, and the tax paid upon it. But how was that tax to be raised? They were to appoint a valuer to inspect and value the timber; but he would ask those of their Lordships who had sold or purchased an estate upon which there was either a great deal or only a small quantity of timber to recollect what enormous expense and trouble they had had in having a valuation of the timber made. Then, again, this might happen three or four years, and in each instance, from the change in the timber, a fresh valuation must be made. If the valuer made a mistake—if he sent in an assessment not pleasing to the Commissioners, they might send down their own appraiser; and if he gave a greater assessment than the first, there were three or four clauses in the Bill which he advised their Lordships to read, that they might see how in this country, where a constitutional Government existed, it did not prevent their being liable to as severe a law as any that was ever propounded by a despotic monarch. Then, as to the value of mines; that value could hardly be ascer-

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tained, because a vast quantity was under ground, and it might be worth, as he was told was the case on one estate, 10,000,000 l. All the machinery that was brought to bear on timber property was to be brought on mines. It appeared to him, also, that when a man got a reversion which he had purchased, he would have to pay on it. That, certainly, would be an ex post facto law. Also, the owners of landed property were to pay when the jointures of widows fell in, as so much accruing to their property. That being the case, of course they would have to pay the succession duty for legacies given to servants and persons of that kind, when those legacies fell in. Supposing a gentleman left 100 l. a year to his butler, the latter, not being a relative, would have to pay 10 per cent duty, and, when he died, the heir in possession, being no relative to the butler, would also be called on to pay 10 per cent on the falling in of the legacy. Was that just? Again, there was the settlement on younger children, which was very common in this country; and when a man came into an estate under these circumstances, how was the Chancellor of the Exchequer to treat him? Sums varying from 5,000 l. to 20,000 l. were often apportioned among a number of children. Supposing there were three children, and the two younger children were provided for by a settlement of 10,000 l. each out of an estate worth 30,000 l., would the Chancellor of the Exchequer charge the heir upon his actual interest of 10,000 l., or his possible interest of 30,000 l.? There were difficulties in such cases; and he had only named them to show the strong necessity for an investigation of this question. He might refer to four clauses of the Succession-tax Bill, to show the inquisitorial character of that measure. Who were the persons to be accountable, according to this Bill, for the duty? "Every trustee, guardian, committee, or husband." They were to give notice—
"to the Commissioners or to their officers of their liability to such duties, and shall at the same time deliver to the Commissioners or to their officers a full and true account of the property for the duty whereon they shall respectively he accountable, and of the value thereof, and of the deductions claimed by them, together with the names of the successor and predecessor, and their relation to each other, and all such other particulars as shall be necessary or proper for enabling the Commissioners fully and correctly to ascertain the duties due; and the Commissioners, if satisfied with such account and estimate as originally delivered, or with any amendments that may be made therein
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upon their requisition, may assess the succession duty on the footing of such account end estimate; but it shall be lawful for the Commissioners, if dissatisfied with such account and estimate, to cause an account and estimate to be taken by any person or persons to be appointed by themselves for that purpose, and to assess the duty on the footing of such last-mentioned account and estimate, subject to appeal, as hereinafter provided; and if the duty so assessed shall exceed the duty assessable according to the return made to the Commissioners, and with which they shall have been dissatisfied, and if there shall be no appeal against such assessment, then it shall be in the discretion of the Commissioners, having regard to the merits of each case, to charge the whole or any part of the expenses incident to the taking of such last-mentioned account and estimate on the interest of the successor in respect whereof the duty shall be due, in increase of such duty, and to recover the same forthwith accordingly; and, if there shall be an appeal against such last-mentioned assessment, then the payment of such expenses shall be in the discretion of the court of appeal hereinafter appointed."
Then, with regard to penalties the Bill enacted:—
"If any person required to give any such notice or deliver such account as aforesaid shall neglect to do so, he shall be liable to pay to Her Majesty a sum equal to 10 l. per centum upon the amount of duty payable by him, or such less sum as such duty, if assessable at the rate of 1l. per centum upon the value of the succession, would amount to, and a like penalty for every month after the first month during which such neglect shall continue; and if any person liable under this Act to pay any duty shall neglect to do so within 21 days after the same shall have become due, he shall also be liable to pay to Her Majesty a sum equal to 10 l. per centum upon the amount of duty so unpaid, or such less sum as such duty, if assessable at the rate of 1l.. per centum on the value of the succession, would amount to, and a like penalty for every month after the first month during which such neglect shall continue."
The provisions of the Bill were such as to make it what any lawyer must declare to be a most tremendous and inquisitorial measure. If that Bill passed into law, who, in God's name, would accept the situation of trustee or guardian? He thought at that stage of the question it would be wrong for him to discuss the general effects which the Bill, if it passed, must have on landed property; but he could not observe without great suspicion the unfeigned joy with which a class of persons not supposed to be especially attached to the ancient institutions of the country and to monarchy had accepted it. If he wished to show how such a measure would undermine the landed interest, not only by the succession duty itself, but by the enormous expenses, difficulties, and litigation to which the proprietors would be subject, he could hardly better illustrate his argument than

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by referring to a family whose name was immortal in this country. When Lord Nelson fell at Trafalgar an estate was settled on him and his heirs by the country. It was but a small estate—very much in proportion to those honours which he thought were rather churlishly given to that great man. But what had occurred since his death? It was now less than fifty years since he fell, and in that time three heirs of Nelson had succeeded to the property. Now, the object of the country in securing to the family that property must have been to maintain the name of Nelson with all the honour it deserved. Yet, if the proposed tax on succession had existed, that property, small as it was for the title and services performed, would have been subject, since 1805 three times to a tax, not of the lowest rate, but of 3 per cent, because the heirs succeeding were collateral. He looked also with apprehension to the passing of this Act, because it was most honestly and fairly stated in the preamble that it was sought to be enacted "towards raising the necessary supplies for defraying your Majesty's public expenses, and making a permanent addition to the public revenue." He must say all his feelings of justice and policy militated against this permanent tax, because he thought it a tax the imposition of which could only be justified in times of war and great national difficulties, such as those times when Mr. Pitt proposed to impose it. If it were made permanent, there would be no security against its being increased at any time hereafter, whenever the Chancellor of the Exchequer was in want of money. He begged their Lordships distinctly to understand that in consequence of the comparative ignorance which prevailed with respect to this important subject, he asked for a Committee to investigate it, and he thought himself justified also in taking that course by the apprehensions expressed by Fox and Sheridan—men far superior to the humble individual who now addressed them, and perhaps to many of their Lordships then present, in their knowledge of public questions. He would candidly say he should enter the Committee with his mind perfectly open to conviction, and if reasons could be found which would justify the proposition of Mr. Gladstone, he should join the admirers and supporters of that Gentleman, in giving him full credit for having added to the means and elements of taxation in this country. The noble Earl concluded by moving, that a
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Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the probable effect of extending to the case of successions to real property and property under settlement the stamp duties now payable in respect of legacies.
The EARL of ABERDEEN: My Lords, I do not deny that the Motion of the noble Earl commends itself to your Lordships by a certain degree of plausibility. It does not seem unreasonable to conclude that a subject so important, so full of difficulties, so complicated, and affecting so directly, so personally, and so nearly your Lordships, is one suited for such an inquiry as that which the noble Earl proposes—an inquiry into the probable effects—for that is the object of the inquiry—of the tax on successions as proposed by Her Majesty's Government. Nevertheless, my Lords, I think there are reasons which ought to induce your Lordships not to support the Motion of the noble Earl, and which are such, at all events, as will prevent me from giving the slightest encouragement to any such Motion. And, first, I beg to call your attention to the time at which this Motion is made. If this were a new subject—if it were a new system of financial policy on which the Legislature had to inquire and make up its mind before coming to a decision—there might be some reason in the proposal; but I beg to refer your Lordships to the fact that this proposition of the Government has been in detail before the other House of Parliament five or six weeks, has been explained at length by my right hon. Friend (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) in all its bearings—that the Resolutions, which were laid on the table of the House of Commons five or six weeks ago, have been adopted within a fortnight by that House, and passed without a division. Then, I say, if in this state of things the noble Earl makes a Motion to inquire into the probable effect of this measure, it is impossible I can accede to such a Motion without also joining in the doubts—nay, more than doubts—which he has expressed, of the wisdom and justice of the measure. Now, whatever course your Lordships may adopt, nothing shall induce me to take any course which may be supposed to express any doubt of the wisdom, justice, or equity of the proposal of the Government. The Resolutions to which I referred, as having been explained by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and adopted by the other House, have been embodied in the form of a Bill, which now stands for a second read-

