Sitting of 10 May 1864

MINUTES.
—NEW MEMBER SWORN — Edward; William Watkin, esquire, for Stockport.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Inns of Court.

THE WAR IN ASHANTEE.

  QUESTION.
  SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether it is true that war has been commenced with Ashantee; whether precautions have been taken to meet the drain of life which must ensue in so deadly a campaign; and whether a largely increasing expenditure may be looked for in consequence in the Gold Coast Colony?
  MR. CARDWELL,in reply, said, it would probably be in the knowledge of the House that in the course of last year a war commenced between the King of Ashantee and a friendly tribe adjoining our settlements on the Gold Coast, arising
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  out of an unprovoked incursion of the Ashantees into that country, attended with great ravages and loss of life and property. The operations which were now going on arose out of a continuance of the hostilities of last year, or rather out of a probability of the renewal of those hostilities, unless vigorous measures were taken to repress them. Reinforcements had been sent out to the Governor, and every precaution had been taken to supply him with all necessaries calculated to ensure the health and safety of troops in that country. The last Report from the Governor announced that the troops were in good health and spirits. No doubt these operations were attended with some danger and expense, but the object of them was to prevent the recurrence of these outbreaks in future years.

  ARMY—OFFICERS' ALLOWANCES AT BERMUDA.—QUESTION.
  MR. CLAYsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, Whether any information has been received respecting the excessive demand for, and consequent high price of, provisions and accommodation at Bermuda; and, if so, whether Her Majesty's Government intend to make a Colonial allowance for Officers on duty in that island?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, in reply, that the Colonial allowances were not made by the Government, but in almost all cases by the Colonies themselves out of the Colonial funds. In this case the Government had received an application from officers in command of troops at Bermuda for increased allowances in consequence of the high rates of provisions. From a comparison of the contract rate of provisions at this station and elsewhere in the West Indies and at home, it did not appear that the rate by any means was excessive. The indulgence had, however, been granted to the officers to draw rations, or rather provisions, for their wives and families at contract prices. But it was not considered that a case had been made out for any extra allowances owing to the high rate of accommodation. He believed that accommodation had become very dear, but nearly all the officers were provided with quarters.

INDIA — CLAIMS OF INDIAN OFFICERS.

  QUESTION.
  LORD STANLEYsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whe-

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  ther he will lay upon the table his proposed despatch relative to the claims of Indian officers, reported upon by the late Commission, previous to the issuing of any warrant by the Crown bearing on that question, so that the House may have an opportunity of considering the plan therein proposed before a final decision shall have been come to?
  SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, he fully admitted that the question presented some peculiar features, but he was not sure that it was sufficiently important to induce him to depart from the course which the constitution imposed upon him, as a Minister of the Crown, not to submit to the decision of the House of Commons a question of purely Executive administration.
  CAPTAIN JERVISsaid, he wished to know whether the despatch which was the cause of all the mischief had been submitted to the Crown?
  SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, that the warrant had been submitted to Her Majesty.

  EDUCATION—SUPPLEMENTARY RULES.—QUESTION.
  LORD ROBERT CECILsaid, he rose to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, When the "Supplementary Rules," recently issued by the Committee of Council, will be laid upon the table; and whether he will consent to defer the operation of those Rules until they had been laid upon the table?
  MR. H. A. BRUCEsaid, in reply, that these Rules had been published, and there was no reason why they should not be laid on the table immediately. They had been already in operation some time, and consequently their operation could not be deferred. They had been drawn up in consequence of recommendations which had reached the Board from the managers and masters of a great many of the schools.
  LORD ROBERT CECILsaid, he wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman denied that the Rules had the operation of withdrawing the grant in certain cases, and diminishing it in others?
  MR. H. A. BRUCEsaid, he was not aware that they had that effect.

  UNITED STATES. AMERICAN SECURITIES.—QUESTION.
  MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he is in a
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  position to contradict the statement which has appeared in the public press, to the effect that a Resolution has been carried in the State of New York, declaring that for the future the interest of foreign bondholders is to be paid in paper, instead of in bullion?
  MR. LAYARDsaid, that the Government had no official information on the subject.

  THE NATIONAL GALLERY.—QUESTION.
  MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, he would beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works, Whether he intends, upon Thursday next, to move the Estimate for the erection of a New National Gallery at Burlington House, and whether he will state the terms upon which the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square is proposed to be given up to the Royal Academy?
  MR. COWPERsaid, he did not propose to move on Thursday next the Estimate to which the hon. Gentleman had alluded, inasmuch as it would not have remained long enough on the table to enable hon. Members to consider it. With respect to the other Question, he thought it would be premature to come to any decision as to the terms upon which the National Gallery was proposed to be given up to the Royal Academy, until the House should have had an opportunity of expressing its opinion as to the proposal of erecting the National Gallery upon the site of Burlington House. When that Question had been determined it would be time to decide what ought to be done with the building in Trafalgar Square. As two or three years must elapse between the voting of the Estimate and the completion of the building, it would be unnecessary to settle these terms at the present moment.
  MR. THOMSON HANKEYsaid, he wished to know whether there will be any objection to lay on the table a plan of Burlington House and grounds?
  MR. COWPERsaid, that he had a plan which he believed he should be able to place in the Library to-morrow. The plan would fully explain to hon. Members what it was proposed to do with regard to the site.
  MR. HIBBERTsaid, he thought that the House ought to be put in possession of more than the ground-plan.
  MR. COWPERsaid, he believed that the plan he had referred to would furnish the hon. Gentleman with all the information he required.

  TAXATION.—SELECT COMMITTEE MOVED FOR.
  MR. WHITE*rose to move for "a Select Committee to inquire into the operation and incidence of our present fiscal system, and to consider and report if any and what measures could be devised to secure a more equitable adjustment of the burden of Imperial taxation." The hon. Gentleman said, he knew the House would acquit him of obtrusiveness or presumption in rising to address them on this question. Ever since he had had the honour of a seat in that House he had been especially solicitous that this Motion should be brought before them. He thought that the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the operation and incidence of our present financial system, for the purpose of suggesting measures of fiscal amelioration and social advancement, would be a source of great satisfaction to the people of this country. This was not a party or a class topic; it affected alike the interests of every subject of the realm. He should be exhausting the patience of the House if he were to attempt to go into a full examination of this question, and he must content himself with a statement which was far from commensurate with its extent and importance. But if he were asked why he attempted it, he would point to the chronic dissatisfaction of the country with reference to taxation, and would ask whether there might not be some valid reason why men possessed of ample means were disposed to shirk and evade the discharge of their necessary burdens. He did not believe that there was anything inherent in British subjects which led them to evade the duties they owed to their Sovereign; such a proceeding could only spring from a feeling in their minds that they had not justice done to them, and which thus induced them to avoid the claims of the tax-gatherer. Since the House had now apparently acquiesced in an annual expenditure of £67,000,000, he thought the time had arrived when they should investigate how this vast sum might be raised in a manner least burdensome and detrimental to the progress of the nation. If the result of the labours of the Committee which he wished to be appointed should be a substantial approval of their present fiscal system, then it would remove the erroneous impressions which existed in the public mind; but if otherwise, then the basis would be laid of
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  future beneficial legislation. He thought it would not be too much to say, even in a British House of Commons, that they had reached the ultimate bounds of scientific research or economic inquiry. The House would remember that until 1628 the old constitutional method of raising supplies for the service of the Crown was by direct, and not by indirect taxation. He held in his hand a treatise entitled a Declaration and Protestation against the illegal, detestable, and oft-condemned tax or extortion of Excise in general, by the celebrated William Prynne. He proved that it was not the Parliament but the King, Charles I., who originally attempted to levy excise duties. In the year 1628 two celebrated lawyers, Members of that House, Coke and Glanvil, protested against the system as a new prodigy, a monstrum horrendum. The House of Commons demanded a conference with the Lords with reference to this excise duty. They unanimously agreed that the attempt was against the law and the Petition of Right, and after this conference with the Lords they fully and unanimously resolved that it ought to be "eternally"—he would not repeat the word, which modern refinement forbad him to pronounce. At intervals since that period the prevalence of a base sordid feeling had been too commonly observed, inducing every person—he might say every class of the community—to take care of itself, and let the Chancellor of the Exchequer take the hindmost. He was disposed to think, if this Committee were appointed, a kindlier and better feeling would spring up between those who paid and those who expended the taxes of the country. If he wanted an argument in favour of the Committee being appointed, he might urge that he could not make out that there ever had been a Committee appointed on the general incidence of taxation. To some lovers of precedent that might be an objection, but he was not of that opinion. Although they had had Committees of Inquiry in reference to special taxes or exceptional burdens, and taxes affecting particular classes, yet, as far as he could discover, they had never yet had—and he thought they were now fully entitled to have—a Committee appointed that would take a comprehensive survey of our whole system of national taxation. Some weeks ago, on the Motion of the hon. and gallant Member opposite (Colonel Dunne), a Committee was appointed to inquire into the taxation of Ireland. The

