Sitting of 13 May 1862

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1° Tramways.
3° Public Works and Harbours Act Amendment.

REMUNERATION OF POSTMASTERS

  QUESTION.
  MR. WYKEHAM MARTINsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to give any remuneration to the Postmasters in consequence (if the additional labour imposed upon them by the institution of Post Office Savings Banks?
  MR. PEELin reply said, there could be no doubt that the establishment of Post Office Savings Banks imposed additional labour on Postmasters; and the question was under consideration whether they should, in consequence, receive any increase of remuneration.

LUNATIC ASYLUMS IN IRELAND.

  QUESTION.
  MR. MACEVOYsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether

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  any, and, if any, what changes have been recently made by the Irish Government in the rules and management of district Lunatic Asylums?
  SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, that considerable changes had recently been made by the Irish Government in the rules for the management of Irish Lunatic Asylums, and he was happy to say that the new system had given general satisfaction.

THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE.

  QUESTION.
  MR. ADAMsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whether he has received any Memorial from Her Majesty's Covenanted Civil Servants in Bombay, praying for the redress of certain grievances; and when the Memorials from Civil Servants in Bengal and Madras will be in the hands of Members?
  MR. T. G. BARINGsaid, that the Memorial from the Civil Servants in Bombay had been received by the last mail, and that the Memorial from the Civil Servants in Madras and Bengal had been presented and laid on the table on Friday last.

PAROCHIAL ASSESSMENT.—QUESTION.
MR. HODGKINSONsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Poor Law Board, Whether he has any official know-ledge that, in consequence of the Government having in the last and the present Session promoted a Bill to amend the Law respecting Parochial Assessments, the revision of the assessments in a large number of parishes is postponed; and whether there is a probability of the Bill now before the Select Committee of which he is Chairman being reported to the House so as to give sufficient time for its Consideration and being passed into Law during the present Session?
MR. C. P. VILLIERSsaid, in reply, that he had no official knowledge that any such consequence as that to which the hon. Gentleman alluded had followed from the course taken by the Government in that matter; but he had heard that two or three places, including the town which the hon. Member represented, were anxious that the Bill in question should pass, in order that they might have a remission of their present assessment. In reply to the second question of the hon. Gentleman, he bad to state that he had
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every reason to believe that the Bill would be shortly reported to the House, and that there would be ample time in the course of the present Session to pass it into Law.

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS.

  QUESTION.
  LORD ROBERT MONTAGUsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, If it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to bring forward any measure during the present Session for the purpose of carrying into effect the recommendations contained in the Report of the Committee on Miscellaneous Expenditure, so far as they suggested a transfer of all public works (save those for Naval and Military purposes) to one Department, and the appointment of a permanent Commissioner of Works?
  MR. AUGUSTUS SMITHsaid, he wished to know whether, in case the Government determine on giving effect to the recommendation of the Committee, they will lay a measure upon the subject before the House.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, he did not then remember the whole of the recommendations of the Committee to which the noble Lord referred. But he believed that almost all the public buildings, except those of a Military or a Naval character, were at present under the supervision of the First Commissioner of Public Works. With regard, however, to the main drift of the question, whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to appoint a permanent head of the Department of Works, he certainly was not prepared to say that the Government had any such intention. That would withdraw from responsibility in that House the chief direction of the works on public buildings, and he thought that would not be advisable. In the first place, it would deprive many hon. Members of the agreeable opportunity they at present possessed of criticising the conduct of the Chief Commissioner, and of having a regular battle with his proposals. It would also be unconstitutional, inasmuch as it would withdraw from that House the control over a considerable portion of the public expenditure.

PROPOSED NEW COURTS OF JUSTICE.

  QUESTION.
  MR. COLLINSsaid, he wished to ask

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  the First Commissioner of Works, Whether it is his intention to proceed with the Courts of Justice (Money) Bill, the second reading of which was negatived on the 10th of April last?
  MR. COWPERsaid, the Bill to which the hon. Gentleman referred was closely connected with the Courts of Justice (Building) Bill, and it would be more convenient that the Government should state their intentions upon the subject when the Order of the Bay for considering that latter measure should come on.

GRANT TO MR. GEORGE LINNÆUS BANKS.—QUESTION.
MR. BENTINCKsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether it is true that Mr. George Linnæus Banks has been placed on the Civil List for a pension of £50 per annum?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that no pension had been awarded to Mr. Banks. Representations had been made to him that Mr. Banks, being a man of considerable literary attainments, who had devoted much time to literature, and also to the extension and encouragement of mechanics' institutes, had therefore rendered great public service; but that, from peculiar circumstances, he had been reduced to such a condition that a small grant from the Royal bounty would be well bestowed. A grant of £50 from the Royal bounty had been accordingly made; but it was not an annual pension, and did not involve any further grant.

PRINCE NAPOLEON IN NAPLES.

  QUESTION.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the French Government have made any communication to the English Government in explanation of the object of Prince Jerome Napoleon's present visit to Naples?
  MR. LAYARDsaid, that Naples, as his hon. Friend was aware, was a place full of objects of great interest; and Her Majesty's Government did not consider it necessary to ask explanations with respect to a visit paid by any person to that city. But if there were any private motives in the case to which the hon. Member referred, he would probably find them in the Moniteur.

CAPTAIN COLES'S SHIELD.

  QUESTION.
  LORD ROBERT MONTAGUsaid, he rose to ask the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether it is the fact, as he understood it had been stated on the previous evening, that Captain Coles had been consulted by the Admiralty with regard to the experiments about to be made on his shield or cupola; and that those experiments were to be under his direction; and if that be the case, can the noble Lord give any explanation of the letter from Captain Coles which appeared in The Times newspaper that morning, and which led to a different conclusion?
  ADMIRAL WALCOTTsaid, that he had on the previous day, with the permission of the House, asked a question of the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty with a view to eliciting information as to whether Captain Coles had been consulted by the Admiralty with regard to the intended experiment at Shoeburyness on the cupola shield fitted on board the Trusty Floating Battery, by firing at it from a 150-pounder gun. The noble Lord had distinctly stated that Captain Coles had been consulted. He should therefore like to have some explanation in respect to the discrepancy between that statement and a statement made by Captain Coles in a letter dated the 12th inst., which that officer had addressed to the editor of The Times newspaper, clearly denying his having been so consulted.
  LORD CLARENCE PAGET: Sir, I am greatly obliged to the noble Lord and to the hon. and gallant Member for Christ-church, for putting these questions. I have read in The Times newspaper this morning, with considerable regret, the letter from Captain Coles. For Captain Coles I have a great personal regard. His shield underwent a very severe trial some months ago, by firing at it with various guns, notably from 100-pounder Armstrong guns, and was considerably shaken. My noble Friend (the Duke of Somerset) thought it would be very interesting that a further trial of that shield should take place with a still heavier gun—namely, with the 150-pounder Armstrong gun, which has been lately tried, and my noble Friend therefore ordered the shield should be repaired and put in order with a view to its further trial. Captain Coles came to me to the Admiralty, and represented that unless he could go down and

  1619
  inspect the repairs of his shield, he thought it might not he sufficiently strengthened in order to afford a fair test of its irresistibility against 150-pounders. When this was told to the First Lord of the Admiralty, my noble Friend replied, "By all means let him go down and himself inspect the shield, and suggest to the Admiralty any further strengthening which he thinks it may require;" and a letter was written accordingly to Captain Coles. Captain Coles has, I think, very injudiciously, and without reflection, sent that letter to The Times, in which he makes complaint that the Admiralty are carrying on this trial with the shield without consultation with him. I am very sorry that he has done so, and let me take this opportunity of making this remark on another portion of his letter. Captain Coles says, that he is not responsible for the construction of the cupola shield ship now being built, nor for the Royal Sovereign three-decker now being cut down. Let me distinctly state, that Captain Coles is not responsible for any of those ships. He is simply responsible for his own shield. He made proposals to the Admiralty to construct ships, but he is not a shipbuilder, and his plans were not at all available for the public service. What was available for the public service was his shield, and the Admiralty had consequently adopted it. We have consulted Captain Coles with regard to their construction, and, in short, have given him every opportunity of turning out the best shield he could; but I do deprecate an officer of the Royal Navy who is on full pay, like Captain Coles, writing letters to newspapers at a time when he is employed under the orders of the Admiralty on a very important work; and I sincerely trust that my friend Captain Coles will not repeat that conduct.

TRAMWAYS BILL.—LEAVE.

  FIRST READING.
  MR. AYRTON, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to authorize the construction of tramways on turnpike roads and other roads in England, said, that power had already been given to the local authorities in Scotland and in Ireland for the construction of tramways there; but the measure he asked leave to introduce did not propose to confer such an extensive power as this. In London the tramways laid down had been found most inconvenient
  1620
  to vehicles using the same line of road; they were in fact railways sticking up in the middle of the roads; but the tramway which had been many years in use at the east end of London did not interfere with the ordinary traffic, and iron ways of a similar character might probably be devised. Such tramways would be of immense advantage both to agriculture and commerce, and would greatly reduce the draught of the carriages and their wear and tear. The Bill would enable the local authorities, where no objection existed, to consent to the tramways being laid down within their jurisdiction; and where any objection was raised on the part of any person occupying property in the parish, or using the road, the Court of Quarter Sessions would be empowered to examine into the objection, and if they disapproved of the project, it would not take effect. The power of the local authorities would be limited to a tramway which could not interfere with the ordinary traffic of the road; and every person would be at liberty to use it, on payment of a reasonable toll. No compulsory powers would be conferred by the Bill, which would be entirely of a voluntary character; nor should he ask the assent of the House to the measure until the details had been examined by a Select Committee; and if the House should consent to read the Bill a second time, he should move to refer it to such a Committee.
  SIR JOHN SHELLEYsaid, his objection to the Motion was removed by the declaration of his hon. Friend that it was ultimately his intention to refer the Bill to a Select Committee. But he could promise him that, in consequence of the experience they had already had of the effects of laying down tramways in the crowded thoroughfares of the metropolis, unless the metropolis were exempted from the Bill, it would meet with great opposition.
  MR. DEEDESsaid, he should have liked to hear who were to be the promoters of these tramways—whether they were to be executed by a company or by persons locally resident in different parts of the country? On the other hand, a provision which gave such a power to the local authorities would be viewed with much jealousy. In some instances, surveyors of highways had assumed a right to authorize the erection of electric telegraph posts, or interference with the road for one purpose or another. But the right to the soil of the road remained in the proprietors on

  1621
  either side: though the local authorities might have power to prevent it from being broken up, they had no inherent right in the soil. He should not oppose the introduction of this Bill, but it would require to be watched with great care.
  SIR LAWRENCE PALKsaid, he believed there were many parts of the country in which tramways would be found a great convenience by the inhabitants, while it would be an act of great humanity to provide the relief which they would afford to horses. He had no doubt that such tramways would be most beneficial to the whole country, and would in process of time prove; valuable feeders to the various lines of railways. For these reasons he hoped that leave would be given to bring in the Bill.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, the Bill did not contemplate the formation of any company, as it would be open to any one to lay down a tramway. Nor did it confer any authority upon local surveyors. In reply to the S remarks of his hon. Friend the Member for Westminster (Sir J. Shelley) he might observe that it was by no means necessary that tramways, if laid down within the metropolis, should be laid down in the same objectionable manner as those to which he had referred.
  Leave given.
  Bill to authorize the construction of Tramways on Turnpike Roads and other Roads in England, ordered to be brought in by Mr. AYRTON and Sir LAWRENCE PALK.
  Bill presented, and read 1°; to be read 2° on Wednesday 21st May, and to be printed [Bill 118].

HULL CITADEL.

  PAPERS MOVED FOR.
  MR. AUGUSTUS SMITH, in moving for papers connected with the transfer of Hull Citadel from the War Department to the Woods and Forests, said, that when the Citadel was no longer wanted for military purposes, it might have been supposed that the property would have been sold, and the proceeds applied to the construction of similar defences in other parts of the Kingdom. But no sooner had the War Department determined to give up the works as a fortress, than the Citadel was claimed by the Board of Woods and Forests as the property of the Crown. A case was drawn up and submitted to the law officers of the Crown; and on the opinion they gave the Board of Ordnance gave up the property to the Woods and
  1622
  Forests. Now, when public property was thus given up, the public had a right to know what were the legal grounds of the transfer. The value of the Property was not less than £100,000; it had been in possession of the Board of Ordnance for 300 years; and he wanted to know why it had been transferred to the Woods and Forests instead of being sold. If the principle acted on in this case was held good, it would be applied to all similar cases of public buildings when no longer required for their public purpose. They might also be handed over to the Woods and Forests as the property of the Crown, instead of being considered the property of the public. If at any time the seat of the Legislature should be changed, the Palace of Westminster itself might, on the same principle, be handed over to the Woods and Forests as Crown property. He would therefore move—
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that She will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, a Copy of the Case prepared in the War Office, and settled in the Department of Woods and Forests, which was submitted to the Law Officers of the frown, respecting Hull Citadel; and of their Opinion given thereon."
  MR. PEELsaid, that the property to which the hon. Gentleman referred was for a long time in military occupation by the War Department. When it was no longer required for that purpose, a question arose whether the title to it was vested in the War Department or in the Crown as part of its hereditary revenue. That question had been submitted to the opinion of the law officers of two Governments, and their opinion was that it belonged to the Crown in respect of its territorial revenue. It was not usual to lay before the House the cases that had been prepared for the opinion of Her Majesty's law advisers, and there was nothing peculiar in this instance to call for a departure from the ordinary practice. The case in question was prepared jointly by the solicitors of the War Office and of the Woods and Forests. There was every reason, therefore, for presuming that the whole matter was fairly set forth as between those two departments. The War Office was reluctant to part with the property; but submitting to the opinion of the law officers, they gave it up to the Woods and Forests. The present Lord Chancellor and Mr. Justice Keating were the law advisers when an opinion was taken in the first instance, in 1857; subsequently an opinion

  1623
  was obtained from the law advisers of the late Government, and on both occasions the opinion was that the property was in the Crown; and consequently the Woods and Forests took possession of it as trustees for Her Majesty, her heirs and successors. The hon. Gentleman seemed to complain that the Office of Woods, when any property vested in them was required by the public, exacted occupation rent. He would remind the hon. Gentleman that this property was in the nature of an entailed property, of which the life interest was in the public, with the Crown as reversioner. The Office of Woods were the trustees, and were obliged to manage it in accordance with the Acts of Parliament, which directed that the income of the property should be first applied for its maintenance, and that any surplus income should be paid over to the Exchequer. Any rent, therefore, that might be charged to the public, went exclusively to the benefit of the public revenue.
  MR. AUGUSTUS SMITHsaid, that the property now in question never was the property of the Crown, except as a portion of the defences of the kingdom. Great complaints were on one occasion made, that the gates had been shut; and a representation having been made to Parliament, it was distinctly stated that the citadel of Hull was purchased by the public money. What he complained of was the large expense the country was put to in the shape of Crown revenues.
  MR. DILLWYNsaid, he should vote for the Motion if the hon. Member divided the House. It was a most important question, because, in point of fact, it involved the property in the foreshore of the whole coast of England, and the public were entitled to the fullest information. It might not be advisable as a general rule to give the opinions of the law officers, but this was an exception.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 41; Noes 180: Majority 139.