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ing in the House of Commons. The noble Earl's speech, in truth, has been a speech against the second reading of this Bill, as if it were before your Lordships. The Bill, however, is not before us. Nevertheless, if your Lordships should have this Committee, your Lordships would inquire into all the points adverted to by the noble Earl, as contained in the Bill which I now hold in my hand. Now, your Lordships must be perfectly aware that, be your opinion what it may, and be the result of your Committee what it might, you cannot alter a little of this Bill—not a particle. You may—and this you have the full right to do—throw it out on the second reading. That is perfectly within your Lordships' competence to do—though I will not say how deeply I should regret, as well for the sake of this House as for the sake of the country, that you should adopt so rash and impolitic a course. If, however, I had any doubt as to the propriety of opposing the Motion for a Committee, the noble Earl has furnished me with a reason for so doing; for he has fairly told you that he moves for it for the purpose of showing grounds against, and rejecting the provisions of the measure now under the consideration of the other House of Parliament. Now, the Government are convinced that it is a measure not only wise but just; and even the noble Earl does not pretend to deny the justice of the principle of the measure, but only refers to difficulties of execution. Still, with all due respect for the authority of Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan, I must observe, that we have made great progress in many things since their days—and, among others, certainly in a better comprehension of matters of finance; and I must also declare that in their days the proposition was just, notwithstanding the criticisms they passed on it. The country has long felt the injustice of these exemptions, on the part of the landed interest, from taxation. That feeling has been gaining ground daily; and I ask any of your Lordships whether you can candidly say that you believe it to be possible to maintain the exemption much longer? There is no agitation—no violence—there is no outcry at the present moment, but there is an extended feeling of the injustice and inconsistency of exempting landed property from that duty which is imposed on other property, and property less capable of bearing it. I fairly admit, at once, that this measure for imposing a tax on successions is indispensable
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to carry into effect the financial system as proposed by the Government. It will be impossible without it to effect that which is the substance of the proposal of the Government. The renewal of the income tax for the period of seven years would never have been proposed or thought of unless accompanied with the means—the obvious facility—at the end of that period, of dispensing with it, if Parliament should think fit. Moreover, it would be impossible for us to effect those great and important remissions of duties which will, I hope, give a great increase of prosperity and comfort to the great body of the people of this country, and which have secured for the financial propositions of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer a degree of acceptance and popularity which I have not seen attend any Budget in my day. The noble Earl has done justice to the ability displayed by my right hon. Friend in explaining the financial scheme to Parliament; but he must be prepared to go further, and also admit the singular success with which that scheme has been received, as far as can be collected from the opinions pronounced by persons of all parties and descriptions. Now, it appears to be urged by the noble Earl that this measure, though not of course intentionally, but in its effect, must be injurious to, and is conceived in a spirit hostile to the landed interest of this country. ["Hear, hear!"] Yes—that it is conceived in a spirit hostile to land, just as the measure of my right hon. Friend, the late Sir Robert Peel, was hostile to land. I believe, indeed, that that measure of my late right hon. Friend, so far from being hostile to land, has very much contributed to the safety of the land, and to the freedom with which at this moment we debate upon these measures; and I also believe that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is just the same sort of enemy to the land as the late Sir Robert Peel was. Exaggerations of a most absurd description have been used in reference to this measure. We have heard it said—"Here is a proof of a Conservative Government! They are going to raise a tax of 2,000,000 l. from the land." That is one of the assertions made. Well, it turns out that, by the most accurate calculations that can be made, one-fourth of that sum only is expected to be raised from the land:—the amount from real property is difficult, of course, to calculate, but, taking it altogether, it has been shown, by every calcu-

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lation deserving of credit that could be made that the land will not be affected in any proportion like the other descriptions of property. The noble Earl says, before this measure proceeds further in either House he desires to have an inquiry by Committee. Now, does the noble Earl mean to propose that as a practical course to your Lordships? Do you suppose that with this Bill ready, and after the Resolutions on which it is founded have been so triumphantly sanctioned by the House of 'Commons, you will by your Committee arrest the progress of this Bill? Now, if I were to agree to the Committee, I should be bound, when the Bill comes before this House, as come it unquestionably will, to pause in pressing forward its progress; but I intend to do no such thing. Your Lordships may agree to the Committee, if you think fit; but, I moan, in dealing with this Bill, to take such a course as seems to me most conducive to the interests of the country; for I am thoroughly resolved, on the part of the Government, that the country shall not see that there is the slightest intention to waver or hesitate for an instant in our adherence to our opinion of the wisdom and justice of this measure.
The EARL of DERBYassured their Lordships that he would not detain them upon this subject more than a few minutes. He recollected, on one occasion, during the progress of the Reform Bill, when a vote of confidence in Ministers was before the other House, and when some arguments of great force had been employed against the measure of the Government, Lord Althorp—a man, as their Lordships knew, of singular integrity and worth—in answering the objections of the opposite side, assured the House that the question before them bad been fully considered by the Cabinet, and that he knew there were very good reasons in its favour; but what those reasons were he was wholly unable to state, but he trusted the House would determine to abide by the decision of the Cabinet; that it was a question of confidence, and, though there were good reasons which might be urged upon the subject, they were determined not to go into the argument, and therefore he asked the House of Commons to support the measure of the Government, and reject the arguments which had come from the other side. Now, whether the confidence of the House of Lords was as great in the Government of the noble Earl opposite, as the confidence of the House of Commons ultimately
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proved, to be in the Government with which Lord Althorp was connected, he would not take upon himself to say; but, on the present occasion, the noble Earl had taken the same line of argument, and employed nearly the same words, for he had not attempted to grapple with a single point brought forward in opposition to this measure—to deal with the inequality, the injustice, and the impracticable character of the proposed tax, so forcibly set forward by his noble Friend behind him. But this he had said—"We, the Government, are perfectly satisfied with the justice and expediency of this measure; we will not admit that in a single instance it is capable of improvement; we will not allow your Lordships to consult about the merits of the measure; when it comes from the House of Commons it must be passed by your Lordships, right or wrong; you may inquire as you please, but I have every confidence in the House of Commons as well as in the House of Lords, that it will be ultimately passed by them into a law." Now, he ventured to say, that that was hardly a line of argument which the Prime Minister of this country ought to pursue in that House. He was ready to admit that in matters of finance their Lordships had great difficulty in dealing with what was considered the peculiar province of the House of Commons; but, on the other hand, he conceived that it was not the duty of that House blindly to legislate even on financial matters at the bidding of the House of Commons—still less should the House of Lords comply with the behests of the other House, whatever they might be, whether right or wrong, just or unjust, practicable or impracticable, on whatever question came before them. What they wished to inquire into, and what the noble Earl refused to allow their inquiry into, was as to the fact whether the proposals soon to come before them, were right or wrong, just or unjust, and practicable or impracticable. They did not condemn the proposition of the Government; they were not opposed to the proposition, but they desired to have the means of sifting and inquiring into the nature of it; and he trusted their Lordships would, on this occasion, see the peculiar circumstances of their own position, and that, whatever might be the measures proposed by the advisers of the Crown and adopted by the other House, they would keep in view the co-ordinate privileges which they possessed on all matters of

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legislation. The noble Earl objected to the time at which his noble Friend had brought forward this Motion; but he did not know whether the noble Earl's objections were that the Motion was too early or too late. The noble Earl said, if this was a new question, one which was to the Legislature a new and unventilated proposition, there might be some reason why their Lordships should institute inquiry into its merits; but, six weeks ago, he said, in a speech in the other House of Parliament, one of his Colleagues had fully explained the principle of the measure which he intended to introduce. Now, it was for the first time he had learnt that the speech of a Minister in the House of Commons was a legitimate and Parliamentary ground on which to found a proceeding in their Lordships' House. [The Earl of ABERDEEN said, be did not allude to the speech but to the Resolutions, which were laid on the table of the House of Commons five or six weeks ago.] The noble Earl told them that five or six weeks ago this statement was made of the details, and that the Resolutions were then laid on the table. He did not remember the precise date, but he could tell their Lordships not only the date of the adoption of the Resolutions of which he had talked in such a tone of triumph, but the reason why they were adopted in the manner to which the noble Earl referred. The reason was the unwillingness of those who opposed the Government to subject them to any embarrassment by protracting the discussions on the last day before the adjournment of the House; the Opposition, therefore, consented to waive their objections to the Resolutions, and to allow thorn to be passed without a division in order not to carry the discussion over the recess, and thereby act as an impediment to the public service. It was on that understanding, accompanied by the declaration that by continuing the debate they might impede the public service, that a division was not taken, and on this the noble Earl now thought it decent to raise the triumphant argument as to the passing of the Resolutions without any division. The noble Earl must remember the practice of the House of Commons sufficiently well to know that nothing was more common than to allow resolutions to pass in Committee to enable the Government to introduce a Bill founded on such resolutions; and for these reasons, that they might not act as an obstacle or impediment to the public service, and that
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the members of the Government might have an opportunity fully to explain in all its details the proposition which they intended to submit. On this occasion the House of Commons acted in that spirit, and passed the Resolution, which he thought they hardly would have done if they could have foreseen the use—he would not say the ungenerous use—which the noble Earl had made of their forbearance. But they had not got all the details of this measure. His noble Friend had shown that, since the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the proposition of the Government had been changed in some very material points; and consequently, if on the first announcement their Lordships had proposed to appoint a Committee on the Bill, the Government would have said they were going into Committee upon they knew not what—that the intentions of the Government might change—that the principles of the measure might be altered as well as the details. He would not say that the present Government would ever alter their principles, but they certainly had altered the details of their proposition. They had now the matured measure which the Government intended to submit to the consideration of Parliament; and how long had they had to consider it in that form—how long a period to see by what means the Government proposed to overcome those immense difficulties which the noble Earl did not deny existed? He had in his hand the Bill introduced into the other House of Parliament, as well as the noble Earl, and he found it was ordered to be printed by the House of Commons on the 23rd of May, and he for the first time saw it at eleven o'clock last night. It was a Bill of fifty-five clauses of most complicated legal arrangement, dealing with questions of immense difficulty, and with questions with regard to which legal authorities would tell them the expense, embarrassment, and difficulty, would be enormous, and which would have the effect of throwing into the hands of the gentlemen of the legal profession profits that would amply remunerate them for the loss which legislation on other matters were said to have caused them. Then the noble Earl said they were dealing with a question that was not now before the House; but he did not know whether the complaint was that the question of inquiry had been brought forward too soon or too late, for the noble Earl, having complained that they asked for this inquiry too late, proceeded to say they asked for it too