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  hon. Member for West Norfolk (Mr. Bentinck) also declared that the agriculturists were exposed to burdens from which other classes were exempt. He did not bring forward this Motion in any spirit of party or for the interest of any particular class. His object was that the Committee should dispassionately address itself to this great question, and he believed that the country would derive much advantage from its labours. He should be glad if the noble lord (Lord Stanley) would preside over it, and if the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Stafford Northcote) would give it the benefit of his assistance. Quite recently they had a debate on the incidence of the malt tax, and the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Colonel Barttelot) would have ample opportunity to bring all his facts and figures in reference to that duty before the Committee, be that the House might arrive at a proper decision upon a subject which promised to excite a large amount of public attention. With regard to the malt tax, it was connected with a much larger and greater question, and that was the revenue derived from the spirit duties. The abolition of the malt tax itself involved a sacrifice of five and a half millions, but the whole question must be deliberately looked at in the face, and it must be asked whether the abolition as now contemplated would not peril or compromise the fourteen millions from ardent spirits, which was now brought into the national exchequer. The right hon. Member for Bucks (Mr. Disraeli) in his financial statement of 1852 proposed a remission of one half of the malt duty, but he very properly accompanied that reduction with an augmentation of the house tax. This was one of the subjects to which the attention of the Committee might well be directed. If the Committee were appointed, one important consideration for them would be to determine how far the working classes were benefited by recent fiscal legislation. He very much doubted whether they had derived so much advantage therefrom as was generally supposed. It must not be forgotten that in 1857 the House in hot haste struck off the war tax upon incomes, but left the war duty on tea up to last year, and that on sugar up to within a few days ago. Whilst the war duties were kept on these two articles of universal consumption the income tax was reduced by the large amount of £5,750,000. If he wanted another reason for the appoint-
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  ment of such a Committee it would be afforded to him in the slow process of economic science as applied to our financial system. For instance, the commercial treaty with Prance proposed by Mr. Pitt in 1787 was even more liberal than that which did such credit to his hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale. Again, in 1784, a Member of that House, referring to Adam Smith, said the principles of that great political economist would convince that century and govern the next, and as yet Pulteney's prediction remained unfulfilled. He would like the Committee to inquire whether our financial policy was based on the principles of Adam Smith. Those principles were, that every one should contribute to the support of the State in proportion to the revenue which he enjoyed under its protection, and that every tax ought to be so contrived as to take out of the pockets of the people as little as possible over and above the amount which it brought into the national treasury. As Mr. Stuart Mill said, those were the orthodox canons of an honest and a just taxation. Then he should like the Committee to test the merits or demerits of direct and indirect taxation respectively. This was a most important matter, and one on which he was glad to know the Chancellor of the Exchequer was perfectly impartial, for in the right hon. Gentleman's Budget speech of 1861 was this very amusing apologue, which he was sure the House would gladly hear again—
  "I never can think," said the right hon. Gentleman, "of direct and indirect taxation, except as I should think of two attractive sisters who have been introduced into the gay world of London, each with an ample fortune, both having the same parentage (necessity and invention), differing only as sisters may differ, as where one is of lighter and another of darker complexion, or where there is some agreeable variety of manner, the one being more free and open and the other more shy, retiring, and insinuating. I cannot conceive any reason why there should be unfriendly rivalry between the admirers of these two damsels; and I frankly own, whether it be due to a lax sense of moral obligation or not, that as Chancellor of the Exchequer, if not as a Member of this House, I have always thought it not only allowable, but even an act of duty, to pay my addresses to them both. I am, therefore, as between direct and indirect taxation perfectly impartial."
  He hoped the Committee would allow those damsels, like the goddesses of old, to display all their charms, and that the right hon. Gentleman, like Paris, could award the golden apple to the Venus Victrix of

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  Finance. The Committee would do great good if they only determined the exact burden which the consumers of taxed articles paid. That was a very important point. If the original cost of an article was £100, and it was subject to a duty of £50, it was quite obvious that ultimately the consumer must pay profit, not only on the original £100, but also on the £50 charged for duty. The Commissioners of Inland Revenue stated in their last Report that the duty on beer was a farthing a pint. Now, he was told that the remission of this duty would lead to a reduction in the price of the article to the consumer of, not a halfpenny, but a penny per quart. But political economists differed very much as to the amount by which the price of an article, over and above the sum paid to the State, was raised on the consumer by an excise or customs duly, some estimating it as much as 70 per cent, and others only at 25 per cent. He, therefore, thought the question one of very great importance, and one which would very legitimately come within the scope of such an inquiry as he wished to have undertaken by a Committee. He believed his estimate was not an extravagant one when he said that by the Excise and Customs duties of last year, amounting to £41,439,000, a sum of at least £54,500,000—that was £13,000,000 more than what found its way into the Exchequer—was taken out of the pockets of the people. Another valid reason for the appointment of the Committee was to be found in the uncertain and conflicting estimates we had of the value of the real and personal property of the United Kingdom. His hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, in the year 1859, estimated the total value of the real and personal property of the country, excluding those persons who had under £100, at £6,700,000,000 sterling. An eminent statistical writer in the Edinburgh Review held that the estimate of his hon. Friend was £1,000,000,000 in excess; but at about the same time Professor Leoni Levi computed the real and personal property of the country at £6,000,000,000 and an American statistician of eminence had quite recently estimated it at £6,900,000,000 sterling. He confessed he thought the original estimate of his hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham correct. Mr. Coode, in his elaborate Report on Fire Insurance, had estimated the insured, the insurable, and the uninsurable property
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  of England and Wales at £6,000,000,000 sterling, say £340 per head for every man, woman, and child in England and Wales, and added his estimate was an, extremely low one. He should like to know, too, what was the annual increase of the national wealth. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in his financial statement of 1861 asked, in speaking of the annual savings of the country—
  "What are the annual savings of the country? May we take them at £50,000,000? Enormous as that sum is, I believe it may be taken as the amount which the skill and the capital, and the industry and the thrift of England, may be computed to lay by every year."
  The opinion of the Economist, an authority which the right hon. Gentleman would not deny, was that in the five years between 1854 and 1859 the annual savings of the country were on the average £114,000,000, and that the savings of last year were £130,000,000. In another statistical paper they were estimated at £150,000,000, and some statisticians had put them at £200,000,000 during the past year. It would be interesting, too, to ascertain what was the amount of the annual income of the country, for that was a point on which the authorities varied widely — between £500,000,000 and £750,000,000. The Liverpool Financial Reform Association estimated it at £650,000,000, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he thought, put it at £560,000,000 — at least, he assumed so from a speech made at Chester, in which he said that each person paid about one-eighth of his income to the State, and he was then obtaining some £70,000,000 a year from the resources of the people. If the Committee were appointed, no doubt all these points would be set at rest. The right hon. Gentleman, in his last financial statement, deliberately and authoritatively told the House that the time was come when the country ought to consider, and Parliament ought to decide, what course it ought to take with regard to the income tax. Now, as far as he (Mr. White) could judge, the country had already decided that the income tax, on account of its obvious inequalities, was an elaborate injustice, and Parliament would have long since abolished this odious impost did not our financial extravagance make it necessary that some other tax should be substituted in its place. No one had more vigorously denounced this tax than the right hon. Gentleman himself. The right hon. Gentleman said in 1858 that the

