The Press. — London, England, 1857-02-07 00:00:00

FEBRUARY 7, 1857. fore that measure was agreed to. But it ought to be understood that it is open to consideration whether the act of 1322 is capable of improvements that would not frustrate the beneficial purposes of its author, but would give in creased assurance to the community that we are beginning to emerge from the series of monetary experiments, and are about to bring our monetary system to a comprehensive, and permanent, and established basis. (Hear, hear.) lint, sir, a more important subject still remains, upon which the right hon. gentleman has announced his inten tion to submit a motion to the house. I have watched -with interest the meetings and proceedings which have takes place in different parts of the country relative to the income tax. It is perhaps in vain to regret, for it is pombably inherent in the nature of all popular movements, that the country shows a greater disposition to be critical and sore on the subject of taxation than to be critical and sore upon the expenditure that makes taxation necessary. (Cheers.) If I were to attempt to paint the humour of the country at the present moment, I should say that it was jealous 'with respect to taxation, but perfectly reckless with regard to expenditure. (Hear, hear.) It is con sidering the merits of direct and indirect taxation as if there were not a moral certainty that for all the years 'during which the youngest among us draws breath both the admirers of direct taxation and the worshippers of indirect taxation will have ample opportunities of content plating even to idolatry the working of these respective principles in the discordant financial system of the coun• try. (A laugh.) There has been much discussion—and I do not wonder at it—upon the question whether the income tax should be levied at a permanent or varied rate. I agree that as long as you have an income tax you will never entirely get rid of that discussion, and this convic tion and the political dangers of this tax led me to the conclusion that the income tax is an admirable instrument for national purposes upon a great and adequate emer gency, but that it is a dangerous instrument to retain in time of peace. (Cheers.) There has been much discus sion whether an income of 1001. should pay, or an income of 1501., and whether the possessor of an income of 1511. should pay upon that income or upon the 11. surplus. There has been still more discussion on the cessation of war taxation, and upon these subjects I shall not evade giving an opinion. lint I desire to bring the members of this house,—and, what is more necessary, for the difficulty is out of doors, to bring the country—to consider the question " What is the just and reasonable scale of ex penditure fur your establishments during peace ?" (Cheers.) That is the question upon which we must bestow our care if we intend to discharge our duties to the people of this country. (Cheers.) Upon this subject we are not entirely without informa tion, even on the day of the Speech from the Throne. There is a portion of the nountry singularly favoured, for in the town of Arbroath and other favoured places in the north-east of Scotland the most interesting disclosures have been conveyed from the Minister of War to his delighted neighbours mil friends. I will not dwell upon the announcement which be mule relative to the report of the Crimean commissioners—( Hear )—although I do not understand why that time or that place should have been chosen for communicating the views which Lord Panmure entertains upon the labours of Sir J. M'Neill and Colonel Tulloch. ( Hear, hear.) I will not drag that subject in now, but it will probably not escape the attention of this house. ( Hear, hear.) But another announcement was made in Arbroath. The noble lord the Secretary of State for War stated to his friends that there would be a reduc tion of 20,000,00'11. in the military estimates of the present year. I make no doubt that he did not refer to the naval departments, and that he, of course, meant the estimates fur the army, ordnance, militia, and commissariat. Now, sir. there is no way of getting right upon this subject, except by coming to figures. It is useless to bandy gene ralities, and to say, on the one hand, that a niggardly eco nomy and a state of unpreparedness for war invite invasion and run the risk of great calamities. That is not only the truth, but a truism. To speak, on the other hand, of the virtue of economy and of remitting the burden of taxation, is a truism at the other end of the diameter of the circle. Figures are the only intelligible language, and these are given us through the noble lord's gracious benevolence to the people of Arbroath. ( A laugh.) The noble lord said that the military estimates would be reduced 20,000,0001. They were 35,601,00:11. last year. I speak of the unre duced estimates of last year, because the reduced estimates were just 20,500,000/., and if they were reduced 20,000,000/. a very small margin would be left. (A laugh.) The noble lord's intention apparently is to submit to us esti mates of 14,000,0001. or 15,000,000/. for the military departments. Then there is the naval department; but, as my right hon. friend the First Lord of the Admiralty has not been to visit his friends at Halifax this year, our information respecting that department is meagre—(a laugh )—but J am afraid, if I may judge from the loose rumours that reach me, that the measures of retrenchment to be applied to the navy will not be any more stringent than those to be applied to the army. I read the other day a declaration of my hon. friend the member for Bury (Mr. F. Peel) that his mind had been much relieved by the announcement made by Lord Pan mute. (A laugh.) I do not know the capacity of my hon. friend's mind for receiving relief, but my mind was far from relieved—it was seriously disturbed by that announcement. I will not consent to look at the large ness of the figures of the reduction about to be made. In asking for supplies at the beginning of the war we told the house not to look at the largeness of the figures, but at the necessities of the case, and now that the necessities of the case have passed away I must look not at wh a t y ou take away, but at what you leave, and that I must measure by comparing it with what, according to the best evidence in our possession, are the real necessities of the country. In the absence of positive information, my right hon. friend at the head of the Admiralty will excuse me for Waking a pan