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soon, because they ought to wait until the Bill was under the consideration of this House. The noble Earl said the speech of his noble Friend was practically a speech for the rejection of the Bill on the second reading. The noble Earl said that course would be perfectly within their Lordships' competence, though it would not be discreet to exercise the powers vested in them by the constitution. He admitted, as the noble Earl said, if this Bill came before their Lordships, he should regret its rejection on the second reading. But then the noble Earl said it was not competent for their Lordships to amend this Bill in Committee. He denied that fact, and asserted it was perfectly competent to amend this Bill, or any part of this Bill. He knew that, according to the privileges of the House of Commons, a Bill so amended in Committee would not be accepted by the House of Commons; and consequently, if Amendments resulted from the inquiry, that House, if they did choose to incur the sacrifice of the measure, would have to introduce another measure in which they might endeavour to meet the reasonable objections urged by their Lordships' House. He admitted with the noble Earl that that was not a convenient course, that it was inconvenient at a late period of the Session to raise objections and make alterations which the House of Commons might not be disposed to agree to, or might find it too late to accept. Therefore, he said this was the time, before the House of Commons had pledged themselves to the principle of the Bill, or to the details, and before its privileges could be in the slightest degree interfered with by the exercise of their Lordships' legitimate powers—now was the time to consider the merits of the plan in a Committee, when objections raised might be acquiesced in by the reason and good sense of the other House, without any interference with their privileges, or involving the country in protracted uncertainty and delay. As to argument against the proposition of his noble Friend, he had heard none, except it might be that founded upon the time at which it was brought forward. Still there was one point out of which the noble Earl at the head of the Government seemed to make a great deal, namely, his glorification of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the measures he had brought forward. The noble Earl had spoken of the immense success—almost without precedent—which had attended the financial proposition of the Chancellor
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of the Exchequer. But if all that he (the Earl of Derby) had heard was true, he might be excused for expressing some doubt whether those measures had been received by the public with the favour anticipated by Her Majesty's Government. He had heard, for example, that of one of their propositions for a conversion of a portion of the debt—a proposition involving many millions—the sole result had been its acceptance to the comparatively small amount of 1,400,00 l., and that, with that exception, the whole of the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been dealt with in the City as so much waste paper. Undoubtedly the right hon. Gentleman was a man of great ability, and it might not be his fault that he had not met with the success to which he was entitled from the apparent elaboration of his designs. He (the Earl of Derby) would not say it was a failure; but he must be permitted to doubt whether it was an exemplification of that immense and overwhelming good fortune which had led the noble Earl in a triumphant tone to say that such a Chancellor of the Exchequer had never before been seen; that such knowledge as he possessed had never hitherto been acquired upon any political proposition; and that, after all, he and the rest of Her Majesty's Government were the only parties able to conduct the financial affairs of the country. It was said that the succession duties were to be imposed in order that the income tax might be taken off in the year 1860. That either the noble Earl or himself would live to see the day when the income tax would be taken off, he did not expect; at all events, the argument was, that, in order to take off the income tax in 1860, if Parliament should at that time think it expedient—for the proposition was accompanied with such a condition—it was essential that these succession duties should be imposed. He should be very sorry to say anything which should create any financial embarrassment to the Government; but he would venture to ask them whether they were quite sure of the accuracy of their calculations as to the amount of the income to be derived from the proposed tax on successions? Were the calculations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer so entirely correct as not to lead to some doubt that, under the operation of the tax, he might not be asking for twice as much money as he required? The right hon. Gentleman said that the tax, upon an average, would accrue, in respect

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to all the property affected, once in thirty years. Now, the right hon. Gentleman had had the means of judging to a certain extent of the probable operation of the tax by the experience of the tax upon succession to personal property. If he (the Earl of Derby) was not mistaken, the calculations with respect to successions to personal property were, that about one sixteenth of the whole personal property of the country was brought under the tax each year by the operation of the legacy duties. If this was the case, the average duration of successions was a period not of thirty but of sixteen years; and he was at a loss to know what there was in the possession of landed property which rendered successions to it so much more durable than successions to personal property, or how the same person inheriting landed and inheriting personal property could, at his decease, leave the one and not the other—how he could leave an interval between the succession to one and the succession to the other; how in one case the succession could be after sixteen, and in the other thirty years. Why, in his capacity as owner of real property he must positively outlive himself by a period of fourteen years. He was therefore of opinion—at all events there was primâ facie reason to doubt whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not underrated, by very nearly one half, the recurrence of successions; and, consequently, if he had, he had underrated by one-half the amount of the annual income which would accrue by the tax he was about to propose. With reference to the duration of life, he would ask their Lordships to look at cases which must be within their own knowledge or recollection among the Members of that House. He remembered a case which had occurred within the last few years, where a noble Friend of his, one of the youngest Members of their Lordships' House, had succeeded to a large landed property, with regard to which there had been in two years three successions, and there would have been a fourth had it not been for the fact of the son dying within a few months previously. Now, if the son in this case had survived his father in the ordinary course, there would have been, in the space of only two years, four successions, and four inflictions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's tax upon that property. And a noble Friend near him had reminded him of another case which had occurred in his own person. He was the fourth successor to his property in the course of three years.
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Now, he left their Lordships to say, if that had been property descending, not directly from father to son (and in this case it was not), but succeeded to by one distant relation from another—and their Lordships knew the expense entailed by such a succession—what, after four successions, one after another, there would have been to pay for this tax, upon the calculation that each of them would have sixteen years' possession of the property? He did not propose to take their Lordships again through the cases which had been so forcibly put by his noble Friend, not one of which had been answered by the noble Earl at the head of Her Majesty's Government; but he would venture to suggest one or two which appeared to him to demand consideration. His noble Friend had alluded to the case of heirlooms coming into possession of the tenant for life. Those heirlooms might be of immense and enormous value. Suppose it were the case that any of their Lordships were in possession of an hereditary jewel, such as the Koh-i-noor; he did not know the value of the Koh-i-noor—it might be 1,000,000 l. or 2,000,000 l.—but, whatever its value, the succession tax would have to be paid upon the estimated value of the jewel, measured by the value of the life. The same would occur at the next succession, and the tax would go on being paid on the value of the jewel, though it was producing nothing, and it could not be alienated. You must hold it, and you must pay for it. Why, if you must hold, and could not realise, there was no private property in the world that could stand the succession taxes upon two or three inheritances of the Koh-i-noor. But he would take a much more ordinary case. Take the case of pictures, books, and plate. He did not complain of a tax upon succeeding to that which you had the means of realising, or if the State took a portion of that which devolved upon you; but he did complain that, under the operation of this Act, you would be taxed for that which you could not avoid receiving, for that which you had no means of parting with, and on which you had no means of raising the value for the purpose of defraying the tax itself; but which was, on the contrary, a constant source of expense. At present, if 100,000 l. in money were left to you, you were taxed 3,000 l., and you had the enjoyment of the remaining 27,000 l.; but if you had 100,000 l. worth of pictures, you were taxed upon that amount, whilst the pictures were hung