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  income tax tended more than any other tax to demoralize and corrupt the people. In a recent article in the Economist there were some excellent remarks on this subject. The writer urges in favour of a direct tax on the propertied classes—
  "The Customs yield a revenue of £24,000,000; but there is hardly an article of luxury charged at the Custom House. Speaking roughly, the Customs duties are taxes on physical necessities (or what have become such) or physical enjoyments. We have been abandoning Customs duties paid by the rich, and have been taxing for a vast revenue articles consumed by the lower and middle order of mankind. We need not observe that in a country like England our taxation ought not only to be fair in reality, but fair in seeming—conspicuously fair. The rich alone impose the taxes which poor as well as rich pay; and unless, therefore, there is some large unmistakable tax, which no one can overlook, that taxes very rich people much the most, there will always be, perhaps there ought always to be, bitterness and dissatisfaction."
  He did not agree with the hon. Member for Buckingham, that the inequalities and injustice inherent in the income tax could be removed. But if the Committee could devise some fair direct tax as a substitute for that on incomes they would confer a great benefit on the country. Of the £70,000,000 of revenue, but £15,000,000 were now raised by taxes which affected only the owners of the visible property of the country. It might also inquire into the best mode of remitting or reducing the taxes which confessedly pressed heaviest on the comforts and the means of the working classes. According to a Return moved for by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, there were in existence on the 31st of December, 1862, 332 Co-operative societies with a capital of £429,315, and a sale of goods amounting in the year to £2,341,640. He had seen a calculation, based on the actual sales of some of those societies, in an excellent pamphlet by Mr. Francis, of Manchester, which proved that a working man with a wife and three children, earning from £50 to £60 a year, paid in indirect taxes £11 18 s. 7d., or about 20 per cent of his entire income; and the Liverpool Association calculate that a family of the same number, earning 25 s. a week, would ordinarily pay in taxes and consequent charges on sugar, tea, coffee, tobacco, and beer, to the amount of 5s. 9d. a week, or nearly 3d. in every shilling of their earnings. It should be borne in mind that the duty levied was out of all proportion to that which it ought to be on articles which
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  had now become, if not absolute, at all events conventional necessaries of life. Even at the present reduced rate he found that tea now paid on an average 83 per cent; that consumed by the poor 100 per cent; while sugar now paid quite 33 per cent, and coffee about the same amount. For himself he believed that the present fiscal system pressed unduly on the working classes. The working classes might be said to pay a property tax of 20 per cent, their wages being their only property, and those wages were mulcted 4s. in the pound by the present system of indirect taxation. Mr. M'Culloch, recently writing on this subject, pointed out that, while nearly all the duties levied on commodities which contributed to the luxurious enjoyments of the rich were abolished, the duty on spirits, which were in some respects the luxury of the poor, had undergone successive augmentations. There were, however, other considerations connected with ardent spirits beyond increasing the area of consumption, and the policy pursued by the Government with respect to them—namely, obtaining the largest amount of duty from the smallest possible area, was in his opinion correct. With reference to the spirit duties he might further observe that he found we raised from the Excise and Customs duties on home, foreign, and colonial spirits, £13,250,000, or about one-fifth of our entire revenue. He would also say, with regard to the tea and sugar duties, that he thought the House ought to be prepared to entirely abolish them before reducing the spirit duties, inasmuch as the best interests of the working classes were bound up with the ability of procuring tea and sugar at the lowest possible price, Reverting to the pressure of taxation on the working classes, he learnt from a good authority (Mr. S. C. Kell, of Bradford), that an artisan was practically taxed by our system of indirect taxation at the rate of 4s. per week, assuming that he earned only 20 s. Now he need hardly remind the House that any tax levied injuriously on the rich, because they happened to be rich, would operate almost as prejudicially on the poor as if levied on themselves, and it might be equally true that any tax levied injuriously on the poor might re-act to the disadvantage of the rich. Let the £7,000,000 they paid annually for poor's rates, and the incessant demands upon the rich, be accepted as the penalty which the rich must pay for disobeying the laws of a

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  sound and just system of taxation. Justice in this case was the truest expediency. As the Emperor of the French once said, "Providence never designed that one class should be made happy at the expense of another." The Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House last year that of the £41,000,000 levied by the customs and excise quite three-fourths, or some four millions more than the whole amount of the interest on the National Debt, were raised from consumers so poor that the great majority of them were compelled to expend all their earnings in obtaining the barest necessaries of life. In this country the annual consumption, of tea was only 2¾ lb. per head, whereas in Australia it was 14 lb. per head. In the Northern States of America the consumption of tea was only one-half what it was in England, but then their consumption of coffee was six times greater than ours. The truth was English statesmen had never taken sufficient account of the magic influence of a full belly. He would not trouble the House with a reference in detail to the continental systems of taxation. A Return on the subject was laid on the table of the House in 1842, setting forth the population and respective amounts of direct and indirect taxation in various countries. That Return, owing to the efflux of time, was not now quotable, but according to the Almanach de Gotha and the Statesman's Year Book it would, however, appear that the weight of taxation on the Continent fell on those by whom it could be best borne, and it was those who possessed most that paid most. It appeared from a Return laid upon the table of the House, that the present average annual taxation of Great Britain per head was 53 s., an instance of fiscal exaction, in a time of peace, unexampled in the history of the world. The ten years before the Russian war the average taxation per head of Great Britain and Ireland was 38 s.; seven years after the war the average annual taxation was 48 s. per head. So that while the population had increased but 5 per cent the total Imperial taxation; had increased more than 25 per cent.; Supposing the Committee for which he asked were appointed, it would be interesting to take some evidence of the system of taxation in America, particularly as to how direct taxation was levied in some of the best ordered of the Northern States. For local or State purposes he believed it was usual to levy a direct pro-
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  perty tax varying from ¾ to 1 per cent, the poor man paying according to his little and the rich man according to his much, each knowing how much he paid and what he paid it for. The population of the State of Massachusetts last year was 1,300,000, and the direct taxation of the State was £1,300,000, or £1 per head. Supposing the estimate he had quoted of the real and personal property of the United Kingdom, to be correct—namely £8,000,000,000, a tax of 5s. per cent would give £20,000,000 per annum, which would enable the Government not only to abolish the income tax but the customs duties on tea, sugar, pepper, and other articles of domestic consumption. The late Sir Robert Peel, when he introduced the income tax, said that the persons who paid it would be more than compensated by the reduction on articles of consumption; and he (Mr. White) was encouraged to believe that a perseverance in the same policy would be attended with like results, The hon. Member for Rochdale, in a remarkable letter read at the Social Science Association last year, said—
  "No one can deny that Customs and Excise duties, and other indirect taxes, are more costly than direct taxation; and no one can doubt that they have injured commerce, and checked the production of wealth."
  Seeing that the poor and other rates, amounting to £19,000,000, are now annually raised by direct taxation, is it not well worthy of legislative inquiry whether the £60,000,000 or £65,000,000 needed for Imperial purposes might not be mainly levied after the same fashion, in lieu of the present octroi or wretched "Tally" system of indirect taxation. Next to the poorer classes who would be benefited by a revision of taxation, I entertain a confident belief that the class who would most benefit would be the landed proprietors. Land is a certain quantity, and cannot be increased, while capital is a variable quantity, and has a great tendency to increase. Landed proprietors, therefore, would be benefited more than any other class, except the poorer classes of the country. Considering what advancement had been already made by the remission of duties, it would be impossible to over-estimate the stupendous results which would follow if the whole country became one free port to all the world, and everything were allowed to come in and go out without let or hindrance. It would vastly increase employment to the people

