The Press. — London, England, 1857-03-21 00:00:00

290 because there will be some items falling in—such as 1,300,0001. of Long Annuities—and there will be a cessation of the payments, amounting to 2,000,0001., on account of the Exchequer Bonds. lam satisfied to assume that the farther falling, off of 3,000,000/. of income tax will not increase the deficiency of the former years. But you have a permanent deficiency from this year to the amount of no less than 6,500,000/. Is not this a circumstance worthy of serious consideration? (Hear, hear.) I ask your lordships what hope can be seriously entertained that the expectation will be realised that in the year 1860, or at any subsequent period, we shall be relieved from the intolerable pressure of the income tax ? There are three, and only three, modes by one or all of which we may attain to a balance between revenue and expenditure. In the first place, this balance may be obtained by the increased produc • tiveness of the present taxes; or, secondly, by the imposition of new taxes ; or, thirdly, by the institu tion of a rigid system of economy in the national ex penditure. I fear that we may have occasion to apply to all three. My lords, I lay great stress upon the elasticity of the national revenue when it is relieved from the pressure of the direct taxation that weighs it down. But it would be folly to suppose that the increased productiveness of the existing taxes could raise the revenue to anything approaching 6,500,0001. in the course of a single year. With regard to the second mode, I know with what distaste and disgust the country looks to new taxes in time of profound peace. There remains, then, the third mode—a close and rigid attention to economy, and a strict reduction of national expenditure. (Hear, hear.) The principal branches of that national expenditure are, first, th payment of the national debt, which cannot be reduced, except by the application of accruing sur plus revenue, with due regard to faith towards the public creditor. Next come the civil establishments, in which I do not think any material reduction can be effected; and then come the three great branches of the army, the navy, and the miscellaneous esti mates. My lords, it is in these three branches, and in these alone, that any considerable reduction of expenditure can take place. (Hear.) I should be one of the last to wish to see the military establish ments of this country reduced below a state of effi ciency. I should be sorry to see them reduced to the point at which they were kept between the years 1840 and 1850. (Hear.) I think that such a state of our military establishments is not consistent either with the honour or the safety of the country. The only principle which I recommend is that which combines economy with a due regard to the efficiency of the public service, and that which I am most anxious to vindicate and support is the necessity of keeping your military and naval establishments as strong as you can in all that relates to military science, in all which cannot be produced on the spur of the moment or in the efflux of a moderate space of time, of placing your army in that• state of efficiency in which it is the duty of the Government and of the country to place it—organically strong, but numeri cally as low as is consistent with the duties it has to perform in time of peace. (Cheers.) I lay this down as a principle, but I shall not pretend to enter into details on this subject. With regard to the miscellaneous estimates, they have increased most formidably in the last few years, and this not from any fault of this or that Government, but from the pressure and extrava gance of Parliament. (Hear.) It has formerly been the theory that Parliament ought to be the check upon the tendency of Governments to spend money ; but with regard to the miscellaneous esti mates the duties and positions of these two bodies have been reversed, and the Government has been the check, but not a sufficient check, upon the extravagance of Parliament. (Cheers.) I do not propose to go further on this topic, and I will there fore only urge upon the consideration of your lord ships and the country that if it is desirable to get THE PRESS. rid of the income tax, and if we do not wish to see it incorporated into our system of taxation, we must, in the years between this and 1860, apply ourselves vigorously and rigidly to such a system of economy and of reduction in oar expenditure as is consistent with the attainment of that object, and so as to render it possible to square your balance of revenue and expenditure. But, my lords, it is quite obvious that the expen diture of this country, with respect to the nature and extent of your warlike establishments, depends upon the system of policy, and more especially upon the system of foreign policy, that is to be pursued by the Government. 'Cheers.) If you determine that that policy shall be one of respect for the indepen dence and for the rights of foreign nations—of studious abstinence from interfering with the purely internal concerns of other countries—of an anxiety to avoid by every possible means a language, tone, and temper which shall show you ready to substitute in case of fancied insult and injury a tone of menace and braggadocio for that of reason and conciliation— if you are slow to take offence and ready to accept explanation and reparation, when it is offered in a friendly spirit—if you do this I have no fear, in the present condition of the world, and with the general feeling that prevails in nearly all foreign nations, that we must be prepared to keep up large war establishments in time of peace. But if you proceed upon an opposite policy, and are determined to meddle in the internal concerns of other countries— if you attempt to dictate the mode in which they shall deal with their own subjects, and interfere with them when the interests of your own subjects are not con cerned—if you threaten and bully, and use the language of menace to those who, although weak, are too proud to listen to you, when you tell them how to behave towards their own subjects—if you adopt such a course of conduct, I take the liberty to tell your lordships that you must keep your establishments upon a war footing—that you must be prepared to back up every petty quarrel in which you may be involved, that you must he