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upon the walls, and you could not sell them. It might be a hardship to be compelled to part with pictures which had long-been in a family; but at any rate, if you could sell them, there was no positive injustice; but if you could not sell them, as they brought in nothing, but constituted a source of expense, it was a gross injustice to make such property pay the same tax as 100,000 l. in the funds or other property which could be converted into money, and on which the tax might be paid the next morning. His noble Friend had mentioned the cases of several other descriptions of property, wherein, as there was a succession to each beneficial interest, there would be a succession tax. Take the case of tontines. There were, say, a hundred subscribers to a tontine, the last survivor of whom was to obtain the benefit. Of course, as the lives dropped, the interest of those which remained would accrue. The beneficial interest of the survivors increased by the lapse of each life: you would, therefore, be taxed on the reversionary beneficial interest as each life fell in, although, by the terms of the tontine, none except the survivor would derive any pecuniary benefit from it at all. His noble Friend had also put the case of annuities; and here he (the Earl of Derby) asked their Lordships to look at the grossly inquisitorial character of a tax levied as each successive annuity fell in. If a man was left with landed property, charged with forty, fifty, or sixty annuities, including jointures to widows, and other charges of that description, he was, under this Bill, as each annuity fell in, to present himself before the taxing officer, to declare the contingent amount of benefit he got by the lapse of each 100 l. annuity; a fresh calculation was to be made as to the value of his life, and he was to be taxed upon that value. This process was to be repeated as every annuity fell in. Could any system be devised more calculated to produce vexation and annoyance than such a system of perpetual inquisition into what the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been pleased to call the succession to beneficial interests? Again, take the case of trustees. He confessed he had been in some doubt how it was intended, with property under trust, to come at the amount of the property itself; and he had been anxious to see how this would be dealt with by the Bill. In ordinary cases, whatever property was left might be ascertained by the production of the will; but as regarded estates in settlement the will would be silent: it gave no in-
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formation whatever, and you did not know who were the trustees. There was no end to cases in which there were secret family trusts for the purpose of providing for relations or descendants, with regard to which no human being not in the family itself, was cognisant either of the trust or of the trustees. Many of their Lordships must be in the condition of being trustees for property, and trustees under settlements, with regard to which they knew nothing. The property in such cases was under unknown trustees—trustees not discoverable by the will, or by any means we now possessed. Possibly they might be discovered by the registration of assurances and deeds of settlement, but by no other means; but the discovery involved an immense amount of inquisitorial interference and inquiry into the title deeds of property, which might lead their Lordships, and the owners of landed property, into most serious difficulties and embarrassments. It was only, however, by such means, or by the still more violent measure proposed in the Bill, namely, making it penal on the part of trustees not to do that which they had no means of doing—declaring the value and the amount of property for which they acted—that they could ascertain the property to be taxed. Under those circumstances it was not, he maintained, beside the question to look into the machinery and details of the Bill; for the smaller the amounts to be levied, the more cogent the arguments against them. The smaller the amount to be raised under the operation of this Bill, the weaker was the argument of the noble Earl at the head of the Government relative to the effect upon the financial arrangements of the Exchequer, and the more cogent the argument of his noble Friend that it would be unwise, for a paltry sum of 300,000 l. or 400,000 l., to enter into a labyrinth from which no human ingenuity might be able to extricate them, and against adopting a Bill which nothing but the most outrageous tyranny, and the most intolerable inquisition into private affairs, would enable the Government to carry into effect. At the same time he did not ask their Lordships to reject the Bill, but to call for advice, assistance, and explanation with regard to its provisions. They had the measure before them which the Government proposed. He wanted their Lordships to hear its probable operation from the most experienced solicitors, and from men conversant with the business of the legal and financial details involved in it. He wanted, from their

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practical knowledge, to ascertain what would be its result upon the great and small landed properties of the country. He wanted to know what would be the result with regard to settlements, and the succession to property; whether the course of succession to property in this country was to be altogether changed for the purpose of getting 400,000 l. revenue, by the assistance of which, if Parliament should think fit, six or seven years hence, they might get rid of the income tax—the Government themselves having laid good grounds already for the continuance of the income tax, by declaring the necessity of taking off other indirect taxation. He wanted the House to inquire into the practical working of the Bill, into its effect upon the great interests of the country, and by what machinery it could be carried into effect with the least possible pressure of taxation and inquisition. He did not exclude from his consideration the alternative that the result of the inquiry might be that the machinery and oppression might be found so intolerable, and the result so injurious in a political and social sense, and so defective in a financial point of view, that rather than impose such a tax another ought to be imposed—even if it fell upon landed and real property—not based upon the uncertain duration of human life, but upon fair and legitimate calculations of that which landed and real property inherited ought, in comparison with other property, to contribute to the exigencies of the national revenue. This was an inquiry which was within their Lordships' competency; nay, more, it was an inquiry from which if they shrunk they would not be doing their duty to their country. If they were tamely to sit down, and, because the House of Commons had sanctioned a measure which might or might not produce gross injustice, and cut up at the very root and foundation those classes of society of which their Lordships were component parts, shut their eyes and bow their heads in tacit obedience, without remark or inquiry, they would be abdicating the high position they ought to hold, and which they had hitherto held, in the Country. He trusted he should always look with deference and respect to the opinions of the House of Commons; but he also trusted that their Lordships would exercise their own independent judgment, and not be content with merely saying whether, upon the whole, the adoption or the rejection of the Bill might be the greater evil. At all events, their Lord-
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ships would not fear to say that before they legislated they would at least inquire.
EARL GRANVILLEsaid, there was nothing in what had fallen from his noble Friend at the head of the Government to justify the noble Earl in supposing that their Lordships would be called upon to perform an act of passive obedience, and to vote a measure, not yet introduced, without a full and fair discussion. He (Earl Granville) believed, on the contrary, that the observations of his noble Friend had an entirely different meaning, and that the advice he had tendered had the effect of suggesting the part most respectful to the House itself, and most conducive to the future utility of Committees of Inquiry on all subjects of public interest. The noble Earl who proposed this Committee could not expect that the Government would consent to delay the Bill that was to come up from the other House—a Bill forming, not the whole, but a material part of that financial scheme which the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) had himself admitted to be, in all but one point, most successful, and which had been most favourably received, not only in the other House of Parliament, but throughout the whole country; and, indeed, when the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) attempted to controvert the success of that Budget, he could only refer to the fact, that that part of it which had been denounced by his friends in the other House as wanton extravagance, had not been accepted in the City so greedily as might have been anticipated. The course taken by the two noble Earls opposite was somewhat puzzling, and quite inconsistent with each other. The noble Earl who made the Motion based it on the provisions of a Bill which not only was not before their Lordships' House, but which had actually not passed through a single stage in the other House. But the noble Earl was still more inconsistent; for, while he saw no injustice in a tax being equally levied on land and other sources, he entered into an elaborate argument to prove the hardship on the landowners. The noble Earl who spoke last was, however, most inconsistent of all; for, though he said he had no bias against the Bill, and only wished to ascertain its practicability by inquiry, he went, nevertheless, into a long and able detail, to show the great extent of his disagreement with it. The noble Earl (the Earl of Malmesbury) had said that the question had not been brought before Parliament for the last half century, whereas it had been constantly

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agitated and discussed in the House of Commons—
The EARL of MALMESBURYexplained. What he had said was, that the question was never brought forward as a formal proposition since 1796, and a succession tax on real property had only been advocated because there was one on personalty.
EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that made no great difference. In all probability, if any proposition had been made by Government, it would now have been law; but the proposition had been almost annually made by independent Members, and full discussions had ensued thereon. The proposition had been met by the same objections by different Chancellors of the Exchequer, but their arguments certainly appeared to him to be by no means conclusive. As to the unfairness of taking thirty years as the average interval of successions, he would remind the House that in the time of Mr. Pitt the average value of life in this country was taken at thirty-three years; and there could be no doubt that value had since improved, particularly among the higher classes. The objections raised by the noble Earl who spoke last were more specious than real. The noble Earl had put the case of a minor succeeding to an estate mortgaged to a certain amount, and said that he might not have the means of paying the tax on the succession. But the noble Earl had entirely overlooked the fact, that the course proposed in the Bill was to reduce the gross to the net income, and then to get rid of the encumbrances, and to levy the tax on that amount, so that no difficulty would arise in the case supposed. The noble Earl then adverted to the hardship on the inheritors of heirlooms, which could not be sold, and which produced nothing; and he alluded to the hardship of paying a sum of money on succession to the Koh-i-Noor; but there was a most satisfactory answer to this objection, for there was a clause in the Bill which exempted such heirlooms from any tax whatever. The question of timber had been referred to. All ornamental timber in the neighbourhood of houses, such as shrubberies, would be exempted from paying the tax. With regard to the sale and valuation of timber, the person succeeding would have this option: he might either pay the tax Upon the average income of a certain number of years, or, if he did not choose to take that alternative, he might have the whole timber valued, and then calculate the
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tax upon the probable duration of his life at 3 per cent. The same principle would be adopted with regard to mines; and, if there was no value in a mine, no tax would be imposed upon it. As to widows, the case rather broke down. The noble Earl said that the son or heir to the person who left the widow, would have to pay the tax upon succeeding to the jointure when it came to him from the widow. But it should be remembered, that in valuing the estate, the widow's charge would be taken off the valuation; and when it ultimately descended to the heir, he had only to pay the tax upon that which he had not received at an earlier period. The same principle would apply to the case suggested, where an annuity was settled on a servant. When it fell in, and the owner of the estate derived an accession of property to that amount, he would pay pro tanto upon that, not 10 per cent, but according to his degree of consanguinity to the original proprietor. As to trustees, the machinery of the Bill was exactly the same as had existed for more than fifty years with respect to leaseholds, as well as mere money or personal property. During that time there had been exactly the same machinery and the same liability; yet trustees had executed trusts, and, as he was informed, not a single question had arisen in law as to the value of the properties so dealt with. With regard to successions in a short number of years, there would actually be a saving by the proposition of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In tontines nobody would pay till they actually received the money and became beneficial successors, and upon that succession the tax would be paid. Small landed proprietors would be taxed in proportion to their interest in the estate, and to those the Bill would be a positive advantage. He hoped that their Lordships would not, after the request of the noble Earl at the head of the Government, insist upon having a Committee on this question. He did not believe it would weaken the Government the least in carrying out the Bill, though it might have an unfortunate effect on public opinion as regarded that House. He entirely agreed with the noble Earl opposite in scouting the idea that their Lordships could be moved by any petty personal motives; but there was no doubt that their prejudices—for everybody had their prejudices—were bound up with the landed interest. He believed that their Lordships' House stood higher in the estimation of the public than it had done almost at any