INCOME TAX.—RESOLUTION.
MR. HUBBARDthen rose to move the Resolution of which he had given notice—
"That the incidence of an Income Tax should not fall upon Capital or Property; and that when applied to the annual products of invested property, it should fall only upon the net Income arising therefrom; and that the net Profits, Gains, or Salaries of persons in partnerships (not being public Companies) engaged in any trade, manufacture,
1624
profession, or salaried employment, should be subject previous to assessment to such an abatement as may equitably adjust the burden thrown upon intelligence and skill as compared with Property."
The hon. Member said, it had been his intention to move a series of Amendments upon the progress of the Income Tax Bill which would be introduced; but finding that such a course would be inconvenient to Her Majesty's Government, he had relinquished it for the one he was now following. By bringing the Motion forward at this time he avoided any interruption of the progress of Government measures which were necessary for the collection of the revenue, and he thus released Members on both sides from embarrassment, and enabled them to treat the subject on its intrinsic merits. He asked the indulgence of the House while he submitted the proposal which he had now to make—which was not a mere question whether such a tax should produce so much and no more; whether it should be levied at such a rate and no more; or whether or how far it obstructed the industry of the country; but it went to the point, "Does the Legislature, as concurring with the Government, accept the full responsibility of one of their most important functions and the most important application of it?"—for if it be the duty of a Government to ensure the safety of the people from external foes and internal violence by a wise expenditure of the public revenue, much more is it their duty to take care that that revenue is collected by means which do not injure their property or impair their morality. He proposed briefly to lay before the House what he considered to he the right principle of an income tax; in the next place to show how the income tax, at present in abeyance, violated those principles; and, in the next place, to show how easily the existing legislation on the subject might be amended by the application of the true principles which he conceived should regulate a just income tax. He might be told that last year the House granted a Committee of Inquiry into the subject, and he might be asked why he did not bring forward the Report of the Committee. He was quite ready to bring it forward. He would read the judgment of the Committee on the proposition that he made—
"Your Committee, however, after full consideration, have arrived at the conclusion that the plan proposed by their Chairman does not form the basis for a practical and equitable re-adjust-

1625
ment of the income tax, and they feel so strongly ! the dangers and ill consequences to be apprehended from an attempt to unsettle the present basis of the tax, without a further perception of the mode; in which it is to be reconstructed, that they are not prepared to offer to your honourable House any suggestion for its amendment. This tax having now been the subject of investigation before two Committees, and no proposal for its amendment having being found satisfactory, your Committee have come to the conclusion that the objections which are urged against it are objections to the nature and essence rather than to the particular shape that has been given to it. Your Committee also feel that it would be unjust to make any alteration in the present incidence of the income tax, without at the same time taking into consideration the pressure of other taxation upon the various interests of the country, some of it imposed by recent legislation, and in one case especially, that of the succession duty, to some extent by way of compensation."
He confessed he was not satisfied with that Report, and he did not think the country was satisfied with it. From that Report he deliberately expressed his most unqualified dissent. He would now proceed to the statements which he felt it his duty to offer to the House. First, with reference to the principle of an income tax, he thought he might assume from the absolute disuse of the word "property" in all recent papers and speeches on the subject that what used to be called "the property and income tax" was really income tax, and was intended to be so. That admission established the first axiom he wished to submit, which was that an income tax should be strictly a tax on income. Then the question immediately arose—What is income in the view of taxation, in the view of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, looking not upon this individual or that, but looking upon the whole country? To illustrate his meaning, he would take the case of a man who had an income of £1,200 a year from the interest of money lent to an individual or to the Government. He had no expense of collection, but could place the whole of it to his credit at his banker's, and might, if he chose, expend the whole amount. Then take the case of another man, who had an income of £1,200 arising from the rent of land; but of that £1,200 £100 had to be spent in the repairs of farm buildings and fences, and £1,100 only could be paid in to his account at his banker's. Then take the case of another man, who had an income of £1,200 arising from houses: out of that he had, perhaps, to expend £200 for repairs and insurance; so that he bad left only £1,000 out of his income of £1,200. Then take the case of a man who had au income of £1,200 from mineral
1626
property. In order to maintain the value of the investment, he must lay by £300 a year; so that he would find his spending income reduced to £900 a year. The question that he had to ask was—What was the amount of income in each of these cases with the view to taxation? Was it the £12,000, which if wholly spent, would ultimately ruin the land, the house, and the mine owner; or was it the amount of net income which in each case could be annually expended without impairing the owner's fortune? He might quote other cases of the same kind, but he had said enough to show that income, with the view to taxation, should be not the gross income, but the net income. In all these cases there was the common feature that the incomes were derived from property; the incomes were permanent in their nature, and they were all accruing spontaneously to the owner; therefore all these net sums were obviously open to an equal taxation, and they had this common character, that in every instance the tax-gatherer collected the tax from the hand, not of the owner, but of the tenant or borrower. But he had now to look at incomes arising from industrial pursuits, and in these also there was a common feature, that they were inevitably not the spontaneous growth of property, but inevitably and necessarily the results of a certain amount of labour, skill, and intelligence, applied to a greater or less amount of capital, so that the moment the labour ceased the income ceased also. These incomes depended on the life, the health, and the position of the individual, and were peculiarly precarious, and consequently were not available to the same extent for the expenditure of the owner, who ought in the exercise of prudence to lay by a much larger proportion of his earnings than was incumbent on the possessor of a permanent income. If they could by any contrivance determine the exact proportion of these industrial earnings which ought to be so laid by, they would at once have a sound basis on which to proceed in levying a just income tax. When they saw th6 immensity of the grievance attached to a remediable but unremedied evil, they must be content if they could approach with a certain amount of correctness the remedy of that evil. He would now state why he conceived that the present law was grossly at variance with true principles. The present law, in the first place, did not tax the rent of land as it ought. It taxed

1627
the whole of the tenant's rent, and without deducting the amount paid for repairs. The same observation applied with increased force to income derived from houses, for that portion of the rent applied to the maintenance of the property in repairs and insurance was taxed, though it was not available as income. Still greater injustice was inflicted upon the owners of mineral property, the whole produce of the mine being made subject to the tax. The tax was levied also on fines paid for the re newal of leases, although the full annual value of the property had been already taxed in the hands of the lessee or tenant; so that the tax was imposed twice over on same property. But the greatest injustice, perhaps of all, was that inflicted on the owners of terminable annuities. Here the capital given as the consideration for annuities terminable by lapse of years or lapse of life, was taxed in the annuity through which it was being repaid with interest; so that if a man expended £10,000 in existing terminable annuities, he would have to submit to a deduction of 9d. in the pound upon the whole sum invested. He wished the House to affirm a principle for the constitution of the income tax. He would refer briefly to the measure he laid in detail before the Committee last year, in order to show that he was not calling upon the House to make a mere abstract declaration, which could have no practical result, but one which could be carried out with perfect facility and with an unquestionably just result. He proposed that in the case of the owners of land a deduction should be made from the gross income of one-twelfth or 20 d. in the pound; upon houses he proposed that the deduction should be one-sixth. He thought these proportions had been carefully fixed. With respect to house property, he might quote the evidence of Mr. Lee, a surveyor in a considerable way of business in London, who informed the Committee that in assessing houses for the poor rate he had been in the habit of deducting 15 per cent in order to compensate the owner for the outgoings for insurance and repairs; and also that that deduction had been sanctioned by the Court of Queen's Bench. He (Mr. Hubbard) would submit, that if such a rule was just as regarded the poor rate, it was equally so with regard to the income tax. The question of minerals was a much more difficult one; but after a careful consideration of all the evidence he could find on
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the subject, he had come to the conclusion that a deduction of one-tenth ought to be allowed on all earthly minerals, and one-fifth on all metallic. And here he must remark that the taxation of mineral property was the most crude and barbarous of any that he had become acquainted with in the course of the inquiry. So utterly without system was the present mode of assessment, that the tax-gatherer simply went to the pit mouth, counted the number of tons that were brought up, put upon it what estimated value he pleased, and then upon the gross result levied income tax, without considering what was due to the owner of the royalty, and what to the mining adventurer. Suppose, for example, a mine was taken for fifteen years, for the first year every farthing of the capital must be advanced for the purchase and working of the mine, and during the remainder of the term every portion of the adventurer's outlay must be repaid him before it could be said that he had derived any income from the speculation at all. But the income tax Commissioners and the Board of Inland Revenue, would not allow a single farthing to be deducted from the estimated gross value of the produce derived from the mine—they assessed it to the full amount. This was an instance in which he must say the natural inequality and absence of principle of the tax had been aggravated by the unnecessary mismanagement of those who were charged with the administration of the law. With regard to money lent, to be repaid in the form of a terminable annuity, the remedy for the existing unfairness was exceedingly easy of application. If £10,000 was lent to be repaid by annual instalments, they had only to take care that they charged income tax on what was interest, and that they left un-taxed what was merely the repayment of capital. There were some who said it would be impossible to distinguish between what was capital and what was interest. In the course of the inquiry the Committee had before them a grave financial document, in which it was calmly asserted that monied Corporations lending money on security or selling annuities, were lending and borrowing, buying and selling, not capital, but interest. If such was the confusion of ideas which prevailed in financial quarters, one could not wonder that an impost like the present income tax had descended to the present day unreformed. But to come to the remedy of the grievance. That remedy, he was glad to say, he had

1629
found in an Act of the Legislature itself. In the year 1840 Parliament advanced a sum of £3,000,000 to the landowners of the country, to be repaid with interest in the course of twenty-two years. The loan thus took the shape of a terminable annuity or rent-charge, at the rate of £65 fur every £1,000 lent. The 60th section of the 5 & 6 Vict. "empowered landlords to deduct and retain the income tax out of every rent-charge or annuity for which their land was liable,' but in 1853 the Legislature provided (16 & 17 Vict., c. 34, s. 42) —
"Certain advances of public money to promote the improvement of lands have been made by way of loan…and the repayment thereof has been secured by a rentcharge…. by which the principal sums advanced will eventually be repaid with interest thereon, and it is just that provision should be made for deducting and allowing the duty charged by this Act in proportion to such interest on the payment of such rent-charge; it shall be lawful for any person paying any such rent-charge from time to time to deduct and retain thereout in respect of the duty chargeable under this Act one-third part of the sum which the rate of such duty computed on such rent-charge will amount to, and no more."
This clause (the 34th) of the Income Tax Act of that year had been brought to his knowledge by pure accident; and he should imagine that few hon. Gentlemen in that House could be aware of its existence. By the Act of 1842 the landowner was allowed to deduct income tax on the whole of his instalment; but in this clause Parliament interfered, and said "You shall deduct the income tax on that part of the instalment which is income, but that part of it which is capital shall come back to the Exchequer untouched." This was perfectly just. Deduct the income tax on the interest if they chose, but let the capital which was lent be returned without deduction. What he complained of was that the same principle had not been generally applied, and that the Government should make one law for their creditors and another for their debtors. Nothing could be more just than to apply the same rule to the public creditor who had to receive a terminable annuity, he would venture to say to the House, "Don t make one law for your creditors and another for your debtors; don't excite the feeling, the criticisim, the ill-will, the hatred, and the contempt of the people by such grossly unjust legislation as is here exposed." Those who valued the character of the Government of this country should gladly seize any opportunity of
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removing so gross and glaring an anomaly. Now he came to the last question, which: he felt was by far the most important, and; the most difficult;—it extended over a far; larger sphere, and involved the interests of a far larger body of men. With regard to the other classes, the remedy he proposed was a matter of plain calculation; but this was not so much the case in the present instance—the assessment of industrial incomes. In his opinion, it was absolutely necessary that some attempt should be made to adjust the burden now thrown so unequally upon skill and intelligence as compared with property. The remedy he sought he would venture to explain by expressing a principle, and leaving the measure of its application to the House. He would say, make such a deduction upon industrial incomes as would justly represent the burdens which that class of incomes had to bear as compared with other; classes. In the first place, he should probably be met by the question, "What do you mean by an industrial income? Do you put in the same category the acting and the sleeping partners of a firm, and the shareholders in a public company? "He ventured to reply that the necessary discrimination could be applied with perfect facility and perfect justice. The principle for which he contended was that they: should not levy the same tax upon income which was the result of industry or skill, and upon income which was the mere result of capital. When they found a person carrying on a profession simply, there could be no question as to his case. A physician or a lawyer who earned his whole income by the exercise of his brain, was beyond doubt entitled to the whole of the remedy. The difficulty was when the income was earned partly by skill and partly by capital. In these cases he believed the difficulty was more fanciful than real. They could not attempt to discriminate between the two elements. In this country they could never arrive at what a man's capital really was, and they must therefore be satisfied to take the income earned as the combined result of skill and capital. When, however, they passed from individuals to companies they could easily make the desired discrimination. In those cases the labour and the skill were separately paid for; and they could, therefore, make the allowance to which those qualities were entitled, while the net result of the company's operations, the profit or dividends assumed simply the form of interest on

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capital. Then he might be asked how he would distinguish between companies and partnerships; or in what respect the case of a sleeping partner differed from that of a shareholder? His answer was, that the tax-gatherer knew nothing of sleeping partners at all. The firm was an industrial whole —they did not tax the individual members of the firm, but the firm itself. As to the distinction between partnerships and companies, the law had already settled that. The Companies' Act defined in clear terms what "companies" were and what "partnerships "were. So many persons formed a partnership—so many persons constituted a company. When a partnership reached that number, it assumed the quality of a company, and as a company it must be registered. Thus the matter would present to the tax-gatherer no difficulty at all. The net result of the operations constituted the interest of the capital to be fully taxed: the skill and industry producing those results would be subject to an abated assessment. He now wished to grapple with some of the objections which had been raised against what he admitted was a principal feature of his scheme. He might be told that his plan was not careful about individual cases—that it took whole classes of incomes and dealt with them in a mass—that it would, in fact, grant an unasked boon to some, while others it would leave still subject to an unfair burden. Of course, it was far easier to find a fault than to mend it. But would the House refuse to do justice in the mass because it could not deal with individual cases? No doubt some owners of house property might spend five per cent on repairs while others might spend twenty-five; no doubt some persons might save nothing out of an industrial income, while others might save nine-tenths; no doubt it might be called unjust to place all these in the same category; but he would rather do justice on the average than leave injustice on the average unrepaired, because he could not devise a remedy that would reach every particular case. He had the more confidence in the success of what he was proposing, because nearly the whole had already received legislative sanction. What he was asking for was nothing new, but was simply an extension of a system of legislation already inaugurated. Take, for example, the question of exempting savings from income tax. By a clause in the Act of the 16 Vict., the taxpayer was entitled to deduct to the extent of one-sixth of his
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income, provided that he could show he had expended that portion of it in the purchase of a life policy for himself or his wife. Mr. Pressly, the Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, was asked by that Committee whether a man who had an income of £6,000 a year, and who spent £1,000 of it in premiums on a life policy, would be allowed to pay the tax on £5,000 only? Mr. Pressly said that of course he would. "On what principle," was the next question—"on what principle do you justify that?" "Because the £1,000 so expended is not considered part of his income," was the reply. In that sentence his (Mr. Hubbard's) whole case was proved. The Legislature had determined, that if a person invested a certain portion of his income in a life policy, it should be exempted from the tax, because the portion so invested was not income at all. That was his (Mr. Hubbard's) case. Withdraw the absurd and ridiculous limitation as to the mode of investment, and increase the proportion from one-sixth to one-third, and do not limit it to money invested in life assurance, and he was satisfied. The amount of income on which the tax was now levied was about £300,000,000; and the Act of Parliament allowed a sixth of that to be exempted; but was there ever anything so preposterous as to suppose that £50,000,000 could be invested every year in life assurances? If that were done, where were the funds to come from with which to extend trade and commerce; or indeed what would the insurance offices do with the money? The Legislature had made, with a very good intention, a most valuable admission of a great principle; but it had done it in a form so absurd and extravagant, that no wonder it had proved utterly worthless for the purpose for which it had been designed. He knew he should be charged with being the advocate of a particular class, and that he should be told his object was to relieve Schedule D at the expense of the rest. That, however, was by no means the case. By a clause in the original Act of 1842 (clause 133), it was provided that the assessment should be upon a triennial average of income derived from precarious sources; but it was added that in case that average triennial income was more than the actual income of the year in question, the difference should be returned. The object of that proviso was very plain. When the tax was imposed for a single year, it was felt to be harsh, whatever the antecedents of a man's income might have

