The Sun. — London, England, 1860-03-13 00:00:00

in - that hou.se before it had been decided upon by the Queen in Council. THE FRENCH TREATY—THE ADDRESS. Mr. BYNG brought up the address to her Majesty upon the subject of the treaty of commerce with France, which had been prepared by the committee appointed on Friday night. On the question that the address should be agreed to, Sir H. WILLOUGHBY desired that it should be under stood that the division on Friday night took place not upon the motion for the address, but upon the amendment of the right hon. member for Stroud. Had the question been whether or no the address should be adopted, he should have voted for the address. (Hear, hear.), The address was then agreed to. THE , PAPER DUTY. - - - • --- On the order for the second reading of this bill, Sir w. MILES rose to move the amendment of which he had given notice. He begged first to put the,aiouse in mind of the difference that existed between the present and the first notice of motion. Then he propoSed to move the re jection of the 16th resolution, and that in the 17th the words rilnepence" should be substituted for " tenpence," thus showing his resolution to take the two subjects together, and to discuss them as a whole, distinct from any other portion of the budget. Taken by itself he should not have been averse to the repeal of the paper duty, as he had been a member of the Parliament which decided that it should no be a permanent tax. But the present was a season of finan• cial difficulty, and it was quite another question whether they were at liberty to deprive the revenue of £1,000,000. (Hear, hear.) He could not separate the repeal of the paper duty from a tenpenny income tax, nor its existence for another year from the possession of a ninepenny duty. The hon. baronet then referred to the budget of the Chan cellor of the Exchequer, and contended that the imposition of the increased income tax was to meet the loss consequent upon the repeal of the paper duty. He should like to con sider the position in which they would stand if they al lowed matters to remain as they were. The Chancellor of the Exchequer took the revenue, after the reduction, as £58,592,000, and then placed the tea and sugar duties at £2,100,000, malt and hops at £1,400,000, and the income tax for :three quarters of a year at £8,472,000, making a totalof £70,564,000 ; the total expenditure beingl7o,loo,ooo, leaving him an estimated surplus of £464,000. He believed he (Sir W. Miles) could show if things were left as they were that the right hon. gentleman would not lose more than £30,000 of his surplus, and if that were the case, he trusted the house would be willing to adopt any change by which an addition to the income tax would be rendered un necessary. If they were to retain the paper duty and not to impose the additional penny of income tax, then they would have a surplus of £429,300. The sum received dur ing last year for paper duty was £1,232,000, but he had been informed on the best authority to which he, had access that an additional sum of £300,000 would in all probability have been realised from all sources in the course of the coming year. Ho would, with the permission of the house, lay before it a brief account of the origin and growth of the paper duty. It was first established in the 10th year of Queen Anne, and after going through various emendations, in 1335 a commission of inquiry, of which Sir H. Parnell was head, sat on that and other excise duties. A discri minating duty was at that time imposed on paper, consist ing of 3d. in the pound on the higher class, and lid. in the pound on the lower descriptions of the article. The com missioners recommended that as it was impossiblq alto gether to abolish the duty, it was at least proper that the duty should be put on one uniform footing of three -half pence. In 1839 the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought forward a bill to effect that purpose, and the measure was carried, and much vexation and fraud thereby abo lished. At that time the duty on paper amounted to about £700,000. It was some time before the revenue re covered from tliis change in the duty, but eventually it did, and in 18-10 it amounted to upwards of .E-800,000 ; since whieh period, excepting one year, it had gone on progTes r sieely increasing until, by the last return, it amounted to upwards of £1,200,000. In 1855 the revenue from the paper duty amounted to £1,091,914; in 1853, to £1,014,945, and that was the only year wheal the paper duty fell back. In 1857 it again progressed, and amounted to £1,190,822 ; in 1858, to £1,242,722 ; and in 1859, to £1,281,023. So much for the elasticity of the tax, and now for its nature. It was peculiar in this respect, that no interference took place in the manufacture of paper. While other taxes, like those, for instance, arising from malt and hops, were under the frequent interference of the excise, there was no kind of obstruction put on the manufacture of paper, and this said vary much indeed in favour of such a tax. (Hear.) In our financial difficulties, when we were literally living from hand to mouth and forestalling all our revenue— (Opposi eition cheees)—it was not the time for thinking of imme diately abolishing the duty on paper. But the question had been asked, what was paper ? (Hear.) He wds perfectly astonished, after the decision of the Lord Chief Baron, to hear a cheer from the Treasury bench, because nothing could be more distinct than the definition given in that judgment. The question, if he recollected rightly, was this, whether what was called false parchment was to be consi dered really paper or parchment. This fictitious parchment was made of animal fibre, and ,it was endeavoured to be passed off not as paper bat as parchment. Consequently, there was a surcharge