a 4 his estimates. Luc year, before they were THE PRESS. reduced, they were 20,000,0001.; after they were reduced they were 10.500,000/. That sum included no less than 5,300,0001. for the transport service—an item which I should hope would now be reduced to altogether Insignifi cant proportions. No doubt my right hon. friend will give us some reduction from the remaining 11 0 500,0001., but I am afraid I am forming too favourable an opinion of him if i conjecture that his estimate will amount to about 9,000,000/. Adding that 0,000,0001. to Lord Penmure's 14,000,0001., my conjecture takes the form of an expendi- ture upon the peace establishment of this country of 24,000,000/. or 25,000,0001. a year. I wish I could believe that I had fallen into any gross error in this computation, hut T do not stand upon the precise figures, for if the amount is anything near the sum I have named the grounds of objection and the necessity for the positive interference of the house are exactly the same. (Hear, hear.) In considering the necessities of the country I must look back at our experience before the war. True, we now wish to improve much that existed before the war, and many of those improvements cannot be carried out without expense. We have all seen with pleasure the improvements in the material of the greatcoats of the sentries who are exposed to this blasting weather, and whatever tends to the physical comfort of the soldier, whatever tends to the recognition of the fair claims of the off►cer, whatever is necessary to attract into the service of her Majesty the highest class of men both as regards mental and bodily qualities, will, I am sure, never be grudged by this house. (Hear, hear.) But the charges and expenses necessary for carrying out these objects are not heavy. The charges and expenses we are called upon to defray arise from different causes, and they connect themselves in some measure with the foreign policy of this country, and with the degree to which it is to cultivate the respect and the goodwill of other nations. (Hear, hear.) If it be true on the one hand that changes must be made in our military system, it is not the least true, on the other hand, that important and happy changes have taken piece in the condition of the country and of the empire, the operation of which tends strongly to economy ; I mean economy as compared with the standard of expen diture before the war. (Hear, hear.) What is the con dition of our colonies? I repel the doctrine that because you are founding a vast colonial empire you must have a vast force to defend it. On the contrary, the only colonies which ever really required military assistance were either those in which it was made necessary by your slave system in order to keep down a black population, or else the great military garrisons which you have now ceased to acqu►re and multiply. As regards colonies, it is plain that the progress of free institutions must and ought to carry with it the obligation to discharge the burdens which are a part of the very title to and inheritance of freedom. ( Hear, hear.) Then you had before the war 20,000 and some times 30,000 men acting as a police force in Ireland, and the great bulk of your troops in England were discharg ing duties of a similar character. But a great change has now taken place. In most of the great towns you have an efficient police force, and you are subjecting the real property of the country as well as the taxpayers generally to a very heavy charge on account of it. (Hear, hear.) It requires no detailed argument to show that the estab. lishment of this police force has enabled yon to dispense with the employment of the military in services which they had to discharge twenty years ago. I cannot at this moment presume to say whether you ought to keep your military estimates down to the precise figure at which on an average of years they stood before the war, but there is a very large margin between that figure and the estimates you now propose. The average amount of the estimates during the forty years' peace was 14,000,0001.. and they were at their lowest point in 1835, when they amounted only to 12,000,0001. Since 1835 they have risen con- siderably, but have rarely exceeded 10,000,0 A/. or 17,000,0001., although within the last fifteen or twenty years you have been creating a new fleet with a new system of propulsion at an enormous temporary expenditure. This being the amount of the estimates before the war, the Government now propose, as I understand, to raise them to a sum at least considerably exceeding 20,000,0001., a sum about double the lowest estimate of the last peace, and exceeding by 0,000,1)001., 7,000,0001., or 8,000,0001, the estimates of those years in which you were creating your steam fleet. I am authorised to speak the sentiments of no man ; but some gentlemen with whom I am in familiar intercourse agree with me, I believe, in the opinion that we must look at the expenditure of the country—( Hear )—that this house cannot fully discharge its duties by looking only at taxation. (Hear, hear.) Let me point out to my right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer the danger in which we might find ourselves. We might, to please our constituents, vote away the ninth of the income tax. We might also, and 1 really believe we should please many of our constituents by so doing, vote enormous and immo derate estimates. The consequence would be that the Government would be compelled to fill up the vacuum by proposing either new taxation, or to borrow money in the first year of the peace. (Hear, hear.) lam not willing to be responsible for any such alternative. (Hear, hear.) I feel it my bounden duty, first,to lay hold of the proposed expenditure, and it is my conviction that if it be the opinion of the Government that it is necessary to maintain a military establishment upon a scale at all approaching to that which I have named we must deal with the estimates, not by nibbling at them here and there, but by a general motion, taking the sense of the house upon the expediency of saddling the country with such a charge. (Hear, hear.) I am fairly bound to say that if no person better entitled to the attention of the house should undertake the task, I shall take on myself the responsibility of making a motion in the circumstances I have supposed, should they occur, in order to obtain the judgment of the house as to the duty it owes the public in reference to the estimates to be adopted, founding myself 912 the statement of fact which 127 fell from