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been, to require him to pay on a larger sum than he was actually receiving; but when they made the tax a perpetual one, the rule became perfectly absurd. He (Mr. Hubbard) had obtained some information of its working in the case of a firm in the City, The aggregate income for ten years of the house in question, reckoning each year's returns on a triennial average, was £78,640; but the aggregate sum on which the tax was actually paid was only £40,083, or very little more than one-half of the real amount. The result of this was to charge the full amount where an income was steady, but to excuse nearly half the tax where the amount of the income fluctuated; from year to year. These circumstances could only arise in the cases of persons trading upon a very large scale—of large manufacturers losing in adverse times, and recovering themselves in more prosperous times; and it was therefore an act of special favour to those by whom the favour was least required, and was an abatement which was in no degree shared: in by those who made small and regular profits as traders, by professional men with regular salaries, or by that large and meritorious class the salaried officer: of the State and of private individuals This was one feature in the tax which he should be glad to see disappear. He did not want to see, under Schedule D, one class enjoying so important a boon; while others, and perhaps in many respects those who ought to be more considered, were in no degree benefited. There was another evil attached to the operation of the tax, and especially with regard to smaller incomes, to which he wished to draw attention. A person whose income amounted to £99 19 s. paid nothing to the income-tax; but if he were assessed at one shilling more, he had to pay at the rate of 6d. in the pound, or £2 10 s. upon his income The operation of this sudden rise from no taxation to a payment of £2 10 s. gave rise to enormous misrepresentation and fraud, and, no doubt, it offered a very great temptation to a man of small means to return his income at less than the actual amount, and thus an encouragement was held out to defraud the revenue, and great trouble was given to the officers who had charge of the assessment and collection of the tax. Again, in the case of incomes of £149 19 s. the rate of 6d. was paid, while an income of £150 paid the full rate of 9d.; and this difference of rate had the same effect as the exemption of incomes under £100
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in stimulating fraudulent returns. Both of these difficulties could be easily got rid of by the proposition he ventured to submit; and fixing £180 as the lowest amount to be entitled to an abatement of one-third, £60 would remain as the settled deduction from all incomes under that amount; so that a man having an income of £100 a year would be assessed, not upon £100, as now, but upon £40, and would pay 30 s. instead of 50 s., at the 6d. rate, or 20 s. at 6d. in the pound. He thought a tax of 20 s. would not be very dangerous to the morality of those who had to pay, and he had no doubt, from all the evidence he had been able to obtain, that in this particular the change he proposed would not only largely conduce to more accurate returns from the taxpayers, but would largely diminish the labour and difficulties of those who had the administration of the tax. He was aware that the idea of making people honest by granting a boon had been not only ignored but ridiculed; but it was not simply to the amount of the abatement that he looked for that result. If the Government were to show themselves acquainted with the grievances complained of, and, without proposing to reach each individual ease of injustice, were to endeavour as near as possible to meet the complaints, he believed that that declaration would arouse a feeling in the country which would operate in returns largely to the advantage of the Exchequer, and would probably make the people regard the tax with less displeasure. He believed, that if they wanted to make men rogues and liars, there was no readier way than to treat them as if they were so; and that if, on the other hand, they treated them with confidence and as honest men, and with that justice which should distinguish the legislation of England, the effect would go far to make them honest and truthful. He knew that there were persons who disbelieved in the feeling of responsive confidence, but he had a better opinion of the English people. It was true that Mr. Coleman, an official, accountant in the City, who gave very valuable information to the Committee, said in his evidence that he did not think the returns would be very much more correct even if the measure of adjustment proposed by the Chairman (Mr. Hubbard) were adopted, he gave Mr. Coleman's view because he did not wish to leave any class of opinion unrepresented. But Mr. Coleman, from the nature of his occupation, had been

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specially concerned with persona not of the highest but of the lowest commercial standing, with insolvent and bankrupt firms; and they knew how very apt misfortunes and embarrassments were to make people less scrupulous in their dealings than they would otherwise be. He could not therefore allow that Mr. Coleman's contrary evidence carried any authority with reference to this not unimportant point. He conceived that infinitely above the mere fact of pecuniary compensation to those who were sufferers under the present clause was the immense gain of removing from them the temptation to fraud and dishonesty which arose from the conviction that they were unjustly treated by the State. This tax had been so long pressing inequitably upon the country that many persons who would he was sure under ordinary circumstances have shrunk from anything that was untruthful and dishonourable, had come to the belief that the case was settled between them and the State—that the State robbed them, and they were justified, therefore, in robbing the State; and by the action of this principle all idea of honesty with respect to the income tax had been obliterated. In his evidence before Mr. Hume's Committee in 1851, Mr. Warburton, the eminent political economist, expressed himself very much in favour of keeping things as they were, untouched; and when asked how he would treat professional and mercantile incomes, said—
"I would treat professional and mercantile incomes in the light of short annuities, and levy upon them the same rate; and with regard to incomes of this description I should act very much as the State has acted, not making it very inquisitorial, because if you did, there would be a rebellion against the tax, and it would be no longer paid. I believe the tax has been levied with great moderation by the State; that was the practice when I was a merchant, from 1808 to the repeal of the 10 per cent tax. For years I made the same return annually, and was never surcharged.
Supposing A, employed as a merchant, returns his £1,000 profit for the year, do you consider that he ought to be taxed three per cent upon that £1,000, or is there any modification by which you would alter the amount on which he should pay the tax? —I would treat that precisely like any other annuity. The merchant makes his own return. The greatest indulgence is in that respect shown him by the State. In the case of other properties the parties may possibly have reason to complain. A man who has an income derived from land or houses, gets no allowance for repairs, and various other heavy deductions which are made upon the nominal rent; but the mercantile and professional men make their own returns at their own discretion; and whatever the return may be, it is hardly possible by investigation to find out whether the return is true or
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not. As the returns are made by the parties themselves, without any possibility of really testing their accuracy, I should, generally speaking, say that those two descriptions of persons were more leniently treated than those who have the tax levied upon visible and tangible property, where it is levied not only to the last shilling, but considerably beyond it in the case of land and houses."
What was the whole meaning of this evidence? An eminent merchant and Member of that House acknowledged that for years he made the same return, and was never surcharged, and the leniency of the Administration in omitting to enforce its rightful claims is cited as a merit in the law. He (Mr. Hubbard) thought it most deplorable that a person of Mr. Warburton's position and standing should bring forward as an argument in favour of leaving the income tax unaltered, that as it was levied it was left entirely to the discretion of the taxpayer to return the amount upon which he ought to be assessed; that he made his own returns, and that the State never interfered to see whether they were right or wrong. He had been told that at such places as Manchester the misrepresentations with regard to assessments were notorious—that they were well known to the authorities, who were, however, powerless to correct them. With regard to the effect of the readjustment he proposed under Schedules D and E, without rating the amount too high, he felt confident that the disparity between the amount of the abatement, and that which would be ultimately realized, would be short of one-half of what would be the apparent concessions by the abatement of a third of the amounts liable to assessment. In considering the effect of the change which he proposed in Schedule D, it was necessary to consider also how the other schedules would fare upon a general readjustment of the tax, supposing that they were to realize the same amount as at present. The only fair way to test his proposal was to treat the tax: as one that required readjustment. He might be told that he was raising class against class, that he was wanting to introduce a measure which was to favour Schedule D at the expense of other classes, and he had heard the language used that the landed gentleman would have to pay for relieving opulent traders in London and in the manufacturing districts. An appeal had been made to the landed aristocracy of England to oppose their own personal interest to the Consideration of a measure

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which had for its object the removal of an injustice. But to what extent were the agricultural interests engaged in this matter? In his most comprehensive speech the other evening, to which he (Mr. Hub bard) had had the pleasure of listening, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire, speaking of the taxation of the country, and turning to the benches behind him, said to the country Members, "It is to your class I am now coming, when I speak of additional taxation. The landed interest of England is the milch cow visited when more money is wanted;" and the right hon. Gentleman added, "the landed interest must bear a vast portion of the additional taxation required for the expenditure of the country." He admired the simile of the right hon. Gentleman, if it referred to the fertile pastures of that portion of the country which he represented; but if the whole of the rest of the agricultural interest were taken into consideration, it would be found that the land of England and Wales was assessed in the aggregate at £1,863,000, while the total amount assessed under the income tax was £10,424,000; so that the land stood under those figures at less than one-fifth of the whole amount assessed. But if to the land they added farms, which might be fairly thrown into the same category, they would have £2,436,000 as the amount at which land was assessed in the person of the owner or occupier, as compared with £10,424,000, the amount upon which in come tax was paid throughout the whole country:—showing that the landed gentry and their tenants did not bear one-fourth of the whole amount of direct taxation But if it were taken that they ought to bear a larger proportion, and that in the readjustment of the tax they were subjected to additional burden, who was the person responsible for raising the idea of class interest upon such a subject? Surely it should not rest with one who endeavoured to remedy what was acknowledged to be an injustice; the charge more fairly lay at the doors of those who endeavoured by raising such a cry as this to prejudice the attempt at readjustment. And if even it were true that the landed in-rest would be sufferers by the readjustment of an unjust and oppressive tax, he hoped the landed gentry would not oppose their personal and class interest to a measure which would benefit the community at large. He felt there was no necessity for addressing any admonitory
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words to the landed gentry, to whom such prejudicial appeals had been made. For who were the landed interest? The descendants of those knightly and honourable men who inherited their estates from ancestors who had well served their country—composed also of men who had risen by their own skill and intelligence, and who would scout the idea of allowing personal and party interests to influence their votes on a question like this. The people felt that under the income tax they were not truthfully treated—that the law as it stood was a falsehood, which said one thing and did another. Such ought not to be the characteristic of English legislation. Injury done to one class ought not to he balanced against injury done to another, and certainly that was not the mode by which this measure ought to be disposed of. He had read with much interest the report which had recently been published on the subject of the Turkish finances. From that report he found that a. part of the revenue of Turkey consisted of tithes; but he did not find that the Government of the Sultan even took the cow when they tithed the calves, or the ewe when they tithed the lambs. That was what our income tax did. It took not only the results of property, but the property itself. He would like to know whether those interesting visitors who were here, the Japanese, had considered the subject of the financial system of England. If they had done so, and they should make a report on the subject, how would they describe the income tax? They would say—" We find in this country an income tax, but we also find that it not only takes the interest but the capital which produces that interest. Again, we find that this tax robs the public creditor. We find, indeed, that savings are exempted from taxation; but that boon is coupled with a condition so remarkable that it becomes totally illusory, and not one in ten thousand is benefited by it. Again, we find that it permits very powerful traders, merchants, and manufacturers to escape, by virtue of a special provision, which they say is clause 133 of an Act, one half the taxation, while the more modest trader, professional and salaried man, has to pay the whole income tax. We find these anomalies in the law provoke such an amount of dislike, contempt, and evasion that the Government themselves are incapable of enforcing the provisions of the Act. Such is the law by which is raised a large portion of the taxation of a country which is sup-

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posed to be not only one of the greatest, but one of the wisest in the world." Such might be the picture which our Japanese visitors might draw of the income tax when they returned to their own homes. In the course of the inquiries which he had been enabled to give to this subject one only principle had been enunciated to justify this tax, and that was that it was one of practical convenience. He ventured to disbelieve the practical convenience, of any system which openly violated justice and truth, and he asked the House to affirm that the tax, if re-enacted, should be based upon a principle of truth. Truth in it was all he wanted. If there must be an income tax, let it be levied as an income tax: that was the substance of his Resolution. The hon. Member concluded by moving—
"That, in the opinion of this House, the incidence of an Income Tax should not fall upon Capital or Property; and that when applied to the annual products of invested property, it should fall only upon the net Income arising therefrom; and that the net Profits, Gains, or Salaries of persons and partnerships (not being public Companies) engaged in any trade, farm, manufacture, profession, or salaried employment should be subject, previous to assessment, to such an abatement as may equitably adjust the burthen thrown upon Intelligence and Skill as compared with Property."
MR. CRAWFORDbegged to second the Motion of his hon. Friend, and in doing so joined in asking the House to affirm the principle for which he contended. It was because he saw little prospect of being able to dispense with the income tax altogether, although it had been first imposed for a purely temporary object, that he assumed the responsibility of taking part in this discussion; and he was perfectly satisfied that he echoed the sentiments of the important constituency he had the honour to represent, and of all the other large constituencies in the country. Ever since the first institution of the tax, and especially in the years 1848 and 1851, great dissatisfaction had been expressed at the working of the income tax, which had culminated in the appointment of Mr. Hume's Committee. He had hitherto always indulged in the hope that we should be able to part with the income tax; but he was no longer able to see that prospect before them. The country appeared to be of a different mind altogether, and in the present large expenditure of the country, a speedy termination of which could not be expected, he could indulge in the hope no longer. The petitions recently presented embodied a fair
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expression of the popular feeling on the subject of the income tax. He wished to draw the particular attention of the House to one which he had himself presented from the barristers and solicitors practising in the metropolis, in which they stated that the mode of charging the same amount of tax on income from trades and professions as on realized property was most unjust, and it had been only reluctantly submitted to under the idea that the tax was imposed for a temporary purpose. That purpose could no longer be considered temporary, and it was the duty of the House to see whether the tax could not be readjusted. He did not intend to pursue all the train of arguments his hon. Friend had placed so perspicuously before the House. He concurred with him to a great extent in the plan he proposed to the Committee on the subject, and he concurred with him entirely in what he had stated that evening. But he would recall to the recollection of the House some of the opinions expressed in both Houses of Parliament in former debates on this question. In the House of Lords on the 17th March, 1842, Lord Brougham moved the following Resolutions:—
"5. That with the same view it is expedient to make a distinction between income arising from capital of every description, and income arising from labour merely, levying a smaller proportion of the latter income than the former.
"6. That with the same view it is expedient to make a distinction between income possessed by persons who have only an interest in the same for their lives or for some lesser term, and income possessed by persons who have an interest in the capital from whence the income arises, levying a larger proportion of the latter income than of the former.—[3 Hansard, lxi. 508.]
These propositions were not disputed by the Government, who met the Resolutions by moving the Previous Question. On the 18th March, 1842, the right hon. Baronet the Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring) commented in this House on the injustice of the tax in language which was in complete accord with the views now put forward by the hon. Member for Buckingham. He said—
"The tax now proposed, however, was one to which he could not consent. Was it a just tax? Was it an equal tax? Those were questions for the country to determine. Was it fair for those who were in the permanent occupation of property —that those whose property descended from father to son, and who might dispose of it as they pleased—should pay in the same proportion as those who obtained their annual incomes by their own exertions; incomes which would be immediately cut off by some of those casual accidents to

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which humanity was liable, leaving the families dependent on them wholly unprovided for. For his own part he could conceive nothing more unfair than such a mode of taxation.—[3 Hansard, lxi. 857.]
Lord Howick (now Earl Grey) on the same occasion denounced the tax in those words—
"Again, we are told that taxation ought to be equal. Can anything be more monstrously unequal than the tax recommended to us?"—3 Hansard, lxi. 893.]
And the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashton-under-Lyme (Mr. Milner Gibson), on the 4th April in the same year, said—
"The right hon. Baronet had professed that he wished to take from all persons according to their means; but he failed to realize his professions, because he exacted from persons in trade and from persons who lived by their learning and faculties as much as from individuals of real property. He appealed to every man. Conservative or Liberal, whether this was just; and, moreover, whether they would sanction injustice with their eyes open? Did not such flagrant injustice invite every species of evasion?"—[3 Hansard lxi. 267.]
In the same year, in the House of Lords, the Marquess of Lansdowne said—
"But let their Lordships go a step further; let them go to trades and professions. There again the inequality was more gross than ever. But he would not advert to this part of the subject further, because his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) had, on a former occasion, most eloquently dwelt upon the peculiar circum stances of those who in a state of bad health and of declining age, and finding their professional earnings were escaping from their reach, were nevertheless by the rigid rule laid down—and he admitted necessarily laid down—obliged to pay the fullest amount on their earliest returns, with out having the poor consolation of enabling them to explain their case, because that very explanation would be injurious to them, and deprive them of the benefit which their former reputation had obtained for them."—[3 Hansard, Ixiv. 29)]
He (Mr. Crawford) could nut understand how it was now possible for these noble Lords and right hon. Gentlemen to profess different opinions from what they professed then, inasmuch us the principles remained the same. If they now came down to a period ten years subsequent, they would find that on the 18th April, 1853, the right hon. Gentleman who was now Chancellor of the Exchequer making the following profession—
"I am not one of those who make light of these charges [against the income tax]. In my own individual opinion it is perfectly plain, from the mode in which the income tax was put an end to at the end of the war, that it is not well adapted for a permanent portion of your ordinary financial system. Whether it is so or not, on which
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there is a great difference of opinion, yet I think this is on all hands agreed, that it is not a permanent portion of your fiscal system, unless you can by reconstruction remove its inequalities.…. Self-assessment leads to grievous frauds upon the revenue, and renders the real inequality of the tax far greater than any of those among its inequalities which immediately strike the eye and feelings…..I do not at all deny that the case of professional men appeals to our sympathies. In my opinion, it is one of the reasons which indicate that the tax ought to be a temporary tax."—[3 Hansard, lxxv. 1364.]
And a few days subsequent, on the 12th May, the same right hon. Gentleman said—
"I did state that the burden which the income tax casts upon property is unequal as compared with the burden which it puts upon intelligence and skill. I did not contest the opinion commonly entertained that intelligence and skill were too hardly pressed upon as compared with property."—[3 Hansard, Ixxvii. 260.]
Lord Granville, in May, 1854, said—
"Now, if there was at that time (1853) any feeling in or out of Parliament which was stronger than another, it was, that it was absolutely necessary that the Government should either abolish the income tax, or should modify it to moot certain inequalities and injustices, which were apparent in its operation."—3 Hansard, exxxii. 1043.]
Again, on the 22nd June, 1852, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Wilts (Mr. Sotheron Estcourt) proposed a Resolution in the Select Committee, in which were these words—
"It is repugnant to public feeling to impose the same rate of tax upon incomes derived from permanent realized property, enjoyed without exertion or risk, and incomes derived from trades, professions, and salaries, which are subject to both."
And in his evidence before the Committee Mr. John Stuart Mill, being asked to define the principles upon which he would recommend the construction of a tax of the nature of an income tax, answered —
"I should say that the first rule is the general rule of taxation—namely, equality; that is to say, taxation in proportion to means. But this does not, I think, imply taxation in proportion to the whole of a man's receipts, because the whole of his receipts may greatly exceed what he can with propriety expend upon himself. It seems to me, I therefore, that two kinds of allowances are necessary, an allowance for small incomes and for those that are of temporary duration or precarious. And I think that the present income tax tails of justice under both those heads, though I do not go nearly so far as many people in my estimate of the amount of that injustice. By the adoption of the principle of not taxing savings all the claims of justice towards individuals would be included and covered."
He might have multiplied these quotations by further search among the records of