by the excise. That was appealed from, and the who-le matter came before the Court of Ex chetreer, when the Lord Chief Baron decided that anything orumuLts yarucias, wnetiier ammai or vegunsule, in sheets, for the purpose for which paper ;ens usually applied, Came under the denomination of paper. If that were the case no difficulty whatever could arise ; but, however, it was said that difficulty had arisen, and now ho must refer to four reports made by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, and he thought four more contradictory reports had never been placed on the table of the house. But there was some thing more than this. The fourth report had evidently been made to back up the opinion of the right hon, gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer in that house. Ile only hoped this unusual proceeding would not be made a prece dent of, and that when a question was still actually before the house the Board of Inland Revenue world not be called on to give their opinion. The first report was dated in 1857, and it stated that the regulations of the board had been so far amended to meet the wishes of the paper manu facturers that they were enabled to collect the duty without any complaints being made. The report in 1858 set forth that there was scarcely any duty in the collection of which the interference of the commissioners with the trade was so little felt. In 1858 the house passed a resolution relative to the paper duty, and a report was made in 1859, which stated that the expectation that the paper duty would be repealed on the first favourable opportunity had for many years been a source of embarrassment in that collection. Why, accord ing to the reports of .1857 and 1858, the duty was collected . with ease, and no complaints were made as to the collec tion; but di rec tly th e H ouse o f Co m mons proposed a reso lution, the opinion of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue changed. The SPEAKER here interrupted the hon. baronet, and announced that he had received a message from the Lords agreeing to a conference with the House of Commons on the subject of the address to her Majesty in reference to the treaty of commerce between England and France. Lord Palmerston, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Milner Gibson and other right honourable and honourable members, were ap pointed to conduct the conference, and left th e house fortlea purpose. During their absence the debate was suspended. The managers having returned, Sir W. MILES, inresuming his speech, said that the Com missioners of Inland Revenue in their third report stated, that in 1857 the complaints of paper manufacturers entirely ceased, and that in 1858 there was scarcely any trade their interference with which was so little felt as to the paper making. They must next consider the materials used in this manufacture. He agreed that everything fibrous could be converted into paper. The real question however was, what could be converted into paper with profit. For printing, he believed no good paper could be made except from cotton and linen waste, and rags. All the best paper was made from the best rags, but other substances might be used, such as straw, which was used in combination with rags for an inferior kind of paper; but they could not compete with the materials he had specified. Some paper had been plaCed below stairs fter the inspection of members which was made from grass ob tained from Spain and the coast of Africa. The objection:to it was—first, that it would not bleach; and next, that it would not receive a gloss ; and for the higher branches of printing it was perfectly useless. Then came jute, an East Indian product. It was imported chiefly for making com mon rope, and the residue from that manufacture went to paper making, but what was the character of the paper so produced ? It was hard and brittle ;it easily imbibed wet, and from its salacious properties injured the printer's type. Well, that being the case, they came back again to the old substances of which paper had always been manufactured, and he said that for thehigher descriptions of paper nothing remained to them but woollen rags, cotton rags, linen rags, and cotton waste. He had a letter written by a firm of paper makers who had been in existence for half a century, but who desired their name to be withheld. They said it ap pearedat he from the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was led to believe that hundreds of fibres would be imported which could be used in the manufacture ofpaper, and that after the repeal of the paper duty there would be an unlimited hi the manuincture, and that car riages and almost everythi ng a else would be made of paper. Now, their answer incre ase in thatfouri,i years ago a large reward was offered to any one who produced an article which c ould be used as a substitut e for paper,"nd that although hundreds of different thing s had been aentantrboeduced in e con sequence of that promise, not one h except :by way of experiment.Astoall, tenr employed ns u ::: enormou s waste of material in the process of manufacture, and they would not bleach. They added that they could not have believed it possible that the Chancellor of the Exche quer could have been so deceived by the representation s of interested parties, and that so far from the supply of the raw material being unlimited, it depended entirely upon the in crease of the population and the prosperity of those manu factures the waste from which could be converted into paper. He now came to the objections which were made to the existence of the tax. First of all it was said that the tax was detrimental to the spread of knowledge. He had endea voured to make himself master of that subject, and his in quiries had satisfied him that, if the paper duties