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previous time; and this was not so much owing to the individual merit of Peers—for the House had always been remarkable for the splendid abilities of individual Members—but to the general feeling that their interests were the same as those of all other classes, whatever their station and influence in the country. He should regret to see their Lordships adopting any mode of obstructing a measure which was generally approved by the country. If they were to take this course, it could have no practical results beyond throwing discredit upon the inquiries of the Committees.
LORD ST. LEONARDSsaid, that as he was not one of the persons whose interests were bound up with the land, he could speak with perfect fairness on the subject. What he had seen of Parliamentary practice had been in the House of Commons, and his experience in their Lordships' House was very short; but he was compelled to say that he had never before heard a Minister of the Crown who spoke in so minatory a tone as the noble Earl opposite. It was a tone, not only of satisfaction with the work of his own Government, but one almost of denunciation of everybody who might attempt to impede a measure which he said should be passed, and to which he would not allow the slightest interruption. Such a tone might not be intended, for it did not seem appropriate to a deliberative assembly, and particularly not to a Minister of a Government that had brought in one of the most stringent, if not one of the most odious, measures ever proposed to Parliament. The noble Earl who spoke last had taken great credit for the popularity of the financial scheme of the Government. He (Lord St. Leonards) did not know how popular it might be, but it had been wholly unsuccessful so far as it had been tested. What had become of that important part of the scheme, the Exchequer bonds? Were they popular? Had they become, as we were told they would, a security which every one would be desirous of possessing, as they were so exceedingly handy? He warned the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to attempt—what had been rumoured as his intention—to force upon the suitors in Chancery these bonds, which nobody living would accept who knew the value of money. They were, he repeated, a failure; and he (Lord St. Leonards) had the same means of paying off the holders of the 500,000,000 l of the debt, and was as likely to raise the money, as the Chan-
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cellor of the Exchequer was by these means. With respect to the other parts of the financial proposition, as matters stood at present, the whole had been a failure, and must of necessity be so. He could tell the holders of 3 per cents throughout the country, that if they would but remain quiet with their stock, they were just as safe now as at any time before the Chancellor of the Exchequer threatened to pay them off. He should not have said one word upon this subject, had not the noble Earl taken so much credit for the popularity of a Budget which, so far as it had been tried, had wholly failed. With respect to the proposal of a Committee on the succession tax, he thought that nothing could be more fitting than that the House should adopt such a course. The noble Earl had told the House that the measure was to be pressed—that there was to be no wavering in the matter—and that the whole power of the Government was to be exerted, not only to pass it, but to pass it speedily—that their Lordships would place an obstruction in the way of public business if they were to enter on the inquiry before the measure came up from the House of Commons. But was there ever a question tendered to Parliament which deserved a more serious consideration than this proposal of a succession tax? In 1842 Sir Robert Peel asked the landed interest to submit to a property tax for a few years, in order to enable him to carry a large measure of free trade. That tax had been continued to the present time, and it was now proposed to continue it for a longer period than Sir Robert Peel had ever asked. But what would Parliament and the country have thought if Sir Robert Peel had asked the landed interest to submit not only to an income tax but to a succession tax? Parliament was now asked to renew the income tax for seven years, and, at the same time, to sanction a succession tax, which had never before been placed upon property. The proposed succession tax was to be a permanent one, and it was, therefore, the more necessary to look very carefully into the matter. Let their Lordships consider for a moment the points wherein the present proposal differed from the scheme of Mr. Pitt in 1796. Upon the proposal of Mr. Pitt there were not less than seven divisions in the House of Commons, in each of which the numbers in favour of the measure were gradually smaller, and the Motion for the second reading of the Bill was only carried

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by the casting vote of the Speaker. That measure, however, did not approach the present by a vast distance in point of rigour; it was a moderate modest scheme indeed compared to this; and on the day appointed for the third reading of the Bill, Mr. Pitt himself came down to the House, and moved that his own Bill should be read a third time that day three months. From that day to this there had never been a serious proposition before the House for the imposition of the tax. It was said that the land ought to pay legacy duty as well as personal property; but as the law at present stood, personal property evaded not only the land tax but poor-rate. The land tax would not have been made perpetual if Mr. Pitt had not failed in carrying his succession tax; failing in doing so, the land tax was carried as a substitute for it. The amount of the land tax was about 2,000,000 l., and was made subject to redemption; upwards of 1,100,000 l. per annum still remained unredeemed. The Chancellor of the Exchequer now proposed to give greater facilities for the redemption of the land tax, simply for the purpose of leaving the land more open for the imposition of the succession tax. Unless care be taken, the Stock Exchange will rush in and buy the land tax over the owners' heads, and thus obtain a preferment over their estates with Crown remedies. Many a fair farm had been sold and many a mortgage created in order to enable parties to redeem their land tax; and persons who had so redeemed it were now to be called upon to bear the additional burden of the succession tax. When land tax was redeemed, the stock paid for it went so far in redemption of the national debt, and no trace in the public accounts remained of the sacrifices of the landowner, so that his estate would apparently remain a free and fit subject for new taxation. If ever there was a time when land ought to have been charged with a tax of this nature, it was when a tax was put upon personal estate, and when land was not bound beyond an annual land tax. By Mr. Pitt's plan the tax was levied upon real estate only where it came by descent, devise, or by voluntary settlement, and he did not propose to tax lineal descendants, or husbands or wives. Could there be a more enormous difference between the two proposals than this? The children and children's children down to the latest generation would have taken real property under Mr. Pitt's Bill without being liable to any tax. Mr. Pitt began
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his scale of taxation by collateral descent, and went on increasing till he came to strangers, and his highest tax was 6 per cent upon the most remote class of relatives and strangers. But the present Bill not only taxed lineal descendants as well as collaterals, but struck at the root of every settlement in the country. Let a settlement be made for the highest consideration that the law allowed—that of marriage. Under Mr. Pitt's Bill the property under that settlement would not have been charged one shilling; but under this Bill a heavy tax would be levied upon every succession to property under the settlement. There was no noble Lord who was entitled to property under settlement who would not be liable to pay a heavy tax to-morrow if he came into possession. For, such was the wonderful hurry of the Government to get a revenue under this Bill, that they carried back its operation to the 19th of May; and if any unhappy man—or rather, perhaps, he ought to say if any happy man—should die subsequent to the 19th of May, and before this Bill passed, his property would be liable to the payment of this tax. And let their Lordships observe that this tax was not necessary in order to provide for a deficit. The Chancellor of the Exchequer chose to make a deficiency in order to provide for it by means of this tax. However, the noble Earl {the Earl of Aberdeen) said the Bill was to pass, and pass it must. Their Lordships were powerless after that announcement; but he must express his strong conviction that it was one of the most improper measures that ever passed. It was a measure of positive confiscation. Take any settlement made by any person upon marriage, or upon a son coming of age. Such a settlement was binding both in law and equity; it could not be revoked or recalled; and then came this Bill, which took away a portion of the property so settled, and compelled the heir to raise the money at a time when he was the least able to do so. A young Peer the other day asked him what was to be done under this Bill when a mail came into possession, and how he was to pay the succession tax? His (Lord St. Leonards) reply was, "He must go to the Jews, who no doubt would accommodate him at 17 per cent." As affecting all existing settlements, he looked upon the proposal as positive confiscation, an ex post facto law, which pressed the most severely at the very time it should not press. It was not, however, a question merely of