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Parliament; but he hoped he had called witnesses enough in support of the views expressed by his hon. Friend. But there was one other witness, whose opinion was eminently entitled to consideration by the House. It was an opinion of the late Mr. James Wilson, of The Economist, who, in a Minute dated "Treasury Chambers, March 12, 1853," which had since been republished in the form of a pamphlet, commenced with these words—
"It will be admitted that the time has arrived when a reconsideration of the income tax, with a view to some discrimination between the various sources from which income is derived, is imperatively forced upon the Government. Notwithstanding the ability with which a uniform rate of charge was sustained, it is impossible not to admit that the conviction on the part of the public of its injustice has assumed a more substantive and practical shape than at any former time, and that a very large majority in Parliament is prepared to act according to that conviction."
It was because the tax had become a permanent source of revenue that the House ought no longer to delay expressing its opinion upon it. It was not creditable to go on year after year raising a large portion of the revenue on a principle that excited throughout the country a feeling of universal dissatisfaction. He seconded the Resolution.
Motion made, and Question proposed.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: My hon. Friend who seconded this Motion has combined together in his speech a reference to two matters which are in themselves perfectly distinct, though I admit they are associated in his mind. I mean the question whether the income tax should be reconstructed, or rather, whether the subject of its reconstruction should be agitated; and the question whether the income tax is to be a permanent part of our financial resources. With regard to the permanence of the income tax, with regard to its security or insecurity, its desirableness or otherwise, as a permanent portion of our finance, I have nothing to say on this occasion; because it was my duty, now nine years ago, to explain myself fully, on the part of the Government to which I then belonged, with regard to that subject; and I believe I might say that to every word of what I then uttered I now deliberately adhere. I did not then think that an income tax of 7d. in the pound was a satisfactory portion of our permanent finance; still less do I now think that an income tax of 9d. in the pound can be so considered. I
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am not surprised, therefore, to hear my hon. Friend, who looks at this question as a practical man, and whom I understand to say that he is not so much governed by abstract considerations as by the pressure of the tax itself upon his constituents, together with his own view of the likelihood of its becoming permanent, that upon this account he now appears to second the Motion of his hon. Friend the hon. Member for Buckingham. Though I can express no sympathy with Motions of this kind, and though I do not concur in the grounds upon which it is introduced, yet I believe the feelings from which the Motion springs do extensively prevail. And though I do not think those feelings are founded in strict reason, yet, being founded on views and opinions which we must expect to see arise from time to time—though I for one cannot concur in them—I am willing to regard them with every indulgence, deference, and even respect. But while showing deference and respect to those feelings, I am bound to say on the part of the Government that we must, in the most decided manner, ask the House not to consider superficial appearances in a case of this kind—not to be led away either by apparent authorities or by powerful appeals, but to regard the substantial interests that are involved—the interests, in the first place, not of the State or of the Treasury, but the interests of justice as between the respective classes of the community, and the interests of that social harmony which I am convinced the adoption of such a Motion as this would fatally disturb. With regard to the notice that appears upon the books given by my hon. Friend the Member for Stamford (Sir S. Northcote), I wish to say on the part of the Government that we oppose that Motion of my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend the Member for Stamford has given that notice not in any manner in concert with us. It appeared upon the paper without our knowledge. We have not even the means of knowing—I am not in possession of any knowledge upon the subject—whether it is the absolute intention of my hon. Friend to persevere with the Motion, though I presume it is. But I wish to state to the House that, in the execution of our duty, we shall be prepared, if my hon. Friend should not make that Motion, to give a negative to the Resolution that has been moved by the hon. Member for Buckingham; although, if my hon. Friend of his

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own will and authority thinks proper to make that Motion, we shall vote with him, as the only natural mode which would be open to us of meeting and setting aside the proposal of the hon. Member for Buckingham. I must say that I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham upon the possession of the great courage and inflexible will which he has displayed in dealing with this question. Last year my hon. Friend moved for a Committee of Inquiry on this subject. He admitted the difficulties of the case; but he said that before a Committee those difficulties would be investigated, and that the results would lead to the pouring of great light upon the subject. We thought —I am now speaking of my colleagues and myself—that there were more dangers than advantages in such a Committee, and therefore we took the sense of the House; upon the Motion. But my hon. Friend obtained a Committee by a majority, and thus he succeeded in the appointment of a tribunal to which he determined to refer his case. That Committee was fairly-constituted. I believe, that if that Committee had had only, upon the first day of its meeting, to vote upon the Resolution that is now proposed, or upon some similar Resolution involving the principle of reconstruction, it is quite as likely as not that the majority of the Committee, as then in formed, would have voted for the principle of reconstruction. I believe it was a fairly constituted Committee, and that the reasons of my hon. Friend in favour of reconstruction were represented by a moiety, if not more, of the Committee. The Committee did not fail in patience or diligence. It applied itself with great assiduity and care to the investigation of the subject. And what was the result? Why, at the close of the Committee, the proposal of my hon. Friend was put aside by a majority of seven to two. The Motion by which that was effected was upon the adoption of this paragraph in the draft report—
"Guided by these considerations, your committee have arrived at the conclusion that the plan proposed by their Chairman (the plan now before the House in the form of this Resolution) does not afford the basis of a practicable and equitable readjustment of the income tax; and they feel so keenly the dangers and ill consequences to he apprehended from an attempt to unsettle the present basis of the tax, without a clear perception of the mode in which it is to be reconstructed, that they are not prepared to offer to your honourable House any suggestions for its amendment.
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This was the Resolution at which the Committee, after full investigation, arrived. I am not telling any secrets when I mention that in the majority which voted that Resolution were contained the names of some Gentlemen, Members of this House—aye, experienced and distinguished Members—who had entered that Committee with minds as favourable to a reconstruction of the income tax as my hon. Friend himself. But those Gentlemen, the choice and selection of my hon. Friend himself, heard his case, he did his best before them, he exhibited all his ingenuity before the Committee, he opened and unfolded his case, it was amply tested and criticised in a manner that it would be absurd to attempt in any speeches in this House, and the result was that his plan was rejected by seven to two. That is not an unimportant fact, as bearing upon the present Motion. Presumption and authority are matters of some consequence in matters of this kind; and we cannot run blindfold into the adoption of an abstract Resolution such as this, without sonic attention to these matters. When I stopped my hon. Friend the Member for London (Mr. Crawford) by asking what was the date of the opinion he was quoting from the mouth of the President of the Board of Trade, it was because I had heard, long ago, from my right hon. Friend the present President of the Board of Trade, that having begun, as many honest and benevolent men have begun, with strong convictions in favour of reconstructing the tax, he had abandoned them, and come to the conclusion that any such attempt would be not only impracticable but highly dangerous. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham, having induced the House to appoint the tribunal which he requested; having had the fullest opportunity of producing his case before that tribunal; having found the members of that tribunal—not exactly those who were opposed to him at the out-pet, but, on the contrary, some of those who were favourable to him and sharing his views at the outset—having found them determining by a large majority, in the terms I have read, that his proposal was one that could not be recommended—my hon. Friend now, leading a forlorn hope, as I may call it, brings forward the proposition which his own Committee rejected, and asks the House, upon the slight examination that the case may possibly, and only possibly, undergo in the course of two or three hours' discussion, to affirm the

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principle which his own chosen Committee, after full investigation, determined to be inadmissible. My hon. Friend must, whatever confidence he may have in the force of what he considers to be truth and justice, but which I consider to be the opposite to truth and justice, permit me to say that he is taking rather a sanguine view under these circumstances if he thinks he can persuade the House to adopt his proposition.
I wish now to look to the financial effect of the proposition. I will not discuss some of the points which my hon. Friend has introduced into his statement for reasons that are obvious. My hon. Friend dwells upon the moral effects of a reconstruction of the income tax, and thinks that many sinners will be converted from fraud to integrity, and from mischief to honesty, by the simple proposal which he would embody in an act of Parliament. We have discussed this matter before. I doubt whether my hon. Friend is likely to come over to our opinion, but we do not think that any marvelous moral change is likely to arise from my hon. Friend's proposal. Changes and revolutions in matters of this kind are no trifles to accomplish. It is not easy to change the minds and habits of men, especially in matters in which the purse is concerned; and it is wholly visionary to speak of the conversion of large masses of fraudulent persons in consequence of the adoption of a plan which will shift the burdens of one man to the shoulders of another. Neither is it at all necessary to discuss the question which my hon. Friend has embodied in his plan, whether the tax should apply to incomes under £180, or £150, or any limit you will. But I will make this admission to my hon. Friend. I think that the case of the lowest incomes now assessed to the tax is a case requiring the earliest consideration of the House. Those incomes were dealt with in the first instance by Sir Robert Peel, when he had a bonâ fide expectation of the early cessation of the tax, and therefore he took simplicity for his rule. In the same manner in 1853, when these incomes were dealt with again, they were again dealt with under the expectation that the tax would, at the then rate of expenditure, be extinguished at an early date; and then a plan somewhat less simple was adopted. I agree therefore with my hon. Friend, that if we were in a condition financially to do it, it would be a very proper subject to take into consider-
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ation some adjustment or modification with regard to the lowest class of incomes, although keeping within the safe rule of ancient precedent as to the amount to which indulgence should be extended. I will not, however, at this moment further discuss this point. The proposal of my hon. Friend would have the practical effect of taking away one-fourth of the revenue at present derived from the income tax, which now amounts to £10,000,000. I must take the liberty of saying that I proceed in this discussion upon the vulgar calculations that proceed from the Board of Inland Revenue, and that I do not proceed upon imaginary calculations of the magical results that are to follow from the improved morality of a considerable portion of the people. We must really look to facts, to the old methods of computation, and I must say to my hon. Friend that upon his showing he gives us a loss upon Schedule A—assuming he makes a remission of one penny in the pound—of £520,000. On Schedules B, D, and E, he makes a loss of £1,450,000, and by the concessions to the smaller incomes a loss of between £600,000 and £700,000; so that the total loss would be £2,600,000. This is the defalcation which my hon. Friend proposes to make. And observe that my hon. Friend makes this proposal at a period when it is not only an abstract but a practical question. This House has not yet finally disposed of the income tax for the year. The Bill has certainly passed through Committee, but there still remains the stages of the Report and the 'third reading, and it has then to be sent to the upper House. If, therefore, the House considers it necessary to adopt the proposition of my hon. Friend, it follows that that Bill must be reconsidered, and provision made in some way or other for filling up the void of £2,600,000. My hon. Friend is rather taciturn and reticent on this portion of the subject —namely, the filling-up of that void. If there were no other defect in his speech but that one, this remains; and that particular gap I must endeavour to supply. The gap of £2,600,000 in the income tax, caused by the reduction of one-third upon three of the Schedules, would require the imposition of 2½d. or 3d. in the pound additional to the current rate. So that the proposal of my hon. Friend is this, in point of fact, that instead of passing a 9d. income tax for the year, as you have already

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passed it through several stages, you should raise the rate, for the service of the year one-fourth, that is to 1s. in the pound, and with that combine a reduction to 8d. in the cases of Schedules D and E. That is the proposal which my hon. Friend appeals to the landed interest to support. Now, I am well known to be an enemy to the landed interest—I have been told so often; I certainly have never made any proposition affecting that interest which can compare with that of my hon. Friend; but being so reputed, I shall not be suspected if in what I have to say I show an independent bias in their favour. I must say, then, that the proposition of my hon. Friend is clearly and grossly unjust; and I shall state the grounds upon which I hold that opinion. The first effect of the plan would be this. It is all very pretty indeed; my hon. Friend has boons for everything, and he scatters them right and left. He begins by reducing Schedule A from 9d. to 8d., and Schedule B he would reduce to 6d. As to Schedule C, I am sorry to say it has always been held, by Mr. Pitt, by Sir Robert Feel, and by even great authority who has spoken upon the subject, that it would amount to nothing less than a positive breach of the national faith to lay any special tax upon the funds, This opinion has not been delivered by these authorities merely as an abstract opinion; it has always been delivered by those authorities in conjunction with the questions of the income tax, and as an argument against the reconstruction that my hon. Friend recommends. We must therefore look these facts in the face, and in the reconstruction which he recommends upon the ground of justice, we must lay a special tax upon Schedule C—that is, a higher tax than would be paid by any other class of the community. My hon. Friend may think this untrue, but there are those who think it true. Even if he thinks it untrue, what does he think of the weight that is due to a doctrine of that kind after it has been promulgated from such sources and by such authorities, by men responsible for the conduct of the State, and after it has governed the policy of England during the greater part of the period in which the national debt has been created? Then my hon. Friend comes to Schedules D, C, and E, and they are the special objects of his favour. They are to be reduced from 9d. to 6d. This produces a defalcation of more than £2,500,000. Now comes the
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question of filling up the gap. How does my hon. Friend propose to supply these two millions and a half? One penny in the pound of income tax now produces £1,100,000, but after reducing one-third by the reductions on the three Schedules, it would only produce £900,000. It would therefore require 3d. in the pound to fill up this gap; and the plan would then go forth to the country that Schedules B, D, and E, should pay 1s. Thus, only one class of the community would enjoy the high honour and distinction, under the paternal government of my hon. Friend, of paying the demands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in full, and that class would be the public creditor. Whatever less anybody else had to pay, he at least would pay 1s. The landowner would be eased by little more than 1d. Primâ facie, he would pay nearly 11 d. in the pound; while the tenants' profits, the banker, the merchant, the brewer, and traders of all descriptions, professional men, and salaried officers, would pay 8d. The proposal of my hon. Friend, as it is now before US, would greatly raise the income tax upon certain classes of the community in order to give a great relief to others. My hon. Friend disclaims the idea of dealing with individuals. He says that the shareholders in joint stock companies have nothing to do with the labour and skill expended in the management, and he would therefore tax these companies to their full income. But my hon. Friend has surely heard of sleeping partners in great private firms, who are surely much more secure and comfortable than the shareholders in joint stock companies, and yet he does not propose to treat them in the same way. The hon. Gentleman says he would deal only with classes. Now, the fact is, that one interest is so involved with another—so blended—that they can scarcely be distinguished even by the finest financial microscope. If, indeed, we were dealing with Indian finance, we might tax the Brahmin in one way, the Rajpoot in another, and the Pariah in a third. I do not say that such a mode of taxation would be either expedient or equitable; but, at all events, in that case we should be dealing with distinct and sharply-separated classes. No such distinctions exist in this country, and it is therefore impossible to legislate in the manner proposed by my hon. Friend. The banker, for instance, has a business which is worked under fixed rules, by well-selected officers:—he is allowed to deduct the