were re peated, Ito reduction would take place in the price of the lower class of publieetions. With regard to the hundreds of Pouiv P4iperri *ANA tbouslAnt gig 01111trYi it Watii nor was it imagined, that the purchasers would get them cheaper, and the only parties possibly who would benefit by the abolition of the duty would be the rag dealers, the paper makers, and the publishers. ,(Hear, hear.) Mr. Bohn, the publisher, had given some particulars with reel ect to the effect of the duty upon a few standard works, and it ap peared from those that the tax upon the " Annual Register," which cost 18s., amounted to 3d. ; upon o volumes of Lord Macaulay's " History of England," which cost 365., to 6d. ; upon Colenso's " Arithmetic," costing 4s. 6d., to a halfpenny; and upon the " Cornhill Magazine," juice ls., to &halfpenny. Now he asked whether the consumers of knowledge would be one fraction benefited by the total abo • lition of the tax ? (Hear, hear.) There might be some trades which would be benefited, bat in respect to literature he did not see how, in the face of those facts, it could be contended that any benefit could accrue. Take the common schools in the country, which he was proud to say were increasing, how were they supplied with books ? Why, they gene rally obtained them from the British and Foreign School Society and other institutions at less than the cost price, and where only a halfpenny would be saved on a book like Colenso's " Arithmetic," he wanted to know how the middling schools would be benefited by the abolition. (Hear, hear.) Our manufacture of paper had largely in creased, and our exports of paper had increased in a most extraoi dinary ratio during the last few years. Some went to Hamburg, but nearly all the rest of our exports were for America and the British colonies. In 1857, 19.1,721,6201b5. of paper came to charge, of which was exported 16,031,0531b5. ; in 1858, 192,347,3251b5., of which 20,068,7091b5. were exported. Without comparing last year with the preceding the manufacture had increased to the extent of 24,379,3721b5., while the exports had increased by 3,518,9211b5. (Hear.) But it was said that whenever there was a village with good water, pure and healthy air, paper manufacture would rear its head. He lived in a county where such villages existed, and he now saw in ruins there many paper mills and cloth manufactories which were for merly in operation. What was the cause ? Except in ono or two districts in Somersetshire,,those trades had left and gone to the north, and all because they were generally in stituted by men who had not sufficient capital. The larger manufacturers in the north had capital, and were enabled to purchase that expensive machinery which was now used in making paper. The President of the Board of Trade said that 20 years ago there were 525 paper mills in the country, while the number at present did not exeeed 393. It was lamentable indeed that so many had fallen to the ground, but if he had gone back to 1813 he would have. found that at ihat time there were no less than 700 paper mills in Eng land and between 70 and 80 in Scotland, and for Ireland there was no return in that year. As for giving more em ployment to the labourers he had some difficulty now in getting sufficient labourers on his estate, and were it not for the machinery now used half his harvest would be spoiled, so that he did not thank the right hon. gentleman for that. (Hear, hear.) That morning he had conversed with Mr. Potter, of Lancashire, and his working partner, who had informed him that the expense of erecting a paper mill, with all the appliances of the newest machinery, would be £4,000 or £5,000 for a water mill, and £lO,OOO or £ll,OOO if a steam engine were used, and the looking after the machinery and keeping it in repair would cost £1,200 a year. There was no chance then of small establishments being able to exist. But if the right hon. gentleman was determined to repeal , the paper duty, how did he intend to meet the deficit of £1,290,000 caused by that repeal ? He intended to propose another penny of income tax. 'Now the income tax was formerly used only in time of great necessity. Until 1842 it was always affirmed to be a war tax. In that year, when it was put on, the emergency was great. There was a great de ficit, accruing from the four or five preceding years ; the deficiency for that year (1812) was £2,334,000, and the esti mated deficiency for 1843 was put down, if the income tax, had not been put on, at £10,772,030. That was the prime reason for the income tax being put-on, and the improve ment of our commercial code vas only a subsidiary reason, and it veas at first imposed for three years only. In 1853 the right hon. gentleman held out an illusory promise that this year it would be done away with. It bore hard espe cially on those whose incomes were less than £l5O a year. In the assessment under schedule D last year these incomes amounted to one-fourth of the whole amount of the assess ment, and, taking the number of persons, they formed a much larger proportion of the whole. In 1858 there were 288,202 persons assessed under schedule D, and 155,116 were those with incomes under £l5O. There were 91,731 persons assessed under schedule E, out of which 57,605 had incomes under £l5O. (Hear, hear.) He would intercede with his right hon. friend on behalf of that class of persons. Was this a time to sweep away the paper duty, and place it on their income tax ? (Hear.) The 7d. income tax on £lOO a year would amount to £2 16s. 4d. of direct taxation taken out of the small income of such a poor pereon,who had hard work enough, God knew, to support his wife and family, and to live respectably, as he was obliged to do, if he belonged to the useful class of clerks or commercial travellers ; and how would the