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real, but of real and personal estate—one which affected every settlement of property throughout the land. Let the advocates of the new tax bear in mind that no such tax had ever before been imposed in this country, and then defend it as one proper to be imposed at this moment, without any necessity for it, and merely to supply a deficiency capriciously created. If the noble Earl was enabled to pass this Bill, he should certainly consider it as a ground for believing that the Government of which he was the head was really a strong one. There was this great difference between the law as it stood with regard even to personal estate and the succession tax now proposed to be passed, that whereas personal property was charged at present in the case of intestacy or of a bequest, and in those cases only, the proposed tax was to be charged upon every case of succession whatever. In the one instance, the property passed into the hands of persons who never had any title to it, or who might never have expected to receive it; in the other, a tax was imposed upon realised property—property which was yours, which you had enjoyed, of which you had had the fruit, which was yours to sell or to dispose of when you pleased, and as you pleased. Out of such property you calculated settlements for your children and for others allied to you; but here upon every succession the tax-gatherer would step in. Was there no difference, he asked, between these two cases? Let their Lordships look at the absurdity and inconsistency of their legislation if this measure should pass into a law. A short time since, they were pressed in a most extraordinary manner to pass a copyhold enfranchisement Bill; they were told that there must not remain a bit of copyhold in the land, that it was impolitic and unjust to call upon persons to pay fines at uncertain times, and some of their Lordships almost wept at the recital of the excessive grief which relatives felt when they were called upon to pay fines upon death. The Bill passed into law. But what a farce it was to talk of legislation for relieving holders of copyholds from the payment of fines on death, while they were now going to place a tax upon all the property in the kingdom—real and personal, nothing was to escape—what was upon the land, grow from the land, or in the bowels of the land—all were to be subject to a tax which was contingent upon death—and this proposal, too,
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came from those who had told the House they ought not to allow fines on copyholds. The noble Earl who had opened the case with so much ability, had stated truly that real and personal estate ought to be equally taxed; but he (Lord St. Leonards) would ask their Lordships how the principle was proposed to be carried out. The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that he found personal estate was taxed, but that many cases of injustice occurred, and that persons made settlements in order to evade the tax; and it was monstrous that the tax should be evaded, or that it should not be charged upon land the same as upon personal estate. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was shocked to see this evasion, and he said, "I will charge the land as well as personal estate, but I will charge you both with what you never had to bear before, namely, a succession tax, and then, however clever you may consider yourselves, there will be no evasion at all." England might rely upon it, that if this Bill passed there would soon be a mortgage upon every inch of landed property throughout the empire, and upon every single portion of personal estate, for the benefit of a succession tax. He fully admitted, supposing the burdens to be equal, that land ought to be charged the same as personal estate—but it should be charged only as personal estate was now charged, namely, when acquired by descent or bequest; but what was proposed was to place an additional burden on both. The proposal of the Government was like the conduct of a person who, seeing one of his mules with a single pannier, sufficiently—poor beast!—burdened, but which he sometimes shifted, and sometimes slipped away from, whilst another mule, who had his own burden to bear, yet carried no pannier—felt shocked at the evasion of the one mule and the exemption of the other, and exclaimed, "I must make their burdens equal, and prevent them from being cast off:" he thereupon clapped an additional pannier, well loaded, on the first mule, and a pair of like panniers on the other; and this he called equality: so because personal estate sometimes evaded the legacy tax, it was to have the pannier of the succession tax placed upon it, and then, because it had two panniers—not because it ought to have them—two panniers were to be placed upon real estate. There had been one singular reason given for this tax, which was, that the blessing we enjoyed in the disposition of our property as

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allowed by law, was such that we might well afford to pay a tax for it. But there were many other blessings which we enjoyed, and for which, upon the same argument, we ought also to be taxed. He could mention several odious taxes which the Government probably might be ready to adopt. Having now discussed the injustice of the tax, the impropriety' of it, and the want of necessity for it, he next came to the question of how the tax was to be raised, and its machinery. He ventured to say that a more odious tax than this never had been proposed—he would not except even ship-money. Its odiousness necessarily arose from the mode of collecting it. Whenever death came, the taxgatherer would come with it; it was not a question of stopping the money in its course—it was a question of coming to our houses in order to ascertain what our settlements were. Every man's settlement would be ransacked by a public officer, in a public office, in order to see how the succession' tax would attach. Every incumbrance on every man's property would be ascertained, and the rights of property and of privacy would be invaded. He would ask if men's affairs ought to be dealt with in that way? The income tax was nothing to this. It was true enough you would not pay in the first instance for existing encumbrances; but they did not escape—they were portions of the land, were paid for by the persons who took those charges, and when those persons died then they would have to be paid for by the landowner. The taxgatherer would sit constantly looking at your settlements, in regular course, for the time when they became due. As a banker watched his books to see when bills fell due, so would the taxgatherer watch for successions becoming due; and he (Lord St. Leonards) could fancy that functionary occasionally looking down his list and saying to himself, "This has been a very bad week;" and that at other times the business would be so brisk that he would require the assistance of two or three additional hands. Again, all the property of England was to be valued under the provisions of this Bill; those valuations would cost an enormous sum, and they would require to be repeated at the fall of every annuity. Their Lordships must remember that this was a tax on casualties—upon death, no doubt, but still operating upon all the real and personal property in the kingdom. If this tax was to be imposed and collected in the way proposed, he would ask what became of the
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sanctity of private life and of private concerns? The law of England had gone on from age to age moulding itself to the circumstances of the times and the country until at last it had produced the most per feet mode ever known by which a man might have the complete enjoyment of property which might still be in strict settlement. But this Bill would limit the number of settlements by hundreds, because they would never be made. Then there would be evasions upon which the penal ties would attach which the Bill imposed for the infringement of its provisions. Again, an enormous staff of officers would be required for carrying it into execution, involving not only a great deal of pay to them, but a considerable amount of patronage in the hands of the Government. The Commissioners entrusted with the carrying out of such a measure ought to be men in whom great confidence could be placed, for they would virtually have the disposal of the property of every man in England. Then there was another question. Was Ireland in a condition in which such a tax should be imposed? He thought the Government was justified in imposing a moderate property tax upon her in common with the rest of the empire, and he did not think, with the terms which had been offered, that she ought to object to it. But let them look at the Encumbered Estates Court, where they would see millions of property passing from the hands of respectable families, in whose possession it had been for centuries—a class whom, with all their faults, and he knew them well, it would be very difficult to replace, for nothing was so difficult to create as what was properly termed a "country gentleman." He said, however, that they were now putting a new tax upon Ireland at the time when she could least afford to bear it. Whilst they were by a strong measure enabling or compelling Irish landowners to clear off their encumbrances, they were creating new ones on the land. He earnestly hoped that the Committee would be granted.
The LORD CHANCELLORsaid, his noble and learned Friend (Lord St. Leonards) having, with all the weight of his high authority, denounced this intended measure to their Lordships and the country as one not only very impolitic but characterised by the grossest injustice, he felt it incumbent on him to rise immediately to explain to their Lordships why he believed that that notion of impolicy and injustice

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rested on no foundation whatever. He must, however, in the first instance, be permitted to remark that, professing but very little experience in the course of proceeding in their Lordships' House, and quite agreeing with what had been said, that it was open to them to enter into the consideration of any measure, whether it originated in the House of Commons or their Lordships' House, he still believed that this course, if not absolutely without precedent, was as nearly so as any that could be suggested—namely, the appointment of a Committee of their Lordships' House to inquire into the expediency of a tax now under discussion in the other House of Parliament. There was another objection which he had to take, to the appointment of a Committee. The noble Earl (the Earl of Malmesbury) proposed to refer this Bill to a Select Committee to inquire into the probable consequences of the measure in question. What was to be done by this Select Committee? The noble Earl slurred that point over in a very delicate manner; he talked of the benefit to arise from the examination of eminent conveyancers and others on the point. Now what could conveyancers tell them on the matter more than they knew already? Why, everybody knew that settlements were made both of real and personal estates; everybody knew that wills were made, and everybody knew that persons died intestate; but as to whether this tax was just and politic, and whether it could be carried into execution, were matters upon which they could derive no information from the suggested course. The proof that their Lordships needed no such information was, that every Peer who had spoken that evening, had manifested that he had mastered the brief placed in his hands, and was already furnished with all the information they could supply for dealing with the subject. Their Lordships knew what the measure was in all its great features, and that being so, he would ask for what purpose the inquiry was to take place? It was said the report of such a Committee might influence the other House. He thought that was rather a wild imagination; but if it was true, the noble Earl (the Earl of Malmesbury) had already gained his object by the discussion which had taken place that night in their Lordships' House. He (the Lord Chancellor) would now proceed to state very shortly—for the whole matter lay in a narrow compass—why he conceived this was not only a just but a practicable mea-
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sure. His noble and learned Friend (Lord St. Leonards) had objected to the measure, on two grounds—first, that it included land in the legacy tax; and, next, that it embraced not only successions coming by death, and derived from wills and intestacies, but also struck at successions coming by settlements, both as to personalty and as to realty. It was extremely important to separate those two considerations; and their Lordships would allow him to deal with them separately. First, he would ask, was there any injustice or inexpediency in subjecting land to the legacy duty, in the same manner as personal property was subjected to it? Risum teneatis? It appeared to him simply ludicrous to propound that it was unjust, when you were imposing that which was a species of property tax to tax all property. The difficulty was not to establish the justice of that equalisation of taxation, but to make out a case for exempting any particular species of property. The primâ facie case was, that any property being taxed, all property should be taxed as equally as might be. And here let them get rid of the whole difficulty attaching to all subjects of this nature; and that was, it was said, that this tax was unjust. If it was meant by that that cases might be suggested in which there would not be an equality of burden on all the persons taxed, he conceded the proposition; but would they tell him to which of their taxes that objection did not apply? Was it in the nature of things to have absolute justice in the imposition of taxes? They could not do it. Nobody could pretend that the income tax was absolutely just, or that any tax on articles of consumption was absolutely just. The man of 10,000 l. a year paid a very slight proportion of his income for tea; the man of 100 l. a year paid a very considerable proportion of his income for that article; and so on with regard to every article of necessary consumption; whence it might be argued that the tax on tea, &c. was unjust. The point was to approach as near to perfect justice as was practicable; which point, as to a property tax, was to be accomplished by imposing the tax as equally as possible upon all descriptions of property, real or personal. He felt this proposition to be so right in itself that he had no need to rely upon any authorities for its support. Mr. Pitt, a person certainly not of a very revolutionary character; deemed it monstrous, in imposing a property tax in 1796, not to include land;