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salaries of all his clerks and servants before he pays income tax; and he enjoys a business, with respect to which it is well known, that although it is not so solid, permanent, and substantial as a landed estate, yet it is the next in these respects to it. I have spoken of the banker; but if the hon. Member is not satisfied with the instance of a banker, I can give fifty other instances. I will take some of the first mercantile and commercial firms. There is no difficulty in the selection of instances to suit the most fastidious taste. My hon. Friend is so horrified at the doctrine that the high mercantile class of this country should pay the same rate as the landed interest, that he would propose to introduce a severance between the two, and say to one, "You shall pay 11 d.," and to the other, "You shall pay 8d." My hon. Friend sees an enormous difference between the wealthy London banker and the landed proprietor; but now let us look at some one else in Schedule D. I will take the case of a lawyer, making a large professional income, every shilling of which depends upon his health. The business of a banker may be worth five-and-twenty years' purchase, but the lawyer's business is not worth one shilling. He cannot hand down his business to his son, nor can he make it the medium of placing his younger children in good positions. He runs the race of sheer competition, and every farthing he gets is through his own merits and exertions, and depends upon the continuance of his health. Here, therefore, are professional men as a body who have their income without one shilling of prospective value, and yet my hon. Friend, in his plan of re-construction—with the determination to have justice and equality—deals with those two persons precisely alike, although the difference between them is ten times as great as the difference between the high-class merchant or banker and the proprietor of land. I want to point out another thing to my hon. Friend before I sit down. If my hon. Friend should prevail on the House to adopt his plan, in my opinion it will be very materially improved upon in future years. When once you begin to raise a cry of class against class, and give to that cry the countenance of authority, it does not depend on my hon. Friend to come down, and, with his plan discredited and rejected by a Committee, to say: "I have considered the matter—I have let out the tide, it is quite true; but now I have shut the floodgates, and I say,
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Thus far shalt thou go, and no further." But I have no doubt it would be greatly improved upon. I believe the certain tendency of the plan of my hon. Friend would be to lay more and more burden upon property, more and more to exempt income, and more and more to favour a large part of those who are both the wealthiest persons in the country and the persons most rapidly increasing in their wealth. With regard to the case of the owners of houses and land, under schedule A, the fact is not as it appears in the figures of my hon. Friend. It appears that 8d. would be paid by the favoured class on whose behalf be appears, and nearly 11 d. would be paid by the taxpayer under Schedule A. The real payment, however, under Schedule A would be much greater. I must be guilty of the vanity of egotism in referring to rather a minute computation which it was my duty to submit to the House in 1853, of the real amount of income tax paid by the owners of lands and houses under Schedule A as compared with the nominal amount. From the computation then made it Appeared that in consequence of the various outgoings on that description of property, and of a large part of it being burdened by mortgages and settlements, the whole of which were paid net without any deduction whatever, the tax of 7d. really amounted to 9d. on the residue. Upon the same rule landed and household property taxed at 9d. will really pay more than ll½d., and that taxed at 12 d. will pay 15½d. The result, therefore, of the proposition of my hon. Friend, if adopted, would be, that those paying the tax under Schedule A would be elevated to the honour of paying about 13½d. in the pound, while the tax on the class of wealthy bankers and merchants would be reduced to 8d. There would be a difference of something like 70 per cent against the owners of lands and houses, compared with the wealthy, mercantile, and manufacturing class of this country. Would that be a fair state of things, or is that a proposition which ought to be recommended to us to-night, in the name of justice, and with a solemn invocation to the landed interest of this country to take care what they are about, and to consider that honesty is the best policy? I think honesty is the best policy, and I can assure my hon. Friend, that if he comes to lecture Gentlemen in this House upon that subject, it is a game at which two people can play, and I am ready to throw back upon him

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the doctrine that "honesty is the hest policy" in condemnation of the plan which he proposes. There is an impression abroad that all persons with fixed salaries are; wallowing in wealth and luxury. For instance, all single ladies brought up in luxury —perhaps at the head of their fathers' establishments, but at all events who have enjoyed all its comforts and embellishments up to the death of their fathers, and then passed the remainder of their life upon some fixed income of £200 or £300, or at the outside £400 or £500 a year. These are the persons for whom my hon. Friend has no bowels of compassion whatever. Bowels of compassion ! on the contrary, he has bowels of anything but compassion. These are the people who are to share with the landlord the honour of having their tax raised for the service of the present year from 9d. to 12 d., in order that the wealthy merchant, banker, and manufacturer may have his tax reduced to 8d. I hope it will not be supposed that because I argue against the speech and the Motion; of my hon. Friend with something of the same zeal he has shown himself, it indicates the slightest change in my views with regard to the proper course of legislation in this House; but I must tell him that I believe he is treading upon far more dangerous ground than he is aware of—he is coming near to questions that cut deep into the foundations of social order, and the result of the adoption of the Motion; would be far indeed from what he himself dreams of or desires. There is no greater folly than to suppose that persons with fixed incomes are wallowing in luxury and wealth, and there is nothing more plausible than the whole argument in favour of graduated taxation. I can easily imagine that many a benevolent, clever, and honest man, whose business it has not been to consider practically the subject of taxation, might say, "Let the rich pay; let those who can bear the burdens of society bear them." And why has legislation taken another course? Because there has been wisdom enough in legislative bodies to detect mere plausibility, and to perceive that the true interest of society lies in securing to every man the fruit of his accumulations, and consequently doing the fullest justice to the possessors of property and fixed incomes, though the Legislature may know perfectly well that they are thereby subjecting themselves to a good deal of distrust and misconception. It would be the greatest folly to suppose that all
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holders of fixed incomes stand in the same position. Take the case of a man holding a large estate under a settlement, with an income little adequate to his station, and with no son, but a number of daughters. Supposing he succeeded to the property when sixty or seventy years old; he can only enjoy it a very few years, and at his death it may pass away to some one he neither knows nor cares about. He has to provide for his daughters out of the income he has to receive from that estate for a very limited number of years; and under these circumstances my hon. Friend comes down upon him and says, "So strong is my sense of justice and of the gross inequalities existing under the present income tax, that in order to repair them I must reduce the tax on the wealthy sleeping partner in a banking or brewery firm to 8d., and to do that I must raise your tax to 1s. or something more." I know the feelings which prevail in the country on this subject, and I am inclined to treat them with respect; but having been often called upon, in the exercise of official duty, to consider this question, and look at it round and round and on every side, with the strongest political interest in arriving at the same conclusion as my hon. Friend, I have never been able to arrive at any other conclusion except that this was a plan full of mischief and danger. I do not say it is utterly impossible to make an improvement in the structure of the present income tax. I am very sensible of its inequalities, and I do not at all wonder that these inequalities should be sharply felt. I do not complain of those who describe them in strong terms. But I do say it is our positive and bounden duty to take care that no practical measure is passed which tends to weaken the foundation of that tax, so long as the tax itself is a necessary arm of our finance, and so long as we cannot really see our way to a plan which will in the main get rid of these inequalities. I trust that when plans like that of my hon. Friend are introduced—arbitrary, capricious, and inapplicable in principle, and without any practical recommendation, merely upsetting the principles of taxation as they now exist, and getting rid of one set of anomalies and evils which at all events are more tolerable by being more known and traditional, in order to bring in novel inequalities and novel abuses, and with

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them that source of all evils, discord between class and class—I trust that whenever a proposition of that kind is made, the House of Commons will have virtue and manliness enough to reject it.
MR. HUBBARDin reply said, that he was surprised that only one Member of the House should have risen to speak to his Motion, the more so as a notice of Amendment by the hon. Member for Stamford (Sir S. Northcote) had been on the paper for a considerable time. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had, however, made a formidable attack upon the proposition he had ventured to submit to the House, and he wished to say a few words in reply to some of his observations. In the first place, the right hon. Gentleman had complimented him on his strength of will in reproducing in the House the proposition which had been rejected by the Committee. Now, so far as the rejection of his draft Report by the Committee went, it was only rejected by a majority of one, after which he took no further part in the proceedings of the Committee. It was not thought advisable to ask the concurrence of the House in regard to the Report, it being then so near the end of the Session; and for that reason the simple course was proposed of reporting the evidence alone. He denied altogether that a Committee of the House, or even the House itself, constituted an infallible guide, and he would beg to remind them that the House once voted that a £1 note was worth 20 s., when it would only fetch 16 s. in the market. Notwithstanding, however, the attack the right hon. Gentleman had made upon his proposition, he (Mr. Hubbard) did not yet despair of having his assistance in reconstructing the income tax. The right hon. Gentleman had once been a zealous Protectionist, and was now a zealous Freetrader, and he did not doubt that the time would come when the House would find him arguing against those defects of the income tax which he now upheld. He did not think injustice was altered by the mere rate of the tax, for injustice in point of principle was the same whether the rate was high or low. Having been taunted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer with having omitted to state how the gap in the revenue which the adoption of his proposal would create could be filled up, he would now supply the omission; but he would use his own figures, which he believed to be strictly accurate, not those of the right hon. Gentleman, whether he obtained them from Somerset House or elsewhere. The
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amount which was now levied in the shape of income tax was £10,424,000; the abatements he proposed to make would amount to £1,469,000; but he assumed that one-half of the abatements in Schedule D would be recovered. If so, there would be required an additional tax, not of 2d. or 3d. in the pound, but of 1½d. in the pound over the whole surface of the tax; so that a tax of 10½d. would then produce the same amount as was now produced by one of 9d. Land, including landlords' and tenants' payments, now paid £2,438,000; under the new system there would be a difference of only £100,000, and this small loss of the landlord would be the gain of the tenant. He did not think that that was a result calculated to alarm the landed aristocracy of England, or to induce them to think that his proposition was of so dangerous a tendency that it must entail other measures of a revolutionary and destructive character. The right hon. Gentleman said that the proposed plan would infringe on the faith due to the fundholder, but how did the right hon. Gentleman reconcile his present earnest appeal in favour of the fundholder with his own defence of the robbery so clearly inflicted upon him by the present law? If a man had £100,000 in the funds, the law taxed the income of £3,000; but if the fundholder should lend his £100,000 to the Government on terminable annuities, then the right hon. Gentleman took the tax on the whole of the. £100,000. The right hon. Gentleman was a man of great earnestness and command of language, and it was not surprising to find that he managed, in answer to a calm business-like statement, to throw the House into a fever of excitement; but the right hon. Gentleman's statement had nothing to do with the real merits of the question. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the case of sleeping partners in banks and breweries; but while the sleeping partner in a bank would derive no sensible advantage under his plan, the sleeping partner in a brewery got all the benefit which he could obtain under the 133rd section of the existing Act. The principle which he (Mr. Hubbard) had chiefly in view throughout was to redress the injustice perpetrated under Schedule D, which related to the men who constituted the intellect, and the skill, and the active labour of the country, by whose efforts the country had gained her present eminence, and by whom, if it continued at all, it would be retained. As to setting class against class,

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that question was not one of his raising; but if, in doing justice, the incidence of the tax was altered, all that was proved would be that the incidence was unjust before; and he contended against the argument that because an act of injustice was in existence it was therefore to he stereotyped, and hallowed, and sanctioned. To the assertion that Sir Robert Peel could not mend the income tax, he replied that Sir Robert Peel never tried to do it. He had not time. Had that statesman died a few months earlier, he might have been quoted as the advocate of Protection. Although he was aware, that as he had never given a party vote, he had not entitled himself to assistance from either side of the House, yet he had hundreds of thousands of supporters out of doors, and he could promise that as long as he had health and strength the readjustment of this tax should never want an advocate.
MR. KNIGHTLEYsaid, he had the misfortune of being accidentally absent during the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but he agreed generally with what he had heard the right hon. Gentleman say on the subject on previous occasions. The hon. Gentleman, in proposing his Motion, seemed to have proceeded on what was known in America as the "logrolling" principle; and seemed to have altogether forgotten that the landlord paid land tax, poor rate, highway rate, police rate, and county rate. And independently of all this, and independently of the succession duties, it was now proposed to saddle him by an addition to his income tax. Sir Robert Walpole said, that the agriculturists might be sheared as easily as their own sheep, but that it was a very difficult thing to squeeze money out of the commercial classes. He contended that, owing to wet seasons and bad harvests, the income from landed property was fluctuating and uncertain, as well as that from commercial pursuits. The simplicity of the present system, at all events, was a recommendation; for a man paid upon his income as long as he received one; and if he received no income, he paid no tax. They could not diminish the Estimates to any considerable extent without imperilling the safety of the country; and if a portion of the revenue was to be cut off, how was the deficiency to be met? There was only one answer to that—by laying excessive, exclusive, and exceptional burdens on annuitants, mortgagees, and fund-
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holders, and so far as the latter were concerned, to do so would be a breach of faith. With respect to the proposition of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hubbard) for drawing a distinction between different kinds of income, he begged to remind him that Mr. Pitt, in introducing his Income Tax Bill, distinctly laid down that no distinction ought to be made as to the source from which incomes arose, and he (Mr. Knightley) was inclined to pay great deference to such an authority.
Motion made, and Question put,
"That, in the opinion of this House, the incidence of an Income Tax should not fall upon Capital or Property; and that when applied to the annual products of invested property, it should fall only upon the net Income arising therefrom; and that the net Profits, Gains, or Salaries of persons and partnerships (not being public Companies) engaged in any trade, farm, manufacture, profession, or salaried employment, should be subject, previous to assessment, to such an abatement as may equitably adjust the burthen thrown upon Intelligence and Skill as compared with Property."
The House divided:—Ayes 62; Noes 99: Majority.57.

SAILORS' HOMES—RESOLUTION.
SIR HENRY STRACEYrose to move,
"That in the distribution of the Parliamentary Grant to Sailors' Homes, it is desirable that the Admiralty should be empowered to give assistance to such Sailors' Homes as in its judgment it may deem most deserving of support, whether situated in the neighbourhood of dockyards or not."
As the subject had been well ventilated since he had introduced it to the House last year, it would be unnecessary for him to occupy their time at any great length. His object was to increase the discretionary power of the Admiralty in regard to the granting of assistance to Sailors' Homes. At present the Admiralty was authorized to afford encouragement to Sailors' Homes and other institutions in the neighbourhood of dockyards. What he wanted was, that its power of giving assistance to Sailors Homes should be extended to others than those situated in the immediate vicinity of dockyards. He hoped he would be able to show that those Sailors' Homes to which he alluded were as deserving of assistance as those to which the public money was at present limited. He would remind the House that those Homes were institutions mainly intended to afford a refuge or asylum to the sailor immediately upon his landing from his ship. That was the great

1659
moment of peril and temptation to the sailor from the allurements of his deadly foe the crimp, who too often succeeded in getting possession of his clothes and money, and led him into scenes of drunkenness and debauchery, to the destruction of both his morals and health. He could refer to various cases to show the dreadful results that had followed from this system, but he would mention only one, which would be in the recollection of all Members of the House:—he alluded to the case of the young sailor Devereux, which occurred some months ago. It was reported in most of the papers, and particularly well reported in the leading journal. That lad, who was only nineteen years of age, was charged with stabbing a crimp; and when called on, in the usual form, to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced, he told his story in so artless a manner as deeply to affect every one in court. According to the report in The Times, Baron Martin, the Judge who tried the case, was obliged, on several occasions, to pause while passing sentence of death on the prisoner, being quite overcome by his feelings; while many of those present were sobbing audibly. The crimp had induced that young sailor to go from the ship to his house, and to deliver over to his custody the money and clothes of which he was possessed. He never saw one shilling of his money, and on asking for his clothes they were refused to him. Enraged at this refusal, and maddened by drink, he stabbed the crimp. He could adduce many other instances of the pernicious consequences of the crimp system, but he was unwilling to trespass too long upon the patience of the House. He knew that in the Mercantile Marine Act there was a clause to prevent crimps coming on board vessels until a certain time after their arrival. But that provision in many instances was not observed, and captains very often allowed those parties on board, where they exercised their vile calling, unfortunately too often successfully, in inducing young sailors to enter their dens of infamy, to the loss of their property as well as their reputation. Now, he contended, if they gave greater encouragement to the Sailors' Homes, they would save the sailor from those pernicious influences, and by so doing they would secure a much better and more able-bodied class of men for the service. That opinion was shared by every naval officer to whom he had spoken on the subject. His anxiety was to save the sailor
1660
from those dreadful influences by which he was often surrounded at present. It was occasionally urged that Government aid had a tendency to weaken voluntary efforts. He was totally of an opposite opinion. He remembered the case of the Sailors' Home in Devonport a short time ago. In consequence of the Government aid having been for a time diminished, a panic ensued amongst the subscribers, who believed that the Government were about to withdraw their support altogether from the place. The result was the reduction of the subscriptions to such an amount that the managers of the Home were obliged to dismis3 the superintendent, who was an old lieutenant, with a large family. Exactly the contrary occurred in the case of the Sailors' Home at Queenstown. There an intimation that the Government aid would be withdrawn from that establishment if the voluntary aid was not increased had the effect of doubling the latter within a year. He could enumerate many other examples of the necessity of Government aid, to quicken the voluntary exertions of the public generally. It was well known that sailors, when they once enjoyed the comforts and protection of the Homes, invariably returned to them when they had the opportunity. One of the strongest passions of our nature was self-interest. Savings Banks at those Homes excited that passion; and if excited to a greater degree by the encouragement of Government to them, they would be sure to have a greater number of sailors stopping there. He hoped he might for a moment allude to the great loss Sailors' Homes had sustained during the past year in the death of that good and most benevolent man the late Prince Consort, who was the founder of several Sailors' Homes and a subscriber to many more. Not alone the Royal Navy, but the whole seafaring class had reason to lament his decease. He was glad to see the noble Lord at the head of the Government in his place. He thought that the noble Viscount would retire to rest every night with feelings of satisfaction when he reflected on the benefits which he had conferred upon shipwrecked sailors by becoming President of the Home at Southampton. The country ought to feel grateful to him for taking the lead in such a movement. What would those 500 or 600 sailors that came annually to that Home have done if they had not had such a place provided for them? The usefulness of