Lord Panmure. I think I should not have acted justly to the Government unless I had taken the earliest opportunity of giving them this intimation, registering my earnest and solemn protest against the enlargement of the whole system of peace expenditure in this country. I admit the dulness of discussing these dry financial ques tions before a popnlar assembly, though I think that the progress of education must have conveyed to them the idea which I believe to be a sound one, that there is a connec tion between the amount spent and the amount required to be raised by taxes. (" Hear, hear," and a laugh.) I now come to the income tax. The right hon. gentleman has made a direct challenge to me, and I shall endeavour to meet it in frank and expli cit terms. I admit in the fullest 'ense the obligation he seeks to lay on me. Ido consider that the arrangement of 1833 was in the nature of a compact. I think, if I gathered rightly the purport of the right hon. gentleman's speech, he said there was an understanding between the Government of Lord Aberdeen and its supporters inte rested in real property that, if they voted for the succession duty, the Government proposed the extinction of the income tax in 1860. Of such a compact I know nothing, and as far as my knowledge is concerned no one ever endeavoured to link together those two questions, nor, as far as I am aware, was there any kind of private communi cation on the subject between the Goverment and any hon. members. The compact I speak of was a compact made at the table of this house, in the presence of all the members, and made with the people of England. The right hon. gentleman has truly referred to the position of the Government at that time as being a peculiar position. It was not strong in parliamentary support, and had several of those unhappy accidents which even the skill of the right hon. member for Wells cannot always avert— (" Hear," and laughter)—before the first two or three months of its Ministerial existence. For several years the income tax had been in a state most unsatisfactory, and little creditable to this house, which had gone on for not less than three or four )ears with annual renewals of the tax, like children who do not venture to deal with the future, but were content with living from hand to mouth, being unable to lay down for the guidance of their con stituents any rules or principles on which the fiscal system should rest. It was impossible, while such a course was adopted, that any of the purposes of income tax could be gained, for any great revision of our com mercial policy connected with reductions of duty abso lutely required the assurance of a revenue from the income tax for a series of years. Under these circum stances, knowing the feeling of the country with respect to the uniform rate, we asked and obtained from Parliament at a time the income tax hail actually expired the renewil of the tax with the uniform rate, and for a period more the n twice as long as it had ever been given for before. Now, if ever there was an act of generous confidence extended from the Parliament to Government it was that act; and let me do this justice to the right hon. gentleman to remark that he and his friends having, with the distin guished member for Hertfordshire for their organ, tried to raise the question of the uniform rate, and having found the sense of the house against them, offered no ob struction to the renewal of the tax. With respect to the succession duty, that was stiffly and gallantly 'ought in this house ; and, though there were two or three divisions on it rather too near to be comfortable, yet the opposition never assumed a factions character, and the tax when passed received that cheerful acquiescence which the gentlemen of England always yield to the verdict of the Legislature. The most important ground on which the proposal of that tax was justified was that there existed a strong sentiment in the country that the income tax ought to be laid with a heavier rate on realised property than on precarious in come ; though it had been argued, and in argument never contested, that the owners of realised property had been, without their own consciousness, I believe—(laughter)— paying on an average at least Od., and not id., in the pound. However, it was in consequence of the sentiment in the country that realised property was too little taxed, and precarious incomes derived from skill and labour too' heavily, the Government, being unable to undertake the reconstruction of the income tax, yet undertook, by means of the succession duty, to lay an additional burden on per manent incomes—that is, on property. This is the settle ment which it is incumbent to maintain, for, though the great struggle of commercial reform is over, there yet re mained reforms in the tariff and Customs' duties to be effected. I believe it will be perfectly practicable, if these reforms should be effected by means of the income tax, then to dismiss that tax, when it has dine its work, to rest. But, sir, the pledge of the Government was given in 1833, and we received value for it. It referred mainly to some thing that was to take place in 1860. Four years of the seven have passed away. It is to my mind reasonable and just that the right hon. gentleman on behalf of his friends, and every man on his own behalf and on behalf of his constituents, should acknowledge the duty of the House of Commons to say now, in 187 ii, whether the pledges of 18.53 are or are not to be fulfilled. (Hear, hear.) And I depre cate all schemes—except in debating societies—of com parison between direct and indirect taxation, so far as they stand between the House of Commons and its prac tical duty. I deprecate those inquiries about a uniform and a varying rate. That is the use v o ti ng a p erpetua l income tax because you think the rate should be varying, and then all your life long finding that you are supporting a unicorn rate? Now, that has been the case practically up to the present time. The question as to a varying rate is a question between the air and the clouds ; it has never become practicable. No Minister sitting on that bench has ever been able to devise such a rate. The right hon. gentleman announced his intention, rashly I though:, of proposing such a rate ; b u t h e h a d not an opportunity of bringing it forward. But there are other matters before us that are of a practical character. As far as my duty is concerned it will be my effort and labour to secure a fulfilment of the pledges given in 16.53. (Cheers.) I i I L