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that Mr. Pitt was obliged to yield the point did not at all alter the case, so far as he was concerned. With respect to the land tax, he had been surprised to hear his noble and learned Friend speak of it as though it had been a substitution in 1798, for the proposition of 1796. Why, it had been in operation, as a yearly renewed measure, ever since the time of William III.; and Mr. Pitt's reason for making it a permanent tax in 1798 was precisely that he might, by that means give the option of redeeming it, which could not have been given unless the tax was made perpetual. Of all the arguments that had been adduced in opposition to the Government plan, that based on the land tax was the most unfortunate, for the land tax was a tax, of all others, remarkable for its glaring inequalities, the tax in one parish being, perhaps 2d. in the pound, and in another 2s. His hon. and learned Friend said that Mr. Pitt, in the plenitude of his power, did not venture to propose what was now proposed; that he did not venture to impose on land, or on personal estate, a legacy duty affecting children, but only affecting collateral relations or strangers. He had been surprised to hear this. No doubt, indeed, Mr. Pitt did not propose such a tax at that time; but he did propose it, and carry it too before he died, in 1805. But was that all? No—he did a great deal more. Feeling the extreme injustice of what he had been driven to do in 1796, he endeavoured to obviate it in 1805, not by putting a legacy duty on land, but getting as near to this as he could, by imposing a legacy duty on all money charged on land, and on all estates devised to be sold, and he made them pay exactly the same as if they were personal property, indicating that his opinion on the subject had undergone no change. But it was said, what was to be done in the case of an estate heavily mortgaged? He was surprised that that argument had any weight with those who knew that this novel tax, as it was called, on real estate was at this very moment, and had been for more than half a century, a tax on the real property of the country. All leasehold property paid it; it applied to the property of deans and chapters, and most likely to nine out of ten of their Lordships in respect of the property they had in London; and it applied also to a great proportion of leasehold tithes. To them, therefore, the injustice applied, if injustice it was; and he owned it did appear to him to be a species of injustice, for he did not under-
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stand why the house he held on lease for sixty years was to pay taxes, whilst his neighbour who held a house in fee simple was not to pay the same taxes. That did appear something of an inequality. One injustice there was in the existing legacy tax which was here removed, and that was that the legacy tax on leaseholds was imposed at too high a rate, namely, on the whole absolute value. The present Bill set that, right, and put leaseholds on the same footing as all other property. He had, therefore, come to the conclusion that there was no injustice whatever in including real estate under the legacy duty. He thought it equally clear that there was not the slightest injustice in extending the legacy tax—that was to say, in making parties buy this specie of property tax, not merely on what came to a man by will or intestacy, but on that which came by settlement. Why should it not be so? His noble and learned Friend, like many persons practising in courts of law, was apt to look at these matters in a very different spirit from that in which they were viewed by the country at large. The lawyers found A. B. subject to a certain course of legislation, but they did not care to inquire why C. D. was not also subject to it; they had simply to administer the law as they found it;—but assuredly the public notion was, that property having to contribute to the taxation of the country, all property should contribute, no matter how it came to the possessor, whether by will, intestacy, or settlement, or howsoever. To exempt from taxation property coming by settlement—settlements being the arrangements of the richer classes—it would as a matter of course appear to the general public an unjust exemption of the richer classes to the detriment of the poorer. ["Hear!"] He knew what was meant by that cheer. The tax was paid by the one class as well as the other; but, as a general proposition, it was the rich who settled their property, and the poor who left it unsettled. This was a property tax, arising at the time a party succeeded to an inheritance; and whether he succeeded by an arrangement with his parents or by will, he (the Lord Chancellor) saw no reason in principle why the tax should not be imposed. His noble Friend said they were now extending this succession tax to personal estate, making that pay which had not paid before. To be sure they were; it would be a hard thing, indeed, to put a succession duty on land which a per-

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son succeeded to by settlement, and not to impose a similar duty on the succession to personal estate in the same situation. The noble Earl near him (the Earl of Derby) remarked on the hardship as to what were called heirlooms. But there was no duty on heirlooms until they passed into the absolute power of some person who could sell them, and then they were no longer heirlooms. Take the Koh-i-noor, for example; no legacy duty would be payable upon its transmission until it came to some one who had the beneficial ownership, and could sell it. He must advert for a moment to an argument used by the noble Earl (the Earl of Malmesbury), namely, the hardship there would be in parties succeeding, one after another, in rapid succession. That was perfectly true; but it was a misfortune which already attached to persons succeeding to personal estate. The objection was one which was applicable to the whole system of legacy duties, and not to this particular case; but here the hardship would be to a great degree lessened, by a provision with regard to the duties which would accrue within the four years. He had risen merely for the purpose of explaining why, in his view, there was nothing to object to in the extension of this tax from personal to real estate—why it might be collected on real estate as safely as it was on leasehold estate, which was but a branch of real estate; and that there was no reason why settlement should not come in the same category as wills and inheritances. For the reasons which he had stated he should oppose the Motion of the noble Earl.
EARL FITZWILLIAMsaid, his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack had asked whether it was not more unjust that that property which had hitherto remained exempt from taxation should have been so exempt, than that it should now be subjected to it; but the objections that he (Earl Fitzwilliam) entertained to the proposed taxation, was, not that it was an imposition on land, but that it was an irregular tax. He was ready to agree with his noble and learned Friend that it might be right that land should not be exempt from taxation any more than personalty; and he would go still further, and concede that that taxation might fairly be extended even to settled property, notwithstanding the elaborate and powerful argument of the noble and learned Lord opposite; but there were some questions to which he had heard no answer from any of Her Majesty's Ministers in the course
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of the debate, and he could not but express his surprise at it. He would ask whether, in any writer on political economy, any argument had been found in favour of taxation which operated, not gently and regularly, but suddenly and irregularly? [Earl GRANVILLE: John Mill.] He was sorry to differ from that eminent authority, but he must have some argument to show that the same amount of revenue could not be collected regularly and equally upon property which was now attempted to be collected suddenly by fits and starts, and which operated upon persons just at that period when it was perhaps most difficult for them to find the means of complying with the requirements of the taxgatherer. But why did not this tax resolve itself into a regular tax upon land? His noble and learned Friend (the Lord Chancellor) had said that nothing was more absurd than the present land tax; and, if they judged it as it now was, that might be truly said, it being in some places only 2d. in the pound, while in others it amounted to 2s.; but that did not arise from any injustice in the original imposition of the tax—though he knew it was said by some writers that there was injustice in the mode of assessing the tax in different parts of England; but the inequality of the tax arose from the growth of property in some parts of the country having been much greater than in others. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them, that in order to alleviate the pressure on the persons who bad to pay this tax, it was spread over four years, and since then he had prefixed another year; but they ought to be careful, and the other House ought to be careful, how they agreed to this tax, for they were taxing persons who were not represented; they were not taxing themselves, or their Lordships, but their own and their Lordships' successors. At the same time, whatever the House of Commons might determine, it was a duty left to their Lordships' House to do little more on such a question than to register what the House of Commons might send up. He was sure it was not wise that their Lordships' House should enter into any conflict with the other House of Parliament, and it was note wise that the other House of Parliament should enter into a conflict with their Lordships' House. It was most desirable that the proceedings of both Houses should harmonise with one another, and therefore he thought the noble Earl who made this Motion had selected well both the time