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  of the country; it would augment the consumption of tea, coffee, and other articles of food, not only to double, but to treble the present extent. If the condition of our people were raised to that pitch at which they would be enabled to procure all that was necessary to sustain them, in a healthy and vigorous existence, the prosperity of this country must be immensely promoted. The poor's rate would dwindle away, and in the interest of the poor themselves it might be found advisable to abandon compulsory relief. Seeing the marvellous prosperity which had resulted from the commercial legislation of the last twenty-five years, through which our Foreign trade had so rapidly increased from £100,000,000 to a grand total of £444,000,000, or about one-and-a-half million for each working day of last year, they had every encouragement to go forward without faltering in the same direction. It was worth the while of the Legislature to inquire why, with this great prosperity, such a vast amount of poverty existed even now in the country. At the present moment one in every twenty-three of the population was a pauper, and there were in the United Kingdom not less than 1,347,495 paupers, to say nothing of the millions that were on the brink of pauperism. Besides this, there was the vast amount of poverty relieved by private means, and the indigence reluctant to receive relief, as evidenced by the occasional deaths by starvation, to which was to be added the increase of the crime of infanticide. He hoped the day would soon arrive when the poorer classes of the people would be relieved from paying an undue quota of the taxation of the country. It might scarcely be believed that in the eighteen months prior to the 30th June, 1862, there were found dead in ditches and other places 921 children under two years of age, and the total number of children of the same age who had met with untimely deaths in the same period was 5,547. He must he permitted to anticipate an objection which would probably be made to his Motion. No doubt he would be told that, supposing there was an abolition of the duties upon the various articles to which he had referred, it would not benefit the working classes, but that in the course of time wages would accommodate themselves to the altered state of things. That was a great argument in the time of the anti-Corn Law agitation. They were persistently told that wages
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  would certainly fall just in proportion as the price of corn was lowered, but what was the fact? He found that so far from wages falling with the price of corn, they had risen, especially in the manufacturing districts. He thought he could interpret the feelings of the working classes when he said that they did not wish for exemption from Imperial taxation; but what they complained of was the disproportionate amount of taxation which now pressed upon them. He would ask the House whether it was not degrading them to mix up the cost of food, drink, and of Government together in their system of taxation, and to make them pay the excessive cost of that bad mixture? He believed the Committee which he moved for would be of great public advantage, and that the time was eminently favourable for the calm, deliberate, and dispassionate discussion of this great question, owing to the total absence of any party rancour or feeling. He had not brought forward this Motion in any spirit of self-seeking, for he would be content to occupy the humblest place in that Committee; but he submitted his Motion with the earnest desire to direct the attention of the House to a subject which sooner or later must attract universal interest. He hoped the present Parliament would not be amenable to the same reproach as was recorded against the one of 1796. He found it written in the latest and best summary of their constitutional history by the accomplished Gentleman who sat at the table (Mr. Erskine May), that the Commons of that age were ever ready to mulct the people at the bidding of the Minister, and were yet unwilling to bear their own proper burden, and refused to grant to Mr. Pitt such a tax on their landed property as he proposed, and which, in 1853, a reformed Parliament, intent upon sparing industry, imposed in the form of a succession duty, at the instance of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He cherished the profound conviction that the House, whatever might be the result of his Motion, would act on the sound State policy contained in a paper written by the ever-to-be lamented Prince Consort, which declared that the interests of all classes, too often contrasted, were identical, and that it was only ignorance which prevented them from uniting for each other's advantage. The hon. Gentleman, in conclusion, moved for a Select Committee to

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  inquire into the operation and incidence of our present fiscal system, and to consider and report if any and what measures could be devised to secure a more equitable adjustment of the burden of Imperial taxation.
  MR. POLLARD-URQUHARTrose to second the Motion, in the firm belief that the proposed inquiry would be for the benefit of all classes, not excepting the owners of land. About two years since the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bucks compared the landed interest to a milch cow; and that figure might be accepted when it was borne in mind that a milch cow upon a dairy farm was much better fed than a cow upon an ordinary farm, where all the turnips were sent to market. And so it would be better for the landed interest to submit to some well-devised plan of direct taxation, which would enable the country to get rid of those taxes which now pressed heavily upon the working classes, and to a certain extent were injurious to the owners of land. If they looked back to what took place after the close of the last great war, they found that in 1821 landowners were described as being in great difficulties, although at that time the landed interest did not contribute directly to the Imperial taxation. Now, however, land was rising in value, and there were numerous competitors for any vacant farm, although the landed interest now did contribute a moderate sum to the taxation of the country. One of the great objects of his hon. Friend the Member for Brighton (Mr. White) was to get rid of any taxes still existing which crippled the industry and pressed on the resources of the working classes of the population, and which indirectly kept down the value of laud. The results of the fiscal changes which had taken place since 1842 might be gathered from the value of the fixed property of the country; and, notwithstanding the imposition of the income tax and the great changes in the Customs duties, it appeared from Schedule A that this had risen upwards of 40 per cent in value. It might be said that the increase was owing mainly to the number of additional houses; but landed proprietors, he thought, would gladly receive building instead of agricultural rents; and in land alone there had been a rise in value of upwards of 10 per cent between 1844 and 1861, while in that time the increased taxation cast upon land by the income tax had not been more
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  than 7 per cent even during the height of the Crimean war. Before the House of Lords' Committee it had been stated that railways generally raised the value of adjoining properties from 6 to 16 per cent. There was, however, a much shorter way by which his brother landowners could procure the benefits of these lines than by imposing mortgages upon their properties, and that was by removing all restrictions upon the industry and enterprise of the people, and by taking upon their own shoulders a moderate portion of the taxation necessary for that purpose. If measures of this kind were not adopted there was only too much reason to fear that the attractions offered by the colonies, and the facilities for reaching them, would prove too great for the classes whom it should be their object to keep at home. The industrial history of Europe afforded many examples of nations which had been ruined by unwise taxation. England was quite as much exposed to competition in the neutral markets of the world as they had been; and if capital and industry died away, as in Spain, or remained stationary, as in Holland, British landowners might whistle for their rents. No one was a more competent witness on this subject than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire, who in his interesting tale Sybil depicted most truly the heavy sufferings entailed on the working classes by the iniquitous system of taxation which, to use his own words, "began in the time of the Venetian oligarchy." Since the time when that work was written a great deal had been done to alleviate the pressure of such taxation. But he asked those conversant with the circumstances whether it was altogether a thing of the past, or whether there was not ground for such a Motion as that before the House, and reason to hope that beneficial results might follow from it? The more these subjects were studied and understood, the more it would appear that rich and poor had no divergent interests, but that what was for the universal good was also for the good of the individual. The hon. Baronet the late Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Stafford Northcote) in his able compendium of financial policy for the last twenty years had shown how much more closely classes had been brought together during that period, and how much more harmony there was between them. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose

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  influence with a large section of the House was so great, to continue the beneficial policy begun in 1842, of which he had been so firm a supporter; to the representatives of the landed interests, from which he himself derived almost everything he possessed; and to the Members of the House of Commons generally, to support a Motion having for its object to promote the welfare of so important a section of the community.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the operation and incidence of our present Fiscal System, and to consider and report if any and what measures could be devised to secure a more equitable adjustment of the burden of Imperial Taxation."—(Mr. James White.)
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, I was in hopes that a subject of such great importance, and treated at such length, and with such force and clearness by my hon. Friends, might have led other Members to lay their views before the House; for I feel that the question of inquiry into our present system of taxation is one which the Government ought not to take exclusively into its own hands. But as no one has risen to address the House, I will venture to make this observation, which I think must have occurred to my hon. Friends who moved and seconded the Motion, that the very circumstance I have mentioned proves that, at present, there hardly exists in the House that degree of interest in so vast a question which would be absolutely necessary to enable the House to grapple with the enormous labour of the proposed inquiry. We must not conceal it from ourselves—I am sure my hon. Friend does not conceal it from himself—that his Motion bears no relation or resemblance whatever to an ordinary proposal for a Committee. When I observed the terms of his Motion upon the notice-paper that fact was at once obvious to me; but after the speech of my hon. Friend, I must say the terms of his Motion fell very short indeed—I will say immeasurably short—of the wonderful dilation and distension of probable labour which he has sketched out for us. In point of fact, it would be much more difficult to say what topics relating to taxation my hon. Friend has shut out from his inquiry than to enumerate those which he has included. Had my hon. Friend limited his proposal to any one of the subjects on which he has
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  touched, the responsibility of undertaking the inquiry would still have been serious. But whether it be owing to the sanguine disposition of my hon. Friend, or to some other cause, it does appear to me that in the construction which he assigns to the terms "incidence and operation of taxation "he has acted so much in accordance with his own liberal disposition that he has laid on the prospective Committee, and on the prospective Chairman — of whom, by the way, in the person of the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley), I must say my hon. Friend has made an exceedingly judicious choice—a burden which will infallibly break their backs. My hon. Friend proposes to inquire into every branch of revenue, and every tax included in every branch. He proposes to consider it from every point of view from which it is capable of being regarded. For example, he would investigate the operation of each tax as it bears on each of the three kingdoms, and then on each class of society in each country. He would also investigate the matter with reference to the distinction between direct and indirect taxation. He aims not only at a fiscal, but a statistical result. My hon. Friend will not be satisfied with the noble Lord and the Committee unless they bring out by the inquiry an elaborate account of the capital value of the whole property of the country, its annual income, and the annual increment of that income. And as my hon. Friend cannot form a judgment of the bearing of our system of taxation without investigating those of other countries, he would, doubtless, extend his regards to the system of taxation abroad. The taxation of the United States is to be brought within the purview of the Committee; and, indeed, such is my hon. Friend's zeal in seeking for information wherever it can be found, that every country that has an organized scheme of taxation will supply useful hints and suggestions. This is not an exaggerated, but a very slight and hasty sketch of the view he takes of the duties of the Committee. Now, I submit, that a plan of this nature, if it were ever reduced to practice, would require that those who propounded it should begin with a process very disagreeable to a man of philosophic mind—he must break up his scheme into pieces, and be content to deal with one member of it, or, at least, with some one or more restricted and manageable number of the very numerous and profoundly important