1661
these institutions being admitted, he only asked the House by his Motion to declare that their advantages should not be contingent on their being in the vicinity; of a dockyard. A shipwrecked sailor never thought for an instant whether a Home was near a dockyard or not; he went where he knew his exhausted energies would be recruited. At this moment he could point to one Sailors Home, remote from any of the Government establishments, in which one-fifth of the inmates were sailors belonging to the Royal Navy. Similar institutions were now being founded for soldiers; the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for War had taken a Vote to provide for their encouragement and support; and the same leading journal to which he before referred had written strongly in favour of Sodiers' Homes. He hoped that paper would adopt the same view with regard to the undertakings in which he was more particularly interested. He believed that a very small portion of the £1,600 voted actually reached Sailors' Homes, and it was surely desirable that the Admiralty should have power to save from annihilation any failing institution deserving of aid. At Dublin, quite recently, one of these institutions had all but perished for want of a sum of £25, but that amount was kindly advanced by another charitable institution, and the existence of the Home was preserved, he had consulted, he believed, every naval officer in the House; he had certainly spoken to every naval Member of distinction, and they all unanimously approved the object of his Motion, which would do much to further the good understanding between the naval and merchant services, which the late regulations had done much to promote. To utter any panegyric on the sailor was unnecessary. They all knew the obligations under which society laboured to him, the hardships and risks which he underwent to minister to their comforts, and even to their luxuries, and how often he was actually the pioneer of civilization. Under those circumstances he trusted the House and the country would encourage those institutions which had been founded for the benefit of sailors when they most needed their assistance.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That hi the distribution of the Parliamentary Grant to Sailors' Homes, it is desirable that the Admiralty should be empowered to give assistance to such Sailors' Homes as in its judgment it may deem most deserving of support, whether situated in the neighbourhood of dockyards or not."
LORD CLARENCE PAGETbegged to join most heartily in every word which the hon. Baronet had uttered in praise of Sailors' Homes. Those institutions throughout the country had been of inestimable service to the seamen, and he trusted they would receive the protection and assistance of all connected with the seafaring business of the country. The only point in which he differed from the hon. Baronet was in thinking that the public ought not to pay for every one of these establishments, but that they ought rather to be supported by the large mercantile interests whose sailors occupied the: Homes, and for whose direct interest it therefore was that the Homes should be provided. This was one of many questions the real effect of which, if assented to, would be to draw upon the public purse. Although the hon. Baronet had placed before the House a most pathetic appeal, which had been listened to with great interest and attention, it would be his (Lord C. Paget's) duty to show that there were no real grounds for calling on the public for assistance to these institutions. He had not exactly gathered from the hon. Baronet whether he thought the Admiralty; ought to propose a much larger Vote for this particular object; but he entertained no doubt that such was his intention. If they were to increase the area of assistance, that area must be extended to the whole United Kingdom; and if the hon. Baronet's proposition was confined to the sum already at the disposal of the Admiralty, it could be of very little avail if it were divided among a great number of such establishments. As the hon. Baronet must be aware, the grant now at the disposal of the Admiralty for Sailors' Homes and other charitable institutions was very small. It amounted to but £1,621 per annum, of which only £500 found its way to Sailors' Homes, all of which were either in the immediate neighbourhood of the dockyards, or situated so near to them that when the seamen of the navy were on shore on liberty they could make use of them. It was therefore only equitable, that as the sailors of the Queen's service frequented those institutions, the country should make some contribution towards their cost. He was not aware of any bargain ever having been made by the Admiralty that they should not give any such contribution unless the private subscriptions raised amounted to a certain sum. The single consideration with the Admiralty was that

1663
the seamen of the fleet made use of these Homes, and therefore it was only due to their managers that the Government should bear a share of the expense. The hon. Baronet had referred to the case of a poor sailor who was sentenced to death for murdering or attempting to murder a "crimp." If that sailor did not succeed in his attempt, he might say, for himself, that he almost regretted it, for those miscreants are the ruin of thousands of gallant sailors. At all events he trusted that he had received a pardon. The hon. Baronet had cited the support given to Soldiers' Institutes as an argument for increased encouragement to Sailors' Homes; but it should be remembered that the former class of institutions were entirely designed for men in Her Majesty's service; and that as far as the latter were available for the seamen of the Royal Navy they were already assisted by the State. Again, if Parliament were to make further grants for this purpose, the funds ought to be administered by some Department which had the requisite machinery at all the ports for superintending the management of these establishments, and ascertaining that the money was properly expended. The Admiralty had no such machinery, and therefore he must protest against this being treated as part of their legitimate duty. The hon. Baronet had alluded to the countenance given to these Homes by the lamented Prince Consort, who had on various occasions attended the opening of these institutions; and certainly one of the most beautiful traits in the character of that great and good man was the warm interest he took in the sailors of this country. At the same time, if the House were to agree to the present proposition, it would open the door to a very large demand upon the public Exchequer, because it was of no use to say that they would assist this or that Sailors' Home—they must be prepared to give a very large grant if they meant it to be of any real service. But one other strong reason why he opposed the Motion was, that if the Government undertook to support Sailors' Homes generally, the practical result would be to dry up those sources of private benevolence on which they now depended, to weaken the motives for their economical management, and thus seriously to injure the excellent institutions which they wished to benefit.
MR. LINDSAYsaid, that while admiring the spirit which actuated the hon. Ba-
1664
ronet in bringing this question forward, he could not acquiesce in his Motion as it stood. He concurred in much that had fallen from the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty, particularly in thinking that Government assistance would be the reverse of beneficial to these institutions, because it would lessen their hold upon public sympathy—indeed, he thought it even questionable whether the aid given by the Government to Sailors' Homes in the immediate neighbourhood of the dockyards could be justified by sound principle. The seamen of the navy using those institutions paid the same rate for their hoard and lodgging as merchant seamen. No doubt those homes had done a great amount of good, although, owing to the influence of that worthless class the "crimps," sailors unfortunately did not frequent them in such numbers as had been expected or was to be desired. He thought, however, that, though the Government would do well not to undertake the support of Sailors' Homes, it would be a proper thing to make grants to them on account of the shipwrecked and destitute sailors to whom they gave shelter.
MR. BUXTONconcurred in the opinion that serious inconvenience would arise from adopting the Motion in its present form. There would be no end to the demands made upon the House for contributions towards private charities if they were once to yield to appeals like this; and it therefore behoved them to pause before setting a mischievous precedent. If the House attempted to supersede private charity by public grants, the result would be to dry up the sources of private contributions, and matters would be worse than at present. Even the suggestion of the hon. Member for Sunderland was unnecessary. The shipwrecked Mariners' Society had organized machinery in every port of the kingdom to preserve shipwrecked sailors from starvation, and to forward them to their homes.
SIR HENRY STRACEYsaid, that he intended his Motion to apply only to the amount at the disposal of the Admiralty, and he did not think that Sailors' Homes received a fair proportion of that sum. He believed, that although Government aid should be given to these institutions, the public aid would be continued to them. He trusted that the Government would feel that this was such a small matter that they would at once grant it, and not force him to a division.
MR. THOMSON HANKEYsaid, he hoped that the hon. Baronet would not press this subject to a division, for these institutions were well supported, and he was sure there was spirit enough in the British shipowners to induce them to do all that they could for the British sailor. He was connected with the Shipwrecked Mariners' Institution, and constantly he was called upon to receive legacies on its behalf, nor was there at any time any want of sympathy, especially when severe casualties occurred. There was no want of sympathy for the British sailor, and nothing was more undesirable than that they should endeavour to induce these institutions to believe that they would receive any large aid from Government. These institutions, if well managed, ought o be self-supporting.
LORD LOVAINEthought there was some misunderstanding on the matter. The funds distributed by the Admiralty were distributed by them as proprietors, and in that light only; they were not to be regarded as a Government grant in any way. He hoped the hon. Baronet would not press the matter to a division.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

SYDNEY BRANCH MINT.

  SELECT COMMITTEE MOVED FOR.
  MR. ALDERMAN SALOMONSrose, pursuant to notice, to call attention to the establishment of a branch of the Royal Mint at Sydney, New South Wales, and to move for a Select Committee to consider and report on the expediency of legalizing the circulation in the United Kingdom of the sovereigns coined at the Branch of the Royal Mint at Sydney. He might say, at first, that he understood the Government did not intend to oppose the Motion, and therefore he should not go into the subject at any length. It was known that since the discovery of the gold-fields of Australia—that was, within the last ten years—gold to the amount of upwards of £100,000,000 sterling had been received in this country from that colony, the receipts averaging about ten millions per annum. In the year 1853, after considerable negotiation, and on the representation of parties here, as well as in the Australian colonies, her Majesty's Government agreed that a branch mint should be established in New South Wales. A Treasury Minute was issued for that purpose, wherein it was stipu-
  1666
  lated that all the officers should be appointed here, that the branch mint should be entirely under the control of the authorities at home, and that the colony should have no power over it except such as would secure that it should be no charge to the mother country. The mint was established at Sydney in 1855, for the coinage of sovereigns and half-sovereigns, and their currency was at first limited to Australia. The gold since coined at Sydney was found to be not only equal but somewhat superior in quality to the Imperial sovereign. In the year 1857 the coinage was, by Royal Proclamation, made current in Ceylon, the Mauritius, and Hong-Kong. Several ineffectual representations have also been made to have the circulation of the Australian sovereign authorized as current by law in the United Kingdom, and the Australian Association had requested him (Alderman Salomons) to bring the matter before the House, as a fit subject for inquiry, and to state that very great inconvenience arose from the present state of things. They had heard much of late as to its being desirable for the commercial nations of the world to have one universal system of coinage, measures, and weights, and it seemed extraordinary that in the British dominions an artificial distinction should be made between gold coins of the realm which were by weight and quality of equal value. Seeing the importance of the Australian Colonies to this country, and the justice of the claim for the Sydney sovereign put forward by the Australians, he thought it would be but an act of grace to extend to them the boon they requested. The hon. Member then moved—
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report on the expediency of legalizing the circulation in the United Kingdom of the Sovereigns coined at the Branch of the Royal Mint at Sydney."
  MR. MARSH, in seconding the Motion, reminded the House that the pillar dollar of Spain, which came from the Colonies of that country, obtained an immense circulation, and was found very convenient in commercial transactions. He did not see why coin struck at the Royal Mint of a colony should not be allowed to circulate in this country. The Australian sovereign was gradually creeping into circulation here, and being fully equal in value to the English sovereign, there could be no reason why they should not be a legal tender. The coins were, moreover, received in France and other countries without diffi-

  1667
  culty—indeed, however much the acts of other Governments might be objected to, their coins never were. The Colonies had drifted into a state of democracy, which must be looked on with alarm by the most liberal Members of the House; nevertheless, they had shown the greatest loyalty to this country, and the extension of this act of grace could not fail to strengthen the bonds of union between Great Britain and her Colonies.
  MR. THOMSON HANKEYwas sorry to have to oppose the appointment of the Committee, but this was an Imperial and not a local question. When the Sydney Mint was established, it was made a condition that the sovereigns coined there should not be made a legal tender here; and nothing had since occurred which could change the views of the Government. The coinage of this country had always been produced in the country, and there were good reasons why it should be so; for it was necessary to guard against any possibility that its integrity would ever be tampered with. All our trading relations were regulated by it, and British merchants should always be able to feel that British coin would pass all over the world at a certain rate of exchange. Since 1851 £100,000,000 of gold had been produced in Australia; and if sovereigns coined there had been a legal tender in England, this amount would have come to us in the shape of coin. But it was not wanted here in that shape, somewhere about £60,000,000 only having been coined here during the last eleven years. The Bank of England had no exclusive privilege in coining. It was merely used as the medium through which coin was obtained for the convenience of the country. It had no interest except that of preserving the integrity of the coin. But if Australian sovereigns should be made a legal tender here, they would become an essential part of the coin of this country; and if any tampering should take place with the colonial coin, Imperial interests would be affected. This was not a question for a Committee, and he felt very much inclined to take the sense of the House against the proposition of his ton. Friend.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, that if this was an Imperial question, there was the more reason for its being considered by the Imperial Parliament. He believed the value of the coin was as little likely to be tampered with in Australia as in England. The East was inundated with money coming from Sydney, where it circulated with
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  the English sovereign, and great confusion would arise unless either the Sydney coins were made a legal tender or the Mint at Sydney abolished, which he thought would be a very foolish thing.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that he hoped his hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Hankey) would not oppose the Motion. He quite agreed with his hon. Friend that this was not to be treated as a mere matter of form, that it should be regarded as an Imperial question, for the subject was one on which every step should be taken with the utmost circumspection and deliberation. The question had, in fact, been brought forward on Imperial grounds. It was no doubt desirable that the country should not be flooded with quantities of this coin; but he had no apprehension of such a result. It might be true that we had not perfect identity in the composition of all the sovereigns in circulation in Australia, but neither had we perfect identity in the composition of all the sovereigns now circulating in this country, for some of them were alloyed in one way and some in another. But had we absolute security for the sufficiency of value of an Australian sovereign? The answer to that question did not admit of the smallest doubt. The Mint in Australia had been established by due authority, and had been properly described as a Branch of the Royal Mint in England. His hon. Friend (Mr. Hankey), in saying that an Australian sovereign was at present of greater value than a British sovereign, appeared to raise an inference that some day it might be of less value than a British sovereign. But that could not be, for the Mint regulations would prevent any such thing. At any rate, that was a matter on which it would be the duty of the Committee clearly to satisfy itself. There were two reasons which appeared to him to justify the appointment of this Committee. In the first place, he thought the proposition of the hon. Member for Greenwich (Alderman Salomons) would be advantageous to the colonies. He did not in the smallest degree apprehend that British sovereigns would be supplanted by colonial sovereigns of less value. Neither the Chancellor of the Exchequer nor the House ought to grudge the colonies the privilege of supplying this country with gold coined at their own expense. The proposed Committee ought not to meet with a foregone conclusion. The Committee would consider the evidence of persons connected with trade and with the

  1669
  Bank of England, as well as with the Government; and it would be their duty to inquire whether there were any inconveniences in our way, and what was to ha done with Australian sovereigns, when by wear and tear, they were reduced below; the standard at which they were formerly; a legal circulation. He did not believe that Australian sovereigns were more liable to be filed than other sovereigns. He: tendered his acknowledgments to his hon. Friend for charging himself with the responsibility of this matter, and would render him every assistance.
  Motion agreed to.
  Select Committee appointed,
  "To consider and report on the expediency of legalizing the circulation in the United Kingdom of the sovereigns coined at the Branch of the Royal Mint at Sydney."
  And on May 26 Committee nominated
  "Mr. Alderman SALOMONS, Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, Mr. HENLEY, Mr. HANLEY, Mr. HUBBARD, Mr. CHICHESTER FORTKSCUE, Mr. FITZGERALD, Mr. CHILDERS, Mr. ARTHUR MILLS, Mr. MARSH, Mr. THOMAS BARING, Lord ALFRED CHURCHILL, Sir FREDERICK HEYGATE, Mr. LOCKE KING, and Mr. JOHN HARDY:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to the quorum.