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and the mode of doing it, because he had taken it as early as he could consistently with the knowledge of the measure about to be introduced by Her Majesty's Government. But the machinery of the measure was extremely complicated. In the present case there would be no end of valuations—everything connected with land was to be valued; but who would guarantee that the valuations would be conducted in all parts of England on the same principle? In whatever point of view he looked at the tax, he thought it would be fraught with inconvenience, and he thought their Lordships, and the other House of Parliament, and the country at large, were deeply indebted to the noble Earl for having proposed that an inquiry should be instituted. He trusted there would be no mean and foolish jealousy in the other House of Parliament. He was sure the noble Earl proposed it in no predetermined spirit of hostility to the tax in the event of its being clearly shown that the tax could be levied fairly and without inconvenience. He confessed he had very great doubt whether the tax could be so levied; but he hoped every Member of their Lordships' House who might be upon the Committee would go into it with a determination to listen fairly to the arguments that might be adduced, and to those witnesses who might be called for the purpose of showing that it was a tax that would not be fraught with all the inconveniences which he inclined to think would be found to result from it; and he hoped, on the other hand, his noble Friends on the benches near him would go into it also with a disposition to listen to the arguments and the evidence of those who might be called upon and examined in a different spirit. His noble and learned Friend on the woolsack seemed to think inquiry was not necessary; but he would ask how many of their Lordships, before they received the Bill that morning, were acquainted with its provisions; or how many Members of the House of Commons themselves were acquainted with it, and had studied the fifty-nine clauses. His belief was that a vast number of hon. Members who had sanctioned the measure were as little acquainted with it as their Lordships. For these reasons, though not in conformity with the wish he generally entertained of supporting Her Majesty's Government, he should vote in favour of this inquiry, as he thought it would assist them in coming to a sound conclusion on the merits and demerits of this question.
The DUKE of ARGYLLwould not enter into any technical details as to the construction of the Act. Perhaps their Lordships might think that when the Government deprecated inquiry into any question not before the House, they were taking advantage of one of those modes sometimes made use of to get rid of an inconvenient Motion. But such was not the case. The noble Earl who had last spoken took entirely different ground from that asserted by the great hulk of noble Lords opposite; for the noble Earl assented to the principle of the measure, in so far as he was willing to extend the tax to real property and settled personalty in order to countervail the legacy duty on personalty. The noble Earl who moved the appointment of the Committee, said he had proposed it with no party view; and he would do the noble Earl the justice to say that his speech was an extremely moderate one. But it was impossible to deny that the Motion did stand in connexion with those principles held by noble Lords in reference to taxation on real and personal property. The loudest cheer which he had heard during the debate was when his noble Friend (the Earl of Aberdeen) complained that the noble Lords opposite seemed to imply that this was a measure prompted by a hostile spirit towards the land; and the substantial ground on which several speakers had supported the Motion was their objection to the extension of the tax to real property, although they accompanied it also by observations as to the inconvenience of extending it to settled personalty. He thought he was justified in saying, that the objection entertained by the majority of noble Lords opposite was, that it would affect unjustly—for that was the word used—the landed interest. Now, he contended that it was impossible for the House to judge fairly of the effect of this measure, as regarded the landed interest, without looking at it in connexion with the other financial measures of the Government—nay, more, he thought it would be unfair to look at this question without considering the position in which land would have been placed by the propositions of the late Government. The principles upon which the noble Lords opposite, when in opposition, founded their objections to the financial measures of late years was the undue pressure they were calculated to put on the landed interest, and they were accustomed to demand various countervailing measures

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with a view to its relief; but when they came into office, what was it in reference to land they were able to propose? They threw overboard entirely the idea of a protective duty; but, more than that, they threw overboard entirely what bad been the favourite scheme of his noble Friend opposite—the transference of certain local rates to the Consolidated Fund; and what did they do with the remaining proposal when in opposition—that of getting rid of the income tax? They not only did not do that, but they actually proposed to renew it in a form greatly aggravated as regarded land. There were two great questions for the present Government to consider, when they came into power. They were not under the necessity of producing a financial scheme to reimburse any parties for losses which they might have sustained; but they found it necessary to review the whole financial system of the country, and to produce some great scheme to effect a settlement of the great question of the income tax—to enable Parliament to part with that tax if it should think proper to do so—to effect further reforms in the tariff, and to deal with the legacy duty. Mr. Disraeli, after abandoning all the plans which he had supported in opposition, wound up his Budget by saying that the existing legacy duty constituted a system of injustice which could not possibly long remain unreformed. Noble Lords might say that that sentence had no very definite meaning, and he did not imagine they had come to any determination on the question. But the existing system of the legacy duty having been pronounced to be a system of injustice, did noble Lords opposite imagine they could escape that question? What would the result have been? In addition to the differential duty, they would have had an altered legacy duty—
The EARL of DERBYwished to correct the noble Duke's statement. The difference in the income tax, as proposed by the late Government, was not a difference between land and other descriptions of property, but between realised or fixed property and precarious incomes.
The DUKE of ARGYLL: At any rate it was a differential duty against realised property, of which land formed a principal part; and in addition to that differential income tax, there was the distinct announcement of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the legacy duties constituted a system of injustice which must be revised. Now, if they had been revised, in what
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direction should the change have taken place? It might be said by the exemption of personalty from duty; but it was perfectly clear that the Government of the noble Earl opposite was not prepared to sacrifice so large a portion of revenue, and therefore, the change would have been in the same direction as the change now proposed by the present Government. He wished to put before the House that the proposal of the present Government, in reference to the legacy duties, was the keystone of the whole of their financial policy, and would enable the country to get rid of the income tax; and he maintained that the incidence of the legacy duty on land would be lighter than that of the differential income tax proposed by the late Government, if considered as a permanent tax; in addition to which, he repeated, a change in the legacy duties had been distinctly intimated by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer.
On Question, their Lordships divided:—Content: Present 57, Proxies 69–126; Not-Content: Present 73, Proxies 66–139: Majority 13.

List of the CONTENT.

Present.

DUKES.

Sheffield

Cleveland

Talbot

Montrose

Verulam

Northumberland

Winchilsea

MARQUESSES.

VISCOUNTS.

Bath

Combermere

Exeter

Gage

Salisbury

Hawarden

EARLS.

Hill

Beauchamp

St. Vincent

Cadogan

Strangford

Clancarty

BARONS.

Caledon

Bateman

Cardigan

Bayning

Delawarr

Berners

Derby

Bolton

Desart

Colchester

Eglinton

Colville of Culross

Fitzwilliam

Dynevor

Glengall

De Lisle

Hardwicke

De Ros

Harrington

Forester

Limerick

Feversham

Lonsdale

Kilmaine

Mansfield

Redesdale

Macclesfield

Rayleigh

Malmesbury

Southampton

Mayo

Sandys

Orkney

Sondes

Powis

St. Leonards

Stradbroke

Willoughby de Broke

Proxies.

Delamere

Huntingdon

Beverley

Buckingham and Chandos

Abingdon

Londonderry

Onslow

705

Guildford

Ranfurley

Sinclair

Lauderdale

Selkirk

Clinton

Berwick

Clarina

Crawford and Balcarres

Mountcashell

Warwick

Braybrooke

Longford

Beaufort

Poulett

Shannon

Orford

Stamford and Warrington

Crofton

Drogheda

Chesterfield

Dunsandle

Rosslyn

Boston

Manchester

Cathcart

Marlborough

Waterford

Downshire

Buckinghamshire

Donoughmore

Enniskillen

Tankerville

Kinnoull

Rodney

Gough

Douglas

Manvers

Saltoun

Melville

Castlemaine

Rutland

Erne

Ely

Templemore

Middleton

Strathmore

De Saumarez

Exmouth

Roden

Polwarth

Downes

Sandwich

Courtown

Meath

O'Neill

St. John

Stanhope

Leeds

Richmond

Lorton

Gray of Gray

List of the NOT CONTENT.

Present.

The Lord Chancellor

VISCOUNTS.

ARCHBISHOP.

Canning

Canterbury

Enfield

DUKES.

Falmouth

Argyll

Sydney

Atholl

BISHOPS.

Buccleuch

Limerick

Leinster

Llandaff

Norfolk

Oxford

Roxburgh

St. Asaph

MARQUESSES.

Salisbury

Anglesey

Worcester

Breadalbane

BARONS.

Camden

Ashburton

Conyngham

Alvanley

Lansdowne

Beaumont

Ormond

Camoys

Sligo

Churchill

EARLS.

Colborne

Aberdeen

De Mauley

Airlie

De Tabley

Albemarle

Dufferin

Bessborough

Elphinstone

Bruce

Foley

Burlington

Hatherton

Clarendon

Leigh

Clanwilliam

Manners

Darnley

Milford

Galloway

Overstone

Granville

Panmure

Haddington

Petre

Morton

Poltimore

Romney

Rivers

Sefton

Say and Sele

Somers

Stafford

Spencer

Stanley of Alderley

Waldegrave

Suffield

706

Vaux

Wharncliffe

Vivian

Wodehouse

Wenlock

Wrottesley

Proxies.

DUKES.

VISCOUNTS.

Devonshire

Massereene

Grafton

Torrington

Newcastle

Somerset

BISHOPS.

Sutherland

Chester

Wellington

Hereford

MARQUESSES.

Manchester

Bristol

Norwich

Donegal

Peterborough

Headfort

Ripon

EARLS.

St. David's

Cork

Cottenham

BARONS.

Cowper

Auckland

Devon

Bellhaven

Durham

Blantyre

Ellesmere

Carew

Fitzhardinge

Cloncurry

Fingall

Dacre

Grey

Dormer

Glasgow

Denman

Home

Dorchester

Ilchester

Godolphin

Kenmare

Howard de Walden

Leitrim

Holland

Lindsay

Keene

Lovelace

Kinnaird

Morley

Lovat

Radnor

Londesborough

Ripon

Lyttelton

St. Germans

Methuen

Stair

Monson

Strafford

Rossmore

Suffolk

Ribblesdale

Uxbridge

Stourton

Yarborough

Truro

The House adjourned to Monday next.