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  topics that he has started. He appears to think that there exists in this country a chronic discontent, an ineradicable disposition to escape from the payment of taxes; and he seems to think that this is a phenomenon peculiar to ourselves, and due not to any ordinary or prevalent vice or infirmity of mankind, but due rather to the faults of our fiscal system, which might, by judicious care, be corrected. There, again, I differ from him. Now, Sir, whether it he that approaching age which chills a man's views of life and human nature I cannot tell, but I confess I do entertain a lower estimate of human nature in this respect. I am afraid that, labour as we will, and patch and cobble and make and mend as we may, we shall never get rid of that disposition, which a large portion of mankind cherish—perhaps unknown to themselves—to reduce to a minimum the sum they contribute as individuals towards the necessities of the State. My hon. Friend appears to think that this disease is local, temporary, and peculiar. In my opinion it is cosmopolitan, everlasting, and universal; in no country in the world where taxes are paid are they regarded as otherwise than a pestilent grievance. But has there been no improvement in our taxation? Happily, our system of taxation has undergone, within the last twenty or thirty years, a radical change. I am by no means of opinion that nothing remains to be done; but neither do I believe that any such changes, either in principle or amount, remain to be effected as those of the last twenty or thirty years. My hon. Friend seemed to argue, from the great reduction which had taken place in indirect taxation, that we might go on progressively to its extinction. I do not deny that from certain points of view direct taxation has undoubtedly immense advantages. It has this immense benefit—you take from the pockets of the taxpayer nothing but what you put into the public treasury—except of course the cost of collection, In indirect taxation, on the contrary, you take from the pockets of the taxpayer a great deal that does not come into the Exchequer. I do not deny that the direct tax is the perfect tax. But what is the use of knowing that, when you have not to devise a theory or elaborate a system as philosophers, but to pay the daily charges of the Treasury, and when you have to deal with the flesh and blood of mankind? When you attempt to realize
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  this theory of direct taxation you are met by this obstacle—impossibility. In addition to £18,000,000 of taxation required for local objects, you have to raise from £65,000,000 to £70,000,000 for Imperial purposes. How to raise this sum by direct taxation is a matter which debating societies and clubs may dispute as long as they please, but towards which we can make no sensible approximation by any measures for which a British Minister would be responsible, or which a British House of Commons would pass. Let it not be supposed, meanwhile, that our direct taxation is increasing in amount. It is difficult to determine with precision what is indirect taxation. We see plainly that the Customs and Excise are indirect taxes. The taxes raised for local purposes—the income tax, the succession duty, the land tax, and one or two others are direct taxes. There is between the two a margin of disputable ground; but it cannot be said that at the present moment our fiscal system shows any preference of one class over another. There never was anyone more anxious to reduce the class of indirect imposts than the late Sir Robert Peel; but towards the end of his life he was of opinion that the direct taxes of this country for a time of peace had very nearly reached their furthest limit. My experience is that flesh and blood form the great obstacle to the extinction of indirect taxation, and that obstacle will remain. During the time that I have held the office of Finance Minister—and I presume that my predecessors would say the same—there has not been a single day in which I have not received representations illustrative of the difficulty of levying direct taxes; and I speak within the mark when I say that though our direct taxes, as far as the Exchequer is concerned, form but a small proportion of the public income, at least 49–50ths of all the trouble, personal vexation, annoyance, and discontent incident to the payment of money for the purposes of the State, arise out of direct taxation. I grant that if we go back twenty-five years ago, when our commercial and fiscal laws were of the most complicated character, the case was very different. They were then full of every sort of inconvenience. At every stage the whole operations of commerce bristled with points at which trade and industry were interfered with, thwarted, baffled, perplexed, and annoyed by the provisions of the law. But the long and constant labours

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  of this House have essentially altered this state of things, and I believe that it is now rare to meet with anything that can be properly called vexation and annoyance connected with the payment of the indirect taxes—I mean, of course, by those who pay them in the first instance. My hon. Friend has placed some difficulty in the way of a Motion of this kind, by indicating with ingenious candour the nature of the changes that are likely to result from the labours of this Committee. If this were the time, and the circumstances were favourable, it would be necessary for those who acceded to the appointment of the Committee, to indicate to what extent these changes were to be taken into their contemplation. My hon. Friend speaks of the abolition of the income tax, and likewise of a large amount of the indirect taxes of the country. I perfectly agree with my hon. Friend as to the benefits that have resulted to the landed interest from our recent commercial policy; but still we must remember that that policy has not consisted in the extirpation of indirect taxation. It has, indeed, often been so described, sometimes by its friends, but more frequently by its opponents. Let the fact stand on record, that our indirect taxation, after all its pruning, is more vigorous and more productive now than it has ever been. Therefore, the inferences which might be drawn, within the limits in which Parliament has been acting, are not fair, and must be founded upon measures of a more sweeping and, if I may say so, of a more revolutionary kind. My hon. Friend has indicated the means by which indirect taxation would be extinguished. He would impose a property tax of ¼ per cent, and when he says ¼ per cent, he thinks the dose so mild that no man can possibly feel any difficulty in acceding to a Committee which is to end in a proposal of so moderate a description. And my hon. Friend thinks, also, that he would derive advantage, not only with the rest of the community, but even a peculiar benefit from the adoption of this plan. He would have to pay this per cent, it is true, but then he would be free, on the other hand, from the income tax, which is 2½ per cent, from the tea duty, from the sugar duty, from the duty on coffee, from the duty on pepper, from the wine duty, and from the duty on beer. [Mr. WHITE: Not at a ¼ per cent.] Well, then, with the raised to a ½ per cent, the thing
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  would be easy. But this ¼ per cent which sounds so innocent and so modest, is a war income tax of 10 per cent on the landed proprietors. No doubt the landed proprietors would be willing to pay this tax in case of need or in war; but if this plan of my hon. Friend were to be applied as a fiscal reform, the landed proprietor would naturally ask whether everybody else were going to pay in the same proportion? My hon. Friend says there are a thousand millions' worth of property in the country. But in that he includes every chair and every table in every cottage of the country. I think my hon. Friend would have enormous difficulty in carrying his plan into effect. I am told he would never get over the first preliminary difficulties of valuation. I do not think he has ever weighed the amount of practical obstacles with which his plan would be impeded in the very matter of valuation. My hon. Friend refers us to the Northern States of America. I find in the New York Almanac that every man who has a house in New York is set down and in a parallel column the amount of his property. But then there is a process called "sweating down," which must have been awfully applied to the fortunes of the citizens of New York. It is notorious that there are in New York a considerable number of gentlemen who may be called Merchant Princes, and there are several in that city who are worth many hundred thousand pounds a piece. I have looked through this book, and it appears from it that there is not a single man in New York who is worth £100,000. Well, if it be true that these New York gentlemen are in the habit of writing down eighty, sixty, or fifty, where they ought to write one hundred, and if the same plan be pursued in this country, then our thousand millions' worth of property will shrink, and the ¼ per cent property tax will have to raise its proportion inversely; the 10 per cent income tax which I have described, will grow to an income tax of 15 or 20 per cent; and what the end of this process which begins under such promising auspices may be I will not say. I, for one, think it my first duty to avoid holding out any expectations to Parliament or the country with regard to which I do not feel a reasonable hope that our legislative labours of one kind or another would be likely to realize them. And if that be so, I must say, I think it is for the House of Commons to avoid acceding to