GRAND JURY SECRETARIES (IRELAND) BILL. [No. 94.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. HENNESSY, in moving the second reading of this Bill, said, the grand jury secretaries were appointed under an Act of George IV., and the salaries were then fixed. Their duties had been greatly increased, and the price of provisions had become considerably higher, and the object of the Bill was to enable the grand juries to increase the salaries. The grand juries were in favour of the Bill, and a clause was inserted enabling the ratepayers to review the decision by which the salary of any secretary was raised. It ought to be a Government measure; and if the Government would undertake it, he would; withdraw this Bill.
  GENERAL UPTONseconded the Motion.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the second time."
  MR. BLAKEwas favourable to the principle of the Bill, but he rather objected to give the grand juries as they were now constituted any additional powers whatever. He understood that the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) had promised
  1670
  to bring in a Bill to reform the grand jury laws. [Sir ROBERT PEEL: No, no.] He hoped that such a measure would be introduced. If the constitution of the grand juries in Ireland was altered, he should have no objection to intrust them with these additional powers.
  SIR ROBERT PEELdisclaimed having foreshadowed any measure of the kind suggested by the hon. Member for Waterford. What he said was, that he should be glad during the recess to give a careful consideration to the whole of the grand jury laws. He was sure, that if he had introduced such a proposition as this on behalf of the Government, he should have been opposed by nearly all the Irish Members. On the part of the Government he was bound to give a decided opposition to the Bill proposed by the hon. Member for the King's County. There was no necessity for increasing the salaries of the secretaries of grand juries, as he could show that they were remarkably well paid and their duties very light. Every addition to their salaries would be an addition to the county cess, and they ought to deal cautiously with the amount of money paid to the county officers. So far from these gentlemen requiring an increase of pay, whenever there was a secretary's place vacant there were numerous applications for the office; and not only that, many were ready to give a handsome gratuity for it. This did not look like a state of things calling for such a Bill. It had been said that the secretaries had their time so much occupied that they could not engage in any other business. He had made inquiries on this point, and he found some of these gentlemen employed as treasurers to public bodies, connected with insurance offices, acting as agents; and one secretary styled himself a "perpetual commissioner for the transfer of property by married women." They were not only paid a salary, but received large emoluments from fees. He would take four counties to show what was the condition of these ill-paid officers. The secretary of the county of Donegal received a salary of £203; but he also received in fees on the applications for payment to contractors £223, making his total receipts £426. Yet this secretary asserted he was out of pocket by his office £150; he could not understand how this could be the case, when there were twenty gentlemen quite ready, not only to succeed him, but to pay for succeeding him. The secretary for the county of Down received as salary £203; but

  1671
  the total amount of his remuneration was £548. Would it be just to raise these salaries by another £100 a year? The secretary for Fermanagh received £244; the secretary for Kerry, £185 as salary; but, with the fees, altogether £345. Nothing could be more vicious than the manner of raising these fees; and if any Bill on the subject was required, it was a Bill to do away with them. The secretary for Donegal, it appeared, charged on each contractor's application for payment the sum of 6d.; the secretary for Down charged 1s. on the same document; the secretary for Fermanagh, 1s. 6d.; and the secretary for Kerry, 2s. So that in these four counties there were four different scales of fees charged for the same work. What necessity was there for a Bill materially increasing these emoluments? The hon. Member was, no doubt, anxious to do his duty towards those he considered an ill-paid class of officers; but, on the part of the Government, he must declare he thought them most amply remunerated. It would be unfair to other public officers to increase these salaries at the expense of the county cess. He could not assent to the second reading of the Bill, and he hoped the House would support him in rejecting it.
  SIR HUGH CAIRNSthought the right hon. Baronet had made out a good case not only against the present Bill, but for the introduction of another, regulating the whole matter, which was in a most unsatisfactory state. The Secretaries received these fees without any control over the amounts charged. He hoped the right hon. Baronet would, at some future time, propose a Bill, not abolishing the fees, but regulating their amount and carrying them to the county fund.
  COLONEL FRENCHthought the right hon. Baronet had proved the inexpediency of the Bill. He was not prepared to give his assent to it.
  MR. VINCENT SCULLYsaid the landowners of Ireland were already over-taxed. They might be truly described as a body of encumbered proprietors charged with the support of a horde of paupers, placemen, and policemen. He admitted, however, that some grand jury secretaries were under-paid; but the present Bill, if read a second time, would require to be carefully considered in Committee.
  MR. BRADYsaid, the Irish grand jury laws generally were in an unsatisfactory State, and required immediate revision.
  MR. O'BRIENsaid, the fees to secre-
  1672
  taries to grand juries were not legally recoverable. They were perfectly gratuitous.
  MR. HENNESSYasked leave to withdraw the Bill seeing that the hon. Member for Waterford had announced his intention to introduce a general measure next Session.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Bill withdrawn.

PUBLIC HOUSES (SCOTLAND) BILL.

  [BILL NO. 73.] COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  House in Committee.
  Clause 34 (Sentences and Judgments not subject to Review except as provided by this Act).
  SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEsaid, he thought the parties ought to have the same right of appeal that they had at present. He saw no reason why the right of appeal should be taken from them. He would take the sense of the Committee on the clause unless the appeal was allowed to remain.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsuggested that the hon. Member should bring forward any Amendment upon the subject on the Report.
  MR. CRAUFURDthought the point ought to be settled before they went out of Committee.
  Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 97; Noes 22: Majority 75.
  Clause agreed to; as were also Clauses 35 and 36.
  Clause 37 (Interpretation of certain Terms in this Act).
  MR. BLACKBURNsaid, cases had arisen in which magistrates in Scotland had been called on to decide what the words "bonâfide traveller" meant; but as he thought that the Bill itself should contain a definition of them, he proposed to add at the end of the clause the following words, which would exclude from the definition mere excursionists:—"The word 'traveller' shall mean any person changing his abode from that in which he passed the previous night, and on his way to another in some other place."
  MR. E. P. BOUVERIEopposed the definition, which would have shut him out from shelter and refreshment any day last week. The definition was not wide enough.
  Amendment withdrawn.
  Clause agreed to.
  Remaining Clauses and the Schedules agreed to.
  MR. FINLAYmoved the addition of a clause—Licence not to be granted if objected to by two-thirds of the assessable proprietors and occupiers of houses, situated within 100 yards of the premises for which such licence is sought to be granted.
  Clause (Licence not to be granted, if objected to by two-thirds of Proprietors and Occupiers) brought up, and read 1°.
  MAJOR HAMILTONthought, that the clause should be extended so as to embrace the lower as well as the higher classes.
  MR. BLACKBURNexpressed his dissent from the proposal.
  MR. E. P. BOUVERIEalso opposed the Motion. If the sale of liquors were a nuisance, as the clause would imply, then the proper course to take would be to prohibit it altogether. If this proposal were assented to, he did not see how they could fairly object to the introduction of the Maine Liquor Law. The effect of such a provision would be that there would be a canvass on the part of the owners of existing public-houses to prevent the opening of new ones, and thus secure to themselves-a monopoly.
  MAJOR CUMMING BRUCEsaid, he did not think the clause ought to be adopted.
  MR. DUNLOPthought it only fair that, the inhabitants of the district should have a voice as to whether a licence should be granted.
  MR. MUREconfessed he was favourable to the principle of the clause: but, he thought that the clause went further than the hon. Member who framed it intended.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, he-would not give the clause any active op position, but neither would he pledge himself on a future occasion to support its principle.
  SIR DAVID DUNDASsaid, that upon a clause of so much importance the Committee had a right to expect that the Law Officer of the Government would have made up his mind upon it. For himself, as he had a decided opinion on the subject, he should oppose the clause. If the justices were competent to the discharge of their duties, they ought not to be over-ruled by persons living within either 100 or 200 yards. If he stood alone, he should divide against the clause.
  MR. FINLAYwas willing to limit the clause to new licences, so that it should only apply to houses that had not been licensed before.
  Question put, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 19; Noes 37: Majority 18.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered on Friday, and to be printed [Bill 117].
  House adjourned at half after One o'Clock.

QUALIFICATION FOR OFFICES ABOLITION BILL.

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the day for the Second Reading read. [Bill 22.]
  LORD TAUNTONrose to move that the Bill be now read the second time, and said that he had undertaken to do so because he still retained the opinions he expressed last year, that the reasons in favour of the abolition of the tests predominated over the reasons which had been urged against it. Since the question had been so recently discussed by their Lordships, it was scarcely necessary for him to remind them what the present condition of the law was which this measure sought to amend. He was not prepared to say that the questions involved in the Bill were of very great or of very urgent political importance; nevertheless there were considerations which would make him exceedingly regret the rejection of the Bill. When the sacramental test was abolished in 1828, there was substituted for it the obligation of making a declaration tantamount to an oath, and this was made obligatory on all to whom the test formerly applied. But the parties who were affected by the new state of the law were divided into two classes, and were dealt with in a widely different manner. Thus those who accepted offices of trust under the Crown—the great political officers, and with some exceptions, officers in the army and the navy —were required to make the declaration within six months from the period of their
  1600
  entering, upon such office and employment. The practical effect of this was in most cases that the declaration was not taken at all, a means having been devised for securing the parties against the penalties the law imposed by passing an annual Indemnity Act. Although he could not say there was any very great practical grievance in this, he thought it was not a very seemly thing that the officers of the State and the large and important body of office-holders should neglect the law, frequently, constantly, and habitually, though he was bound to admit not universally, and depend upon an annual Indemnity Bill to protect them from the consequences; neither could he believe, that if the law was altered so as to oblige all office-holders to make the declaration in question, the Church of England would derive the slightest additional security there from. But the portion of the existing law to which he more particularly desired to draw attention was by no means a dead letter—it had a direct and practical operation. For some reason or other, the enactments of the law were far more stringent with regard to persons holding municipal offices and members of corporations, as mayors, aldermen, common councilmen, town clerks, &c., and they were obliged to make the declaration when they took office, under heavy penalties in case of non-compliance. No six months' delay was allowed in these cases, consequently they were practically affected by the state of the law. This was the point to which he wished more especially to call their Lordships' attention. The petitions which he and other noble Lords had presented that evening almost all emanated from the corporate bodies of England, and they all prayed to be relieved from this obligation, which they felt to be an unnecessary strain upon their consciences. He had presented petitions from the important municipalities of Sheffield, Northampton, and Leicester, requesting their Lordships to agree with the House of Commons in relieving them from this necessity, and he would proceed to state the grounds upon which he joined with them in that appeal. He did not deny that these petitions came principally from Protestant Dissenters, but he could assure their Lordships that the Protestant Dissenters were not alone in their desire for the removal of this test. Many conscientious Churchmen who were Members of these corporations felt it to be a painful thing to be called upon to

  1601
  make a solemn declaration equivalent to an oath not to do that which they believed it impossible they could do even if they were so minded. The declaration bound them in their official capacities—for it did not apply to them as private individuals —not to use any of the powers they possessed as members of municipal corporations for the injury of the Church as by law established. They did not see—and he did not see—how it was possible for a mayor, alderman, or common councilman to do, exercise, or use the powers of their office to injure the Protestant Church as in this country established. They did not see in what way it was possible they could injure it, and therefore they regarded this declaration as falling within the category of unnecessary oaths. Some scrupulous men have declined to make the declaration, and consequently are unable to take the office to which their fellow-citizens have elected them; but generally speaking it was taken, and therefore became a practical grievance. He could well imagine a necessity for some such security when the declaration was framed, because there was then a mode by which it might be conceived the holder of any corporate office might use his power to the injury of the Church. At that time corporate bodies possessed very considerable ecclesiastical patronage; that, however, had been long since taken away, and they had now nothing whatever to do with the appointment of clergymen of the Church of England. But if any proof were wanted to show the utter uselessness of requiring this declaration, it would be found in the fact that no such declaration was required to be made by the members of Irish corporations. If the declaration was effective as a protection to the Church, why was it not required from the members of municipal corporations in Ireland? The Irish portion of the Church Establishment was certainly not the strongest part of the great national institution; yet the declaration which every member of the corporations of London, of Liverpool, of Leeds, and of Sheffield must make, the members of the corporations of Dublin, of Cork, and of Belfast were exempt from. The noble and learned Lord (Lord Chelmsford) said, in the debate last year, that this test was a bulwark of the Church of England. It might be so; but he (Lord Taunton) must think it strange that the bulwark should be erected where the defenders were many and the fortifications
  1602
  strong, instead of at the point where the defenders were few and the defences comparatively weak. But, in truth, it was no protection to the Church at all. He could assure the right rev. Bench that there was an increasing distaste on the part of the people to take unnecessary oaths, and they could not see in any way that this one was necessary, or that it could answer any useful purpose. When the Bill was before their Lordships last year, certain noble Lords who opposed it referred to the violent language sometimes used by Dissenters against the Church. But violent language had been before now used by members of the Church of England, and surely it was not worthy of the high character of this House to be influenced in their legislation by violent language used by one party or another. It was the duty of their Lordships to do justice, and to listen to reasonable complaints, whether made by Churchmen or Dissenters. He was equally sure that they would be ever ready to resist any attempt made to affect the security of the Church, come from what quarter it might, while at the same time they would do justice to any class of Her Majesty's subjects who desired to be relieved from what they considered a conscientious burden. The Bill had been passed by the House of Commons four several times. There could be no real, substantial danger to fear from the abolition of this qualification, while, on the other hand, their Lordships would gratify the feelings of many of the Dissenters if they would concur in the passing of the Bill. He could remember the time when Parliament repealed the Test and Corporation Acts, and the fears which were then expressed as to the result; but none of them had come to pass. The question now was, whether they could or could not safely give up this declaration without any danger to the Church of England, and he believed, and had endeavoured to show, that they could most undoubtedly do so. Those who had held high political office knew practically that the Act now on the statute-books was a dead letter; and with regard to that portion of the Act which had any vitality in it, namely, the oath required to be taken by the members of corporations, there were two objections—first, the oath was unintelligible, and secondly, it was unnecessary, No oath should be required to be taken except on special occasions, and their endeavours should be to clothe oaths with

  1603
  the sanctity and respect which was due to a solemn asseveration. He would repeat that solemn oaths were not to be administered lightly. The circumstances of the present time were, he thought, very favourable to the adoption of the step which he advocated. The Church was in our day very strong and deservedly very popular throughout the country. She was so, he might add, not because of those declarations which he asked the House to abolish, but on account of her own internal force, the zeal of her clergy, and the activity of her bishops. In what lay the use, then, so far as she was concerned, of safeguards so ambiguous, so obscure, and so valueless as those of which he was speaking? For his own part, he could not see in what it consisted, and their Lordships might depend upon it that in assenting to the second reading of the Bill before them they would be doing to the Church not an injury, but a service. The Church was well able to protect herself, and had no need, in order to do so, to impose unnecessary burdens on any class of the community. It was but very recently that in reading the Life of Mr. Pitt, published by the noble Earl opposite, he lighted upon a passage in the correspondence of the Minister with George III., in the course of which the latter stated he would have nothing to do with the repeal of the Test Act, inasmuch as it was the palladium of the Church of England. That statement it was at the present day—seeing that the Church had for many years been deprived of the palladium in question—impossible to read without a smile. Any apprehension as to the evil results which might flow from the passing of the present measure were, he could not help thinking, equally unfounded. He trusted, therefore, their Lordships would consider it in a candid and impartial spirit, for he felt that while in giving their assent to it they would be doing an act which could possibly have no injurious effect, they would, on the other hand, be taking a course which would be highly satisfactory to many worthy and conscientious men. The noble Lord concluded by moving the second reading of the Bill.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.
  THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGHsaid, it became his duty to intrude himself upon their Lordships' attention for a few moments in reference to this matter, with the view of inducing them not to concur in the proposition which had just been submitted to the House by his noble Friend
  1604
  opposite. His noble Friend had very justly and properly characterized the measure of which he had moved the second reading, as one of no very great importance so far as the security of the Church of England was concerned. He fully and entirely re-echoed and assented to that observation. His noble Friend argued that the Bill might be passed without any danger to the Established Church. He (the Duke of Marlborough) concurred with him in thinking that it could not in any way affect the real and substantial security of the Church of England. It was not upon any such grounds as those that he and the noble Lords with whom he acted felt it their duty to oppose the measure. The question of danger to the Established Church was not the question at issue raised by this Bill. The real question was, whether there was any practical necessity for this measure, or whether there was any real grievance to be remedied by the passing of the Bill. Now, the noble Lord in moving the second reading, as far as he understood, had not pretended that there was any real grievance to be remedied. His noble Friend stated that the Act was practically violated —that it was never enforced against certain functionaries; and that a Bill of Indemnity was passed annually by Parliament for the purpose of protecting some of their Lordships and other persons holding offices under the Crown from the penal consequences of neglecting to conform to the requirements of the Act. Now, if this indemnity could be so easily obtained, where, he asked, was the grievance of the declaration? But, while this was the case, he contended that it was a matter of considerable importance that Parliament should retain the power in its hands of passing or refusing to pass, as it might deem fit, the Act of Indemnity, and of thereby maintaining the law in efficiency. The only other objection urged against the present law was that this solemn declaration was disliked by Dissenters. The declaration which was passed in 1828, applied equally to Roman Catholics as to Dissenters. The Crown was then jealous of Dissenters, and Parliament of the Roman Catholics; and it was to meet the case of both classes that the Act in question was passed. If Dissenters had no evil designs against the Established Church, they could have no real objection to make the required declaration. He had it, however, in his power to quote to their Lordships the opinions of some of the