ready to provide on the shortest notice for a war that may spread over the whole face of the world. And, my lords, above all, if you lay down this formidable and dangerous princi ple, that your subordinate officers in every part of the world shall have the power at their discretion of committing this country to a war—if you lay down the further principle that, right or wrong, after they have done those acts they must be approved by the Government—and, further still, that, those acts being thus approved by the Government, it is beyond the competence of Parliament to take cognisance of those transactions, with the view of condemning them, upon pain of being charged with a factious combination against the Government, then, my lords, you may give up the idea of reducing your army, you must hold yourselves armed cap-it-pie for the fight, and you must be ready to plunge into the horrors of war in every part of the world at the discretion of men proud of their brief authority, and ready to make the most of the confidence of the Government at home. And this, my lords, leads me to the peculiar cir cumstances under which an appeal is to be made to the country. Your lordships need not appre• bend that I am about to enter into the merits of the China war, or to examine the legality of the proceedings of Sir J. Bowring, or the prudence of the steps he has taken. I am going to assume for the present that the whole of those steps were legal ; but I desire to point out to your lordships the position in which this country is placed by the adoption of these assumed legal proceedings of Sir J. Bowring. It is no little inconvenience, and no slight public evil, that in the month of March, just at the commencement of the session, and when the House of Commons were about to commence the business of the country, we should be interrupted in our proceedings by a dissolution of Parliament—a dissolution that creates the greatest possible incon venience both to public and private affairs, and which involves not only the loss of time of the dissolution itself, but that further loss of time caused by the arrangements consequent upon the meeting of the SATURDAY, new Parliament, and which will render this coming Parliament even more unproductive of beneficial measures than was promised us in the very meagre programme of the Speech from the Throne at the commencement of the present session. My lords, of course that inconvenience must be submitted to. I shall be told that the Government having had a hostile vote passed against them, it became necessary for them either to resign or to appeal to the country. But, my lords, whose fault was it that a ques. tion was ever raised involving the character or credit of the Government? I am going very humbly to offer my apology for your lordships' house and for the House of Commons for having so far misunder stood the spirit of the Constitution as to believe that it was within their competence to take notice, and, having taken notice, to express an unbiassed opinion upon the conduct of any official with regard to whose proceedings the Government, by command of her Majesty, had laid papers and documents before Par liament. I may be mistaken, but I certainly have believed that when papers are laid upon the table by her Majesty's Government, it is for the very purpose of inviting an expression of the opinion of Parlia ment upon them. My lords, I conceive it cannot be said that, in respect either to this or the other House of Parliament, we have been anxious to interfere with the discharge of the duties of the Executive, or that we have interposed any obstacles in the way of the exercise of those functions which properly belong to the Crown. They have manifested, on the con trary, a degree of forbearance which I do not blame, but which I venture to say is almost unparalleled. (Rear, bear.) What is the case with regard to the war in Persia? A quarrel has been entered into, troops have been despatched, war has been declared, an expedition has been sent out, a fortress has been taken, negotiations have been entered into, negotiations have been con cluded, peace has been made, and from the first to the last, from the hour when the quarrel began to the moment when I ant addressing your lordships, the House of Lords and the House of Commons have not had one single scrap of paper or one single official document which shows the object, the cause, the intentions of the war, or the terms on which it is terminated ; and the House of Commons, which ought to furnish supplies upon an estimate of ex penses, are not likely to know anything about that expense until they are called on to pay the bill already discharged by her Majesty's Government. (Cheers.) Therefore I say the House of Lords and the House of Commons have displayed no undue anxiety to interfere with the Government, or to hamper or embarrass the Executive. (Hear, hear.) But, when papers are laid before Parlia ment, it is an invitation on the part of the Crown for Parliament to express its opinion on the subject matter of those papers, and, if we do not, we grossly neglect our duty, as by tacit acquiescence we may be assumed to sanction acts most repugnant to our feelings, and in our judgments most objectionable. (Hear, hear.) What has taken place in this instance? Upon the perusal of these papers a motion was made in the other House of Parliament by a gentleman usually, I believe, a supporter of her Majesty's Government, and most undoubtedly wholly unconnected with the Conservative party. That motion expressed on the face of it—l forget the precise words—the opinion of the House of Commons that the papers laid upon the table failed to afford sufficient justification for the officials in China. I gave notice and brought forward in this house a motion varying in terms, but entirely to the same effect; and what was the course pursued by her Majesty's Government in both houses ? Why, to assume to themselves the whole responsibility of the conduct and judgment of Sir J. Bowring; to make themselves parties ; to insist on being censured, or rather to insist that Parliament should either forbear expressing an opinion or be charged with a desire to censure or displace her Majesty's Government. Now, I will venture to say that if, instead of her Majesty's Government vindi cating to the uttermost the conduct of their agents,