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  any proposal, be it what it may, which aims at fundamental changes in our system of taxation—first, because I believe those changes are not required in justice, and secondly, because I am convinced they will be found impracticable, in consequence of the obstacles which would encounter any attempt to give them effect. I do not mean, however, to apply the doctrine of finality to legislative finance. It would be perfectly easy to point out—and in this all sides of the House would concur—that we have abundance of taxes which still call for the reforming hand; but I hope they would also concur in this, that it is better not to talk too much about their removal until we have made the best of the relation between income and expenditure. What I would say is this—that any Committee which contemplated occupying even a small portion of the field which my hon. Friend has traced out would require to be appointed not merely with the general concurrence, but with the general desire of the House of Commons, and to be proposed under the auspices of the executive Government of the day, whatever that Government might be, and unquestionably not at a period when we may hope that a full moiety of the Session is already past. My hon. Friend is aware that if he were to obtain a Committee of this kind his first steps would be necessarily some of the most formidable of his labours, and he would hardly have overcome the first of these preliminary difficulties before he would find that the members of his Committee were gradually disappearing into the country, and his labours for this year were at an end, I am far from discouraging him from attempting anything which. may be brought within the scope of an ordinary Committee, but I think his own views would require to be reduced within much narrower limits. For the present, I trust he will be satisfied with having had an opportunity of making known to the House and to the country a great deal which he deems of importance in this matter, and that he will not ask the House to pronounce an opinion upon his Resolution.
  MR. O'REILLYsaid, that the Resolution of the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. White) deserved the serious consideration of the House, though the hon Gentleman, in the speech in which he had introduced it, had rather damaged his case by enlarging too much the scope of his inquiry, and to a certain extent prejudging the issue by
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  pointing out so strongly the conclusions which he thought would be arrived at. It would be clearly impossible that any Committee could enter into all the details of the taxation not only of this, but of other countries, and decide upon all the disputed points. But, as our finance had now got beyond a state of empiricism, and I we had been endeavouring to place our; taxation upon a sound basis, he thought that the time had come when we might inquire into the principles of taxation and endeavour to discover in what direction our further steps should tend. He was, therefore, of opinion that the Resolution indicated a line of investigation which was sound in itself, and adapted to the powers of a Committee of that House. There had been a time when the only principle of taxation recognized in this and other countries was to get at the money of the people in any way it could be done, and the grand object was to conceal from the taxpayer the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was drawing any money from him. That principle we had abandoned. The early period of our history had been one of direct taxation; and it was not until a time much more advanced that we commenced that system of indirect taxation which now weighed so heavily and unjustly upon so large a portion of the community. We had slowly and gradually been retracing our steps; but still three quarters of the amount produced by our taxes was raised indirectly. Abroad, however, the case was different. In Belgium nearly one-third of the taxes was raised by direct taxation, in France between one-third and one-fourth, in Denmark nearly half, and in Italy the greatest portion. It should not be considered for a moment that the attention of the Committee should be directed to the details of taxation. They should rather endeavour to define the principles by which taxation should be governed, and to determine the relative amounts produced by the two methods. They might also devote some attention to many collateral subjects such as the effects of taxation upon the inhabitants of Ireland, He believed that it would be found that the Irish sustained a greater pressure than did their neighbours in England, because the taxation upon the necessaries of life must always press the hardest upon a poorer population. The examination of the Committee would, he believed, have the effect of, at all events, disproving one fallacy—namely, the belief

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  that the taxes always weighed most severely where the amount contributed per head was the largest. It would also strengthen the position of future financial Ministers, by laying down principles by which they would be guided, and to which they would refer as a justification of their conduct. He thought, however, for the reason given by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the hon. Gentleman could not press his Motion for a Committee this year: and he thought that when he brought it forward next Session he would act wisely if he made the terms of reference less extensive.
  MR. W. EWARTthought it a deplorable fact in our' fiscal history that, whereas in foreign countries at least two-thirds of the national income were derived from direct taxation, with this country it was just the reverse. He believed that in time the labouring classes, as they increased in intelligence, would press for a more extended application of the system of direct taxation. Time would be the best friend of the hon. Member for Brighton.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  INNS OF COURT.—LEAVE.
  SIR GEORGE BOWYER,in moving for leave to introduce a Bill to enable the Benchers of the Inns of Court to appoint Judicial Committees in certain cases, and to give the necessary powers to such Committees, said, that hon. Members were probably aware that the Benchers of the Inns of Court exercised judicial or quasi-judicial functions. Any charge or complaint made against a banister with a view to his being disbarred would be brought before them for decision, as would also any objection to a student about to be called to the bar, or to a student to whom permission was about to be given to enter one of the Inns. Those charges or complaints were investigated before the general body of the Benchers, who however, as a tribunal, were placed at great disadvantage. It was necessarily a changeable tribunal, and it was very often the case that the commencement of a complaint was heard by A, B, or C, continued by D, E, and F, progressing through the alphabet until it was finally decided by X, Y, and Z, who had not heard anything of the beginning of the case. Another defect in the tribunal was that it had not the power which
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  was absolutely necessary for the exercise of any jurisdiction—the power of administering an oath, of compelling the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents, and of punishing for contempt. At present, when an accusation was made, the prosecutor was ready with his witnesses; but the person accused might have a difficulty in getting the evidence necessary for his defence, and so there might be a miscarriage of justice. This result had actually occurred in the case of Mr. Daniel Whittle Harvey, against whom the Benchers decided; but, the case being afterwards submitted to a Committee of this House, they came to an opposite conclusion, and stated that the reason was the attendance before them of a certain witness whom the Benchers could not compel to attend. This showed the paramount importance of such a power. He, therefore, proposed that in any case in which the Benchers exercised judicial authority they should be empowered to elect from among their number a Judicial Committee of five to hear and determine the case, and this Committee should be intrusted with the powers which he had specified. This would be a great improvement in the administration of justice in the cases to which the Bill applied; and it would be very analogous to the change introduced by the Grenville Act into the practice of this House respecting election petitions. Before that time, all election petitions were heard at the Bar of the House, and, though the House had the power of compelling the attendance of witnesses, they could not administer an oath; but the Grenville Act referred these petitions to be disposed of by a Select Committee, giving them power to administer an oath. The Bill provided an appeal to the Judges of the Superior Courts. The Committees were to have all the powers of Courts of Record, including the power of administering an oath. He had spoken to several hon. and learned Friends in this House, who all approved the principle of the Bill, and he hoped that, with the improvements which would be effected in Committee, it would receive the assent of the House.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill to enable the Benchers of the Inns of Court to appoint Judicial Committees in certain cases, and to give the necessary powers to such Committees, ordered to be brought in by Sir GEORGE BOWYER, Mr. WILLIAM EWART, and Mr. HENNESSY.

  TREASURE TROVE.—ADDRESS MOVED.
  SIR JERVOISE JERVOISErose to more—
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to cause full information to be given to this House on the subject of Treasure Trove; and, further, that She will cause such measures to be taken as may tend to make the enforcement of the rights of the Crown more uniform and more consistent with the legitimate claims of the owners of property where objects of interest and value are discovered, for which no owner can be found,"
  The hon. Baronet was addressing the House in support of his Motion, when—
  Notice taken, that 40 Members wore not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,
  House adjourned at half after Seven o'clock.

MINUTES.
Took the Oath—The Lord Bishop of Cork.
PUBLIC BILLS — First Reading — Divorce and Matrimonial Causes (Amendment) * (No. 75); Chimney Sweepers and Chimney Regulation * (No. 76); Under Secretaries (Indemnity) *; (No. 77); Naval Prize Acts Repeal * (No. 78); Scottish Episcopal Clergy Disabilities Removal* (No. 79).
Second Reading—Common Law Procedure (Ireland) Act (1853) Amendment* (No. 51).
Committee — Promissory Notes and Bills of Exchange (Ireland) * (No. 68); Customs and Inland Revenue* (No. 69).
Report—Promissory Notes and Bills of Exchange (Ireland)* (No. 68); Customs and Inland Revenue* (No. 69).
Third Reading—Naval and Victualling Stores * (No. 64), and passed.
Withdrawn—Sentences of Death (No. 58), on Second Reading.

SENTENCES OF DEATH BILL (No. 58.)