  1605
  Dissenters of this country on the subject. A short time ago a Conference of a Society called "The Society for the Liberation of Religion from State Control" was held in London. The great object of that Society, as their Lordships were aware, was to effect the separation of the Church from the State. That Society was now assuming very large proportions, and was putting forward important but somewhat exaggerated claims. At the Conference to which he was referring this very measure was brought under consideration in such a way as to show that it was one of a series of measures which were supported by and had obtained the approval of the Society. The Conference passed a resolution of thanks both to Mr. Dillwyn and Mr. Hadfield for their exertions as Members of the House of Commons, "to abolish the offensive declaration imposed for the acknowledged purpose of securing the legal recognition of the supremacy of the Church of England." He (the Duke of Marlborough) contended that those were circumstances and facts which ought to be regarded with attention by their Lordships. The Liberation of Religion Society was a body of considerable dimensions and organization. At the Conference to which he was referring 350 delegates from 150 towns in England attended, which showed a large and powerful organization. Many of those delegates were Dissenting ministers of great power and influence. Mr. White-head, of Bradford, one of the speakers on the occasion, expressed the interest he took in the question as a member of the town council, but said he differed in opinion from the previous speakers in regard to the gravity or importance of the declaration sought to be repealed; for he had no hesitation in saying that, without making the declaration, he had no intention whatever of taking any step as a common councilman that could be considered detrimental to the interests of the Church of England. Well, then, if there were no objections felt by members of corporations to making this declaration, in which all classes were equally concerned, it seemed to him to be an indication of the existence of other motives lying behind the real and ostensible objections which were put forward against this measure. He believed that the advocates of this Bill looked upon it as one of a series of measures which would gradually tend to destroy the supremacy of the Church of England established by Act of Parliament,
  1606
  and fully recognised at the time the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed. It should be recollected that at the time these Acts were repealed, Dissenters occupied a very different position in the kingdom to what they did now. The noble Earl opposite (Earl Russell), who took so active a part in the passing of these measures, took considerable pains to show that the fears then entertained by a large class of persons, that the Acts would prove dangerous to the stability of the Church of England were groundless. The Dissenters of that day, the noble Earl contended, were a loyal and constitutional body, and deeply attached to the institutions of the country. He (the Duke of Marlborough) asked their Lordships whether those arguments could be use now with equal force, in the face of an organized system going on for the avowed object of causing a separation of the Church from the State. This question seemed to him to he a very important one, viewing it in that aspect; for it showed that the persons who were ventilating this question did not view it as a social, civil, or political question, but rather as a religious question. On the grounds of doing a service to God in this matter, they were endeavouring to overthrow that which was one of the great bulwarks of the liberties of this country. He thought it was incumbent upon their Lordships, if they were anxious to defend an institution to which they were all deeply attached, to prevent any attempt of this nature to undermine one of the outworks of the Establishment. It might, indeed, if it were now proposed to establish this declaration for the first time, be a question for their Lordships whether it was necessary; but it was a very different question when they were asked to abolish a declaration already existing. Viewing, then, this as one of a series of measures avowed and acknowledged to be intended to separate the Church from the State, and seeing that no practical grievance existed which this Bill could remedy, he called upon their Lordships to oppose a measure which was hailed by the Dissenters as one unfavourable to the Church of England, and hostile to the interests and supremacy of that Church as established by law. He would therefore move, that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.
  Amendment moved, to leave out "now" for the purpose of inserting "this day six months."
  LORD WODEHOUSEsaid, he thought

  1607
  he latter part of the noble Duke's speech somewhat inconsistent with the previous portions. The noble Duke, in the first instance, argued that the Bill could not affect in any way the security and stability of the Established Church, but wound up his speech by urging their Lordships to reject the measure on the ground that it was one of a series of attempts to undermine that Church, and to separate it from all State control. Now, if he (Lord Wodehouse) thought the present measure to be one step in the direction of destroying what was called one of the outworks of the Established Church, he, as a sincere member of that Church, would be the last person to give it the slightest support; but he could not regard the Bill in such a light when he recollected the language of the declaration now proposed to be abolished. It was a declaration neither more nor less than this—that no persons would use their power, as mayor or common councilmen, to destroy the. Established Church. To rely upon the security afforded by such a declaration appeared to him absolutely chimerical. The noble Duke aid that there was no practical grievance in the matter. It was true, the grievance might not be a great one, but, as far as it went, it was a practical one. Again, when the noble Duke argued that the annual passing of the Indemnity Act did to some extent diminish the grievance, the noble Duke forgot to add that the Indemnity Act did not apply to municipal officers, and therefore did not relieve the persons whom this Bill was intended to benefit from the hardship of which they complained. Although, then, he thought it impossible to say that this was a matter of very great importance, it appeared to him very objectionable to retain solemn oaths—[The Duke of MARLBOROUGH: Solemn declarations.] Well, solemn declarations, which had the force of oaths, for purposes for which they were not required. He thought it clear that those who wished to retain this declaration looked upon it as a sort of pledge of the supremacy and predominance of the Established Church. But he was of opinion, that if, with all the power which the Established Church possessed, with the great revenues which it enjoyed, with its improved position in the hearts and consciences of a very large portion of the people of this country, it was thought necessary by a declaration of this kind to prove the predominance of the Established Church, that
  1608
  was nothing better than raising up an obstacle in the minds of Dissenters to union with the Church. He thought that the matter had been so frequently debated as to be perfectly familiar to their Lordships, and he should not, therefore, be justified in detaining them longer. He did hope that the House would not be led away by statements as to the designs of persons out of doors, but would look to the subject as it was actually before them; and that they would not think that by voting for this Bill they were voting against the supremacy of the Established Church, any more than that by voting against it they were adding one title to the security of the Church in this country.
  On Question, That "now" stand part of the Motion, their Lordships divided:—Contents 55; Not-Contents 87: Majority 32. Resolved in the Negative; and Bill to be read 2a on this Day Six Months.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDErose to call their Lordships' attention to a point of order. It appeared that by mistake a right rev. Prelate had passed from the House with the "Contents," and his name was taken down by the clerks; but he had remained in the lobby. He (the Marquess of Clanricarde) had not seen any right rev. Prelate pass through that door (the door by which the "Contents," returned to the House). He apprehended it would not be right that the name of the right rev. Prelate should be printed in the Journals as among the "Contents," although his name had been so taken down by the clerks. The matter was of some importance, because he was not aware that there was any case of this kind, and it would form a precedent. His own opinion was that the right rev. Prelate's vote should be counted with the "Contents," or else that a Motion should be made that his name should not appear on the Journals among the "Contents." As the right rev. Prelate did not pass the Tellers, he was not, he believed, counted in the minority; but as the right rev. Prelate passed the clerks, his name would be in the list of "Contents."
  THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER: My Lords, it is quite true, as has been stated by the noble Marquess, that I inadvertently passed into the wrong lobby. I was not aware that those who differed from the "Contents" might not pass that way, and might not state that they were "Not Content" at that bar. I therefore stand in the position of having been in the lobby

  1609
  on the right when I ought to have been in the lobby on the left. I am now in the hands of the House. Your Lordships must decide whether, under the circumstances, my name may be erased from the "Contents" and transferred to the "Non-Contents," or whether I may not be named as not having voted at all.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, he was not aware that any precedent exactly similar to the present instance existed, or that anything would happen from the trans action, except that the right rev. Prelate would lose his vote. The numbers would be entered in the Journals from the numbers reported by the Tellers, and not from the names given in by the clerks. When a discrepancy occurred between the numbers ascertained by the Tellers, and the names written down by the clerks, it was usual for the latter to correct their list by expunging any name which had been incorrectly entered. The clerks were not, he thought, bound to return the name of a Peer who passed them, if they knew, as in the present case, that He did not pass the Tellers. Their Lordships might therefore, he thought, leave the matter as it stood, the only effect being that the right rev. Prelate would lose his vote.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he had not the slightest wish to claim the vote of the right rev. Prelate, which, moreover, could not exercise any practical effect on the division. It appeared to him, however, that there was some irregularity in the right rev. Prelate's being in the House at all at that moment. There was only one exit from the lobby; and if the right rev. Prelate had left it by that door, he would have been counted by the Tellers. The right rev. Prelate, he therefore suspected, must have escaped by some back door, or by some other irregular method.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid, that for the purposes of a division the lobby was a part of the House itself. The question therefore arose whether a Peer could remain in the House without voting. [Earl GREY: He can go behind the Woolsack near the throne, as the Bishop of Worcester did just now, and so escape voting.] No doubt that was so. He had himself done what others had done, and had gone to the steps of the Throne —which was not considered within the House—when he wished not to vote. But the present was not a parallel case, because the lobby was a part of the House during a division.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, that in the other House of Parliament, when a Member was in the House when the Question was put, and wished to shirk a division, it was the duty of the Tellers to seek him out, and bring him to the table, when he was asked by the Speaker how he intended to vote? The irregularity in the present case was, as had been stated by his noble Friend, that there was no exit from the lobby except by passing the Tellers. It appeared to him that the clerks ought not to have allowed the right rev. Prelate to re-pass them. It was the duty of the Tellers to have searched for the right rev. Prelate, and to have counted him among the "Contents." It would then have been for their Lordships to take such action upon the matter as they might see fit.
  THE MARQUESS OF BATHsaid, that their Lordships had their own Rules and Orders, and were not bound by those of the other House of Parliament. If any new rules were required, the matter might be referred to their Lordships' own Standing Orders Committee. He could not agree with the noble Marquess that the lobbies were within the House, because to reach them it was necessary to pass the point at which by a fiction the "House" ceased. In the House of Commons all Members who were in the House were compelled to vote; but in their Lordships' House, if a Peer chose to step behind the Woolsack, he was held to be not within the House. Their Lordships would not wish to to debar a Peer from the privilege he now possessed of evading the necessity of voting by walking to the steps of the Throne.
  EARL STANHOPEagreed that there was no precedent to guide their Lordships in the point at issue. He concurred with the noble Baron (Lord Stanley of Alderley) in thinking, that if a Peer by inadvertence went into the wrong lobby, that inadvertence could be repaired in the same manner as it was in the House of Commons—namely, by his being brought up by the Tellers and questioned by the Lord Chancellor. The question might be put to him on which side he intended to vote, and according to his answer his vote should be recorded.
  LORD REDESDALEthought it would I be very desirable that their Lordships; should have an Order on this subject, and that the matter should be ruled very much in accordance with the practice which prevailed in the House of Commons. On the

  1611
  present occasion it would, perhaps, be better not to take any step, as it was very well known on which side the right rev. Prelate had intended to vote.
  EARL GREYsuggested that the more regular course to pursue was that referred to by the noble Marquess, and that the House should make an Order, that notice having been taken that the right rev. Prelate, though he had passed into the lobby, had not voted, the noble Lord on the Woolsack should ask on which side the right rev. Prelate intended to vote, and that his vote should be recorded according to his answer. He would submit a Motion to their Lordships embodying what he had stated.
  LORD REDESDALEwished to point out, as a matter of order, that the numbers had been already taken up and the division declared to the House, and that therefore it was too late to make any alteration in it.
  THE MARQUESS OF BATHhoped the noble Earl would not press his Motion. As there were many points of Order involved, it would be better to appoint a Select Committee to consider the matter. Technically, the noble Lord on the Woolsack had to come into the "House" before he took part in their proceedings, and therefore it was the preferable course that the right rev. Prelate should come to the table and declare himself, without being asked, which way he intended to vote.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORthen put the Question that he should ask the right rev. Prelate, whether he intended to vote with the Contents or the Not-Contents, and that his Vote be recorded accordingly.
  Motion agreed to.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lord Bishop, I am directed by the House to ask your Lordship, whether you heard the Question put from the Chair?
  THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER: Yes.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: On which side was it your Lordship's intention to vote—with the Contents, or with the Not-Contents?
  THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER: It was my intention to vote with the Not-Contents.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: On which side does your Lordship vote?
  THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER: With the Not-Contents.
  Then it was Ordered, That the Vote be recorded with the Not-Contents.
  THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: My Lords, since first I had the honour of a seat in your Lordships' House, I have never known so extraordinary a proceeding as that which has just taken place. The noble Earl (Earl Grey) moved that a particular question should be put by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, on which the noble Lord put the right rev. Prelate through a course of examination and cross-examination. I object to any noble and learned Lord sitting on the Woolsack doing more on such occasions than what absolutely he has been directed by the House to do. If we allow any noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, under the pretence of putting a simple question, to conduct an examination and a cross-examination, great irregularity and inconvenience may arise.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I ask your Lordships to accept my apology if, unwittingly, I have added one more to the numerous irregularities of this evening. Very possibly I took a licence or overstepped the limit of the directions given by your Lordships; but as I understood it to be your Lordships' intention to adopt the practice which in such cases prevails in the House of Commons, I thought it only regular to put the questions which are asked by the Speaker of the House of Commons. I know it to be the practice for the Speaker to ask the hon. Member whether he had heard the Question put before asking him on what side he intended to vole. I hope your Lordships will accept my apology, and my assurance that I had no other intention in putting the question which has drawn down upon me the dreadful censure of the noble Duke.
  [The following is the entry on the MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS:—
  "The House having been informed that the Bishop of Winchester went into the Lobby to the right of the Throne by mistake, and that although his Name was taken down by the Clerks in the Lobby, he did not pass the Tellers for the Contents: It was moved, That the Lord Chancellor be directed to ask the Right Reverend Prelate whether he intended to vote with the Contents or Not-Contents, and that his Vote be recorded accordingly; agreed to; and the Lord Chancellor having put the Question to the Right Reverend Prelate, his Lordship declared that he intended to vote with the Not-Contents: Ordered, That the Vote be recorded with the Not-Contents."]

  Contents

  55

  Net-Contents

  87

  Ordered, That the name of The Lord Bishop of Winchester be added to the List of Not-Content

  1

  Net-Contents

  88

  CONTENTS.

  Westbury, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Carew, L.

  Chesham, L.

  Congloton, L.

  Devonshire, D.

  Cranworth, L.

  Newcastle, D.

  Crewe, L.

  Dacre, L.

  Abingdon, E.

  Dartrey, L. (L, Cremorne.)

  Airlie, E

  Camperdown, E.

  Ebury, L.

  Cawdor, E.

  Foley, L. [Teller.]

  Cowper, E.

  Hamilton, L. (L. Belhaven and Stenton.)

  De Grey, E.

  Ducie, E.

  Leigh, L.

  Effingham, E.

  Lismore, L. (V. Lismore.)

  Essex, E.

  Granville, E.

  Llanover, L.

  Grey, E

  Lyveden, L.

  Minto, E.

  Minster, L. (M. Conyngham.)

  Russell, E.

  Saint Germans, E.

  Overstone, L.

  Sommers, E.

  Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

  Strafford, E.

  Wicklow, E.

  Portman, L.

  Rosebery, L. (E. Rosebery.)

  Falmouth, V.

  Leinster, V. (D. Leinster.)

  Sandys, L.

  Saye and Sele, L.

  Stratford de Redcliffe, V.

  Sefton, L. (E. Sefton.)

  Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.)

  Durham, Bp.

  Stanley of Alderley, L

  Stratheden, L.

  Belper, L.

  Taunton, L. [Teller.]

  Blantyre, L

  Wodehouse, L.

  Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.)

  Worlingham, L.(E. Gosford.)

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  York, Archbp,

  Graham, E. (D. Montrose.)

  Manchester, D.

  Harrington, E.

  Marlborough, D.

  Home, E.

  Richmond, D.

  Lucan, E.

  Rutland, D.

  Manvers, E.

  Morton, E.

  Bath, M. [Teller.]

  Orkney, E.

  Normanby, M.

  Pomfret, E.

  Salisbury, M.

  Powis, E.

  Romney, E.

  Amherst, E.

  Rosslyn, E.

  Bantry, E.

  Stanhope, E.

  Beauchamp, E.

  Verulam, E

  Carnarvon, E.

  Cathcart, E.

  Doneraile, V.

  Dartmouth, E.

  Dungannon, V.

  De La Warr, E.

  Exmouth, V.

  Derby, E.

  Hardinge, V.

  Desart, E.

  Hood, V.

  Doncaster, E. (D. of Buccleuch and Queens berry.)

  Bath and Wells, Bp.

  Carlisle, Bp.

  Ellenborough, E.

  Exeter, Bp.

  Ellesmere, E.

  Kilmore, &c. Bp.

  Erne, E.

  Lichfield, Bp.

  1614

  Llandaff, Bp.

  Heytesbury, L.

  London, Bp.

  Kenyon, L.

  Oxford, Bp.

  Kingsdown, L.

  Rochester, Bp.

  Leconfleld, L

  St Asaph, Bp.

  Lovel and Holland, L, (E. Egmont.)

  Winchester, Bp

  Ravensworth, L.

  Blayney, L.

  Rayleigh, L.

  Boston, L.

  Redesdale, L.

  Broderick, L. (V Midleton.)

  Sheffield, L. (E. Sheffield.)

  Castlemaine, L.

  Silcester, L. (E. Long ford.)

  Chelmsford, L.

  Churston, I.

  Sondes, L.

  Clarina, L.

  Southampton, L.

  Clifton, L. (E. Darnley.)

  Stewart of Stewart's Court, L. (M. Londonderry.)

  Colchester, L.

  Colville of Culrosse, L. [Teller.]

  Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)

  Conyers, L.

  Egerton, L.

  Saint Leonards, L.

  Farnham, L.

  Strathspey, L. (E. Seafield.)

  Feversham, L.

  Foxford, L. (E. Limerick.)

  Templemore, L.

  Tenterden, L.

  Grantley, L.

  Walsingham, L.

  Grinstead, L. (E. Enniskillen.)

  Willoughby de Broke, L

  Wynford, L.

  House adjourned at a quarter before Seven o'clock, till Thursday next half-past-Ten o'clock.