The Press. — London, England, 1857-03-14 00:00:00

DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT. In the House of Lords, on Monday, Earl GRAN- VaLE moved the second reading of the Income-tax Bill. The Earl of DERBY then rose and said : I need hardly assure your lordships that it is not my intention to avail myself of the present opportu nity for offering any objection to the bill, the second reading of which has just heen moved in silence by the noble earl the President of the Council. At the same time I cannot conceal the expression of my regret that it has not been found consistent with the public service to defer the consideration of a mea sure so important as this until the new Parliament which is about to be summoned should be enabled to take it into consideration in connection with the whole financial state of the country. (Hear, hear.) That Parliament will, in my judgment, greatly fail in one of its first duties if in the earliest period of its existence it does not tyke into its serious considera tion the whole state of the finances and taxation of the country. (Hear, hear.) I need not say that with respect to legislation on the subject of taxation your lordships have nothing more to do than that which simply consists in bear ing your allotted portion of the burden. I have heard in various quarters of propositions for render ing taxation and representation co-extensive, but I have never heard, and I do not expect to hear, of any proposition either for relieving your lordships from the pressure of taxation, which you have no voice in imposing, or for giving to your lordships, in your legislative capacity, the power of dealing with our revenue, or, in your individual capacity, the right, which belongs to the humblest elector in the country, to choose the representatives who enact the imposition of the taxes. Nevertheless, as you have that alight interest in taxation which is involved in having to pay it, I do not think the subject alto gether unworthy of your consideration. I confess I look with deep anxiety on the present state of the finances of the country. (Hear, hear.) For some time past it has been understood on all hands that at the earliest possible moment the income tax, so universally condemned in public opinion, and in the eye of every public man, would cease, and that henceforth it should be considered as heretofore it had been, as a most efficient and useful engine in time of war, but to be kept strictly and exclusively for the emergencies and extraordi nary expenses of war, and struck out altogether from the system of taxation in time of peace. I had undoubtedly indulged the sanguine expectation, and have not yet altogether abandoned the hope, that we might with the year IF4IO see the realisation of that which I call the pledge given by the Government of GR VHS. LORD DERBY'S SPEECH In the HOUSE of LORDS, on MONDAY, March 16, 1857, ON THE DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT. (SUPPLEMENT TO " THE PRESS," SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1857.) 1853, that at that period the income tax should alto gether cease and determine ; but I am bound to point out and submit to the Government the present position of the finances, which, I confess, unless some vigorous and active measures are taken, leave me little expectation that that pledge can be fulfilled. In the present year the Chancellor of the Ex chequer calculates on having a surplus of somewhere about 500,0001. It was a portiol of the arrangements made in 1853 that in order to provide for the gradual abolition of the income tax in 1860 that tax should be reduced, from the sth of April, 1837, from 7d. to 51 in the pound, and so to remain until its final ex tinction. But war supervened, and so far from it being possible to reduce the income tax during the continuance of the war it was found necessary to double its amount from 7d. to lid. in the first in stance, and subsequently to increase it still further to 16d. in the pound. The last act was introduced by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. The act which preceded it bore on its face that the in come tax levied for the war should continue for one year after the conclusion of peace and no longer. The act introduced by the present Government pro fessed to bear the same condition on its face and to be nothing more than the extension of the amount of the tax from 14d. to 16d. in the pound, but by that which has been represented to be a mere slip of the pen—a mere casual error—it did so turn out that from the words of the act, and from the periods of the year at which the peace was concluded and rati• fled, the letter of the law, which professed to keep the extraordinary taxation for one year after the ter mination of the war, practically continued it for two years. It was admitted on all hands that that was not the intention of Parliament, and it was loudly declared by the Government that they would be ashamed to avail themselves of so paltry a quibble. Now, if they did not choose to avail themselves of so paltry a quibble, the simple process would have been to repeal the act from the time it was intended to cease, the consequence of which would have been that on the sth of April next ensuing the income tax would have been reduced to sd. in the pound ; and I cannot but express my deep regret, on account of the principle involved, that under these circum stances the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have taken advantage of that casual error in the Act of Parliament, not, indeed, for the purpose of keeping up the whole war tax for the present year, but of making an addition of 2d. in the pound, and that for the ordinary purposes of taxation, beyond the amount to which it was the intention of Parliament the tax should be reduced. (Hear, hear.) You may say what you please, but that act on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was, in fact, to the ex tent of :d. in the pound, which means •,000,0001. to increase the amount of the income tax for ordinary, and not for extraordinary, revenue. I regret deeply that which appears to:be in prin ciple an invasion of the arrangements laid down in 1833; but with this addition of 2,000,0001. the Chan cellor of the Exchequer calculates that in the year 1857-58 he will have a surplus of 500,0001. That calculation of surplus revenue proceeds on the assumption that the expense of the war with Persia will not exceed 250,0001., and also on the further assumption that there will be no extraordinary de mand on the resources of the country in the present year. Consequently, no provision is made for that most calamitous—and, I am afraid, most expensive-- war in which we are unhappily involved, by no choke of our own, with China. (Hear, hear.) But upon the impossible assumption that the war with China will coat nothing, and on the improbable.as sumption that the war with Persia will cost no more than 250,0001., the balance of revenue over expendi ture in the present year will give, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a surplus of 500,0001. To make that surplus of 500,0001. you will receive in the present year a half-year's amount of the 9d. war income tax, amounting in round numbers to 4,500,0001. That source of revenue will fail you alto gether in 1858. Therefore you will have your revenue in 1858, as compared with 1857, diminished in the first place by 4,500,0001. of war income tax. If the law stands without alteration that revenue will farther be diminished by a fall on the sth of April next year of income tax from 7d. to 5d., which would make a further reduction of •2,000,0001., or, making allowance for a half year of that 2d. to be collected, it would make ti'e reduction of 1,000,0001. There fore you would have in the revenue of 1858, as compared with 1857, a deficiency of 5,500,0001. But, in addition, there is a provision that in 1858 there should commence a sinking fund to provide for the debt raised by the present Chancellor of the Ex chequer, which will swell your expenditure uplin 1858 above 1857 to the amount of nearly 1,500,0001. Therefore, tbere is a prospect that in 1858 there will be a diminished revenue of 5,500,0001., and an in • creased expenditure of 1,500,0001., leaving a balance to deficit of nearly 7,000,0001., against which you have to set your surplus of the present year of 500,0001. So you stand at present. You find, by the programme of the Government, that, with no extraordinary expenses, and with a very inadequate provision for the war with Persia, and none for that with China, you have a deficiency in 1959 of 6,500,0001. I will not go so far forward as Is6o, when you will recollect that to carry out the plan of 155; the whole of the remaining income tax is, to be sacrificed, which will make a further reduction of 3,000001.,