  SECOND READING.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH,in moving the second reading of this Bill, said: My Lords, since this Bill was read the first time, the House of Commons have, I understand, agreed to an Address to Her Majesty for the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the provisions and operations of the law under which sentences of death are passed, and into the manner in which those sentences have been executed of late years; and likewise to report whether it is desirable to make any alterations therein. I think, perhaps, that the House of Commons might have expressed themselves somewhat more clearly; but I apprehend there is no doubt they deem, it desirable that an inquiry should be made by a Royal Commission into these three points:—1. Whether it is expedient to continue the punishment of death; 2. Whether, if continued, it is expedient that that punishment should be applied to the same crimes as those to which it is now applied; and 3. To what authority should be committed the power of deciding ultimately, after sentence of death has been passed, whether it should be carried into execution or should be commuted? Now, that proceeding, on the part of the House of Commons, necessarily raises this question—Is it expedient that Parliament should wait until the Commission has presented its Report and made its recommendations? If Parliament should do that, I think it might have to wait a very considerable
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  time. This is one of those matters which will, in all likelihood, be discussed and examined at the greatest length; and I cannot suppose that in less than a year or two any Parliamentary proceedings could take place in consequence of the recommendations of the Commission. Another question is, Shall we proceed with this Bill, or shall some other and better measure be presented to your Lordships for your consideration? There can be no doubt that the subject of the Bill is one of the very greatest importance, and one which will not bear any great delay. There is beyond question a growing want of confidence in the decisions arrived at by the Secretary of State with respect to the carrying into effect or commuting sentences of death. This arises, I apprehend, not from any disrespect for the Gentleman who performs the duty of Secretary of State, but because his decisions are taken on his sole responsibility. I must say it is too great a weight to throw upon any man to subject him to the necessity of deciding on his sole responsibility whether another man shall live or die. I think it most expedient to surround the Secretary of State with every security we can which is calculated to inspire confidence in his decisions, and to arm those decisions with such authority as shall make them generally acceptable to the public. That is the object I had in view in presenting this Bill to your Lordships. It is no new invention of mine. I have endeavoured to reproduce and extend an ancient practice which prevailed within my memory in respect to the sentences of death passed in the City of London by the Recorder. My Lords, the thing I dread the most is, that from untoward circumstances there should arise in this country such a want of confidence in the decisions taken and the proceedings adopted in regard to sentences of death as would impair the law as it now stands, inflicting this punishment for certain offences. I believe the maintenance of that law to be of the most essential importance to the best interests of the community; and the only danger I see is from a want of confidence, such as I have described, in its administration. I believe that at the present moment the strongest feeling excited in this country in regard to this matter arises, not on account of an execution of a criminal taking place when it is justly merited, but when through an accident or some miscarriage of justice a great

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  criminal escapes the punishment due to his offences. It is impossible to doubt that in the case of Townley a universal feeling existed that the ends of justice were defeated. My Lords, I think the result of this Commission will be that there will be a decided expression of opinion on its part that the punishment of death must be retained; and I believe it will also offer suggestions with the view of giving some support and assistance to the Secretary of State in these cases. The first thing suggested probably will be that the Secretary of State should have the constant advantage of the advice of the noble and learned Lord who may sit on the Woolsack. It may, however, happen that the Lord Chancellor may not be conversant with criminal law, but may have passed his professional career in the Courts of Equity. It would be desirable, therefore, that the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench should be added to the advisers of the Secretary of State. But the act to be done being the act, not of an individual, but of the Government, I cannot see how it would be possible not to make the First Minister of the Crown, the First Lord of the Treasury, one of the persons who should be present at these consultations. The consultative body would become, in fact, a Committee of the Privy Council; and how, again, would it be possible to exclude from the discussion in such a Committee the person who is President of the Council? These four persons, in addition to the Secretary of State, should be summoned for the consideration of these cases. But, besides these five, the remainder of Her Majesty's Cabinet would also be present, according to the plan I am proposing to your Lordships. I think it is better, if we can, to go back to past times and adopt that which has been sanctioned by experience, and which once existed, not only without any objection on the part of the public, but with their concurrence and confidence. I must likewise observe that I think it a very great advantage of the practice suggested by the Bill now before your Lordships, that the Sovereign would, under occasional circumstances, sit and act in these cases. I believe that the presence of the Sovereign gives that gravity and solemnity which befits the consultation of those who have to decide on the life of a man. It was so formerly, and I am satisfied it would be so again, and that we should guard the law as it exists, and maintain it most success-
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  fully by affording the Sovereign an opportunity of being present when these decisions are taken. I hope your Lordships will consider the expediency of proceeding with immediate legislation on this matter, dealing with this Bill as you deem best, agreeing to commit it if you think fit, or—what I should undoubtedly prefer—proposing some other and better measure, such as may occur to any other noble Lord, for the purpose of meeting that which is a great danger, the want of confidence in the administration of justice.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."
  EARL GEANVILLE: My Lords, the noble Earl has, I think, stated correctly what has been done by the House of Commons in reference to this matter. The point, however, as he says, which we have to consider is whether, when a Commission appointed at the request of the other House is sitting on this subject, the question ought not to be postponed; or whether we should adopt the present Bill or send it to a Committee; or lastly, whether some other measure more fully answering the same object should be introduced. I must say that my own impression is strongly in favour of the first alternative suggested by the noble Earl. While I admit that the question ought not to be very long delayed, on the other hand I think it is not at all desirable that we should proceed hastily in a matter of this kind. It appears to me, I confess, that there would be something anomalous as well as inconvenient in our attempting to legislate at the very outset of the labours of the Commission, and I hardly think that noble and learned Members of this House themselves would like to run the risk incident to such a course. I think your Lordships and the public are indebted to the noble Earl for the attention he has paid to this subject, and for the pains he has taken in drawing up the Bill; but, at the same time, it appears to me that his Bill is open to grave objections. The first clause is objectionable for a plain and simple reason. I have always understood that the infliction of the punishment of death is the act of the law, and it is placing the Secretary of State in a false and obnoxious position to say that the execution of the sentence of death is his act and not the act of the law. An equally strong objection may be urged against the next clause, as to receiving the report of the Judge, and summoning

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  certain. Members of the Privy Council, indicated by the noble Earl, to assist the Secretary of State in coming to a decision whether the sentence shall be carried out or not. It occurs to me (though I do not think it ought to be an objection in a matter of this importance) that there would be a great practical difficulty in assembling at all times of the year, particularly during the long vacation, five Members of the Privy Council, to consider whether a sentence of death should be carried out or not. But I would ask the noble Earl whether the decision of those five Members of the Privy Council, supposing it to confirm the sentence of death, is to be regarded as final? The pressure always comes at the last moment, and if the decision of the Privy Councillors is to be final, what answer must be given to those parties who, interested in a person under sentence of death, may come forward after the final decision has been taken with plausible allegations that new and important evidence had been discovered? It is quite impossible, if the present Bill should pass, that the Secretary of State should take upon himself the responsibility of reversing a decision come to just before by a Committee of the Privy Council; and yet circumstances may be laid before him warranting further inquiry. It would then be necessary for him to re-assemble the Committee; but that would be a matter of difficulty, and would occupy some time. Again, one of the strongest objections to the existing state of things is that the Secretary of State has no power of ordering a new trial or any judicial inquiry into the facts of a case; and I apprehend it is the absence of that power which makes his decision to a certain degree unpopular and unsatisfactory. Your Lordships will observe that the present Bill gives no power whatever to the Committee of Privy Council to institute such an inquiry, or to order a new trial, or to do anything more than can now be done by the Secretary of State with the view of arriving at a satisfactory result. As for the presence of Her Majesty, no doubt it would give a certain amount of solemnity to the proceedings of the Committee of Privy Council, and it may be said to be in conformity with precedent; but I rather think it would be contrary to constitutional practice that the Sovereign should preside at any Council where deliberation or discussion takes place. With respect to the Recorder of London, I believe he does not sit as judge
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  in any case of murder at all, and I can see no reason why he should be summoned. No doubt some of the objections I have just stated might be met in Committee on the Bill; but the first reason I gave—that a Commission, is about to be appointed at the request of the other House to consider the whole subject of capital punishments, and that such Commission will doubtless feel it to be its duty to examine the proposition of the noble Earl, will, I trust, satisfy your Lordships that this measure should not be proceeded with further. It is much desired by the Government that they should be allowed to recommend the noble Earl himself as one of the Commissioners; but whether or not the noble Earl may consent to act, I am persuaded that his proposal will receive all the attention it so well deserves. The fact that they entirely approve the suggestion of the House of Commons for the appointment of a Commission will prevent the Government undertaking the responsibility of introducing a Bill until they have the great advantage of being guided by the inquiries and recommendations of the Commissioners, and I trust the noble Earl, satisfied with an expression of his opinion, will not press the present measure further.
  EARL GREY: My Lords, I am very glad that the President of the Council, on behalf of the Government, has asked the noble Earl not to proceed further with this Bill, which appears to me, after mature consideration, to be open to objections far stronger than those which can be urged against the existing law which it is designed to alter. The noble Earl (the Earl of Ellenborough) has recommended this Bill on the ground that it is in accordance with the precedent afforded by the former practice of submitting to the King in Council the Recorder's Report of capital convictions in London. It is my lively recollection of the proceedings of the Privy Council in those cases which induces me most sincerely to deprecate the passing of this measure. Before Her Majesty came to the throne it was the practice that all capital convictions which took place at the Central Criminal Court were reported to the King in Council by the Recorder of London, and then it was decided in the Council whether the sentences should be carried into effect or not. It was my duty, during the last two years of that practice, as a Member of the Government of Lord Melbourne, to attend the Council when such cases were brought before it, and I have a

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  most lively recollection of the utterly unsatisfactory character of the proceedings on those occasions. What I then saw convinced me that it would be totally impossible for five Members of the Privy Council, with the Chief Justice and the Recorder of London, sitting in council together, hearing evidence read before them, and then letters and memorials bearing on a remission of punishment, with documents sent from the Home Office, to form a sound judgment as to whether a certain sentence should be carried out or not. If there is to be an appeal in criminal eases at all, it ought to be to a tribunal very differently constituted; but I own I think it extremely doubtful whether any such appeal is necessary. In my opinion the fault lies, not in the law as it stands, but in the manner in which it has been administered for a considerable number of years. A practice has grown up at the Home Office—not under the right hon. Gentleman who at present presides over that Department—he found it in existence—by which the Secretary of State is called upon to listen to those persons who question the propriety of verdicts given by juries in capital cases. I utterly deny the propriety of the Secretary of State so sitting in judgment upon the verdicts of juries. How can he, or any Council, upon hearing evidence read—without seeing the witnesses, without having an opportunity of observing their demeanour, without having the immense advantage which those who were personally present at the trial possess over those who merely hear the result of it—form a competent judgment as to the correctness of a verdict? I have, therefore, always held that the practice of the Secretary of State, considering the propriety of verdicts, was altogether a wrong one. If the Judge and jury art; satisfied, my opinion is that the Secretary of State is bound to accept the verdict; and consequently, if I had ever had the honour of holding the high office of Home Secretary, I should positively have declined going into the evidence with a view of forming an opinion whether the verdict was right or not. There is only one case in which that rule ought to be departed from—namely, when circumstances have come to light after the trial and in consequence of the trial, which were not before the Judge and jury, which may throw suspicion on some of the evidence on which the person had been convicted,
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  or which may explain away things that had led the jury to believe in his guilt. When such circumstances come to light afterwards it is fitting they should be investigated: but in applying that rule the utmost caution is necessary, for it never would do if persons accused of crime were at liberty to hold back material evidence at the time of trial, when their witnesses would be liable to be cross-examined and to have all their statements thoroughly sifted, in order to bring it forward later, when it could not be tested in the same manner. It therefore seems to me that only circumstances which have arisen since the trial, or which it was shown to have been impossible to bring forward while the trial was proceeding, should be allowed to be considered by the Secretary of State. Except in those special and exceptional cases, the duty of the Secretary of State is not to sit in judgment upon the verdict of the jury, but to consider whether, that verdict being right, there are circumstances to justify the extension of the mercy of the Crown to the criminal. That, and that only, is his duty. Of late years we have had cases, such as those of poisoning, where medical men came forward one after another to question the evidence taken at the trial, and to press their several views, in order to induce the Secretary of State to believe that the Judge and jury were entirely in the wrong. I protest against that practice as being in the highest degree improper. It is the duty of the Secretary of State only to consider whether or not there are circumstances which justify the mercy of the Crown being extended to the criminal, and it is not one from which he ought to shrink, especially while the law remains in what my noble Friend the President of the Council rightly called its proper state—namely, that unless the Crown interferes justice takes its course, without any direction from the Secretary of State or the Government. Formerly when there was a great variety of capital crimes, the Secretary of State had a very difficult and painful duty to perform in deciding when the penalty should be remitted. Now, however, murder is almost the only crime for which capital punishment is actually inflicted, although there are two or three other crimes to which the penalty of death attaches; and I believe that when Parliament thus restricted the application of that punishment, it was with the intention that in all cases of

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  deliberate murder the law should take its course, unless there were some very strong and special grounds why it should be arrested. If it is admitted that in cases of convictions for murder the Secretary of State should not re-consider the verdict of the jury, but should inquire only whether there are special and exceptional reasons for extending the clemency of the Crown, then I say there is nothing in that duty which one man cannot perfectly execute. Nay, I go further. I am fully persuaded that the responsibility will be more effectual and complete if, as now, it rests on the Secretary of State than if it were borne by the whole Committee of Council. I altogether object to the principle of frittering away responsibility by distributing it over too large a body. I think the law is quite right as it stands, and that the only alteration required is in the manner in which it is carried out.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, he differed from the noble Earl (Earl Grey) that the main difficulty of the present system did not arise from the state of the law, but from the manner in which it was exercised; and especially he differed from him in the error he had pointed out that the Secretary of State constituted himself a sort of court of appeal to try cases over again. His opinion was that the present amount of dissatisfaction which existed in the public mind was attributable, in a great degree, to the present state of the law, and that it would not be remedied until the state of the law was altered. He shared the conclusion of his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack, that the present state of the law, which established no distinction between the different shades and degrees of murder—which recognized no distinction whatever, except the broad distinction between homicide and murder—was contrary to the common sense and conscience of the people, and that the dissatisfaction had mainly arisen from the Secretary of State being constituted a court of appeal. His opinion was, that of the cases which had occurred lately in which public feeling and the conscience of the people had been more or less violated in respect to the escape of criminals, there were only a few in which the decision of the Secretary of State had any relation to the question of evidence. The only case which he could recollect in which it could be supposed that that decision had reference to the evidence was in the celebrated case of Jessie Maclachlan.
  EARL GREY: And Smethurst.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: Yes, Smethurst was a recent case. Now, the case of Jessie Maclachlan had not reference so much to her guilt, but as to whether another person who had not been tried was not more guilty than she was — whether he was not the primary agent in the crime and she the secondary one. His noble Friend had mentioned the Smethurst case. Now, in that instance, the decision of the Secretary of State was, no doubt, in part influenced by the idea that the evidence was deficient. But in nine cases out of ten the pressure that was brought upon the Secretary of State was not brought upon him to review the evidence with regard to the guilt or innocence of the criminal, but as to the degree of heinousness of the crime, and that was so in the last case—that of Hall. In that case there was clearly premeditation; but there were also circumstances of provocation which, to some extent, palliated the crime. Then there were other questions, as for instance insanity; and the noble Earl who had introduced the Bill had referred to Townley's case with undoubtedly a great deal of justice. There the criminal escaped justice owing to the defective nature of the clause in the Act, which was not noticed when the Act was passed, and which was not known to exist till it was discovered by the ingenuity of the attorney for the prisoner. So far that defect had been remedied by the passing of an Act which removed the difficulty which arose in that particular case. He had not risen to discuss the principle of the Bill then before the House, but to express an opinion which he strongly entertained, that the main fault had not been in the administration of the law, but in the state of the law, and that unless Parliament proceeded to an alteration of the law, somewhat in the manner that was suggested on a former occasion by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, capital punishment would not survive many years in this country.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, he could not allow what the noble Duke had said to pass without some observation. He believed it was very far from being the general opinion that it would be desirable to attempt to distinguish between different degrees of criminality, such as would lead to the adoption of the system which prevailed in France. It was hardly possible to read the verdicts found by French juries "with extenuating circumstances"

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  without seeing that the introduction of that system into England, leaving that: discretion to the juries, would lead to the greatest dissatisfaction.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHsaid, that, in deference to the feeling which their Lordships had expressed, he should ask leave to withdraw the Bill.
  Bill (by leave of the House) withdrawn.

  DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to amend the Act relating to Divorce and Matrimonial Causes in England, 20 & 21 Vict. c. 85 — Was presented by The Lord ST. LEONARDS, and read 1a. (No. 75.)
  CHIMNEY SWEEPERS AND CHIMNEYS REGULATION BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to amend and extend the Act for the; Regulation of Chimney Sweepers and Chimneys; —Was presented by The Earl of SHAFTESBURY, and read 1a. (No. 76.)

  SCOTTISH EPISCOPAL CLERGY DISABILITIES REMOVAL BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to remove the Disabilities affecting the Bishops and Clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Scotland—Was presented by The Earl of DONCASTER, and read 1a. (No. 79.)
  House adjourned at Six o'clock, to Thursday next, half past Ten o'clock.