importation of French wines and silks benefit him ? The odiousness and hardship of this tax was shown by the report from the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, as to the difficulties of its collection, and the painful appeals made to their compassion and forbearance. Ho (Sir W. Miles) would now ask permission of the house to move the following amendment instead of the one of which he had given notice : —" That as it appears that the repeal of the duty on ....est- ill peeessos+. les satio-;ee of e nanny in the pound to the property and income tax, it is the opinion of this house that such repeal is, under the circumstances, at the present moment inexpedient." Mr. B. STANHOPE seconded the amendment. Re ferring to the financial situation of the country, as described by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day, he ob served that without any additional income tax he would have been able to make all the customs alterations. The additional penny of income tax was therefore the immediate consequence of the repeal of the paper duty. The objections that had been taken to the paper duty, and the arguments fur discontinuing it, were not particularly applicable now. If the House of Commons passed a resolution against it in 1858, and thought it so odious and bad a tax, Why was it not repealed at that time ? In 1858 they declared that the paper duty was not to remain a permanent source of re venue, but that year not only did they not increase 'the in come tax, but they considerably decreased it. There was one objection which had been used for a great many years to the paper duty, and that was that it was a tax off know ledge. Did they mean to say that the whole amount of the paper duty (X 1,200,000) was a tax on knowledge ? If so, that was an erroneous opinion. He had inquired of a large fnanufactuxer, and though only an approximate estimate could be formed, he believed that of all the paper manufac tured two-fifths only were used for printing purposes, one fifth was used for writing purposes, and two-fifths for the purposes of trade. Mr. M'Culloch, who was often quoted on the other side of the house, said, " The abolition of the duty on paper would not make any difference in the price of books, newspapers, and other periodicals. The duty on a copy of a double sheet of the Times is about td. On a number of the _Edinburgh or Quarterly Review, which sold at 65., it was 2d. ; and on "Macaulay's History of England," which sold at 325., it was only fid. It is idle, then, to pretend that the existing duty on paper is any obstacle to the circulation of literature, or that books would be cheaper if the duty were abolished. The question really before the house was not whether they would repeal the paper duties, but whether they would increase the obnoxious income tax ? That was the question which they had really to answer ; and on which they would have to explain their answer to their consti tuents, to whom they had now•a-days to pay almost an an nual visit. (A laugh.) If the house really represented the views of the community, they would indorse without hesi tation the opinion that it was impolitic by taking - off a tax that was burdensome at most to but a small portion of the public, to render it inevitably necessary to increase one of country, y N . the most odious imposts that was ever levied upon the the descriptions given OR(CRhleeSrsW)ould venture to assert opinion on these subjects that neither of to the house as the state of public th a e t that moment was strictly in love with either duty. TlproubtrilucthgewnearS,illy cor rect, He believed tat they were found not mue 1 I them selves in the position of being and the was inclined to would on b y e thought compelled to accept one or other of the two evils beforethem think that upon a balance of testier ' preferable .ten proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer .to the supplemental budget of hon. gentlemen o e laugh.) That motion (Mr. Norris) understood that the Chancellor Exche querofptresl. ( p A ort l i a o u n of the budget, and asked the house to assent to the income tax for ono year,i or authority to the h w e o u d would and o u nl ot y t f h t o o i r u n c k o h n t e h o na year o v u o e l i n d i t y i g i t v h e w e proposed alteration. The income tax was objected to upon the ground that it was a war tax. But what was the paper duty ? Why, it was a tax imposed in the year 17/1, in the reign of Queen Anne; and the preamble of the act expressed that it was imposed for the purpose of carrying on the war then raging until her Majesty had made a good and lasting peace. If that were true, then all the arguments of the hon. gentleman against the income tax, upon the ground that it was a wattax, were equally applicable against the paper duties. (Hear, hear.) It was a mistake to suppose that the paper duties did not enter into the cheaper class of school books. The fact was that the tax augmented tho price of them from 5 to 20 per cent. ; and, if it was true that the purchasers of such works as Lord Macaulay's " History of England" paid so little to the State in the shape of papet duty, while the poor paid so largely, then the incidents of that tax were most unjust, and it pressed heavily on the poor, while the rich escaped almost altogether. Seeing the difficulties by which the question was surrounded, he thought the tax ought not to be continued. Mr. MILLS reminded the house that they were not then considering the nature of the tax, for all taxes wore objec tionable, but whether at the present time, with au exhausted Exchequer, they were to repeal the Excise duty on paper, and add to the amount of income tax. The house had al ready decided th a t th e p a p er d u ty s h ou ld b e repealed when the proper time arr i ve d, b u t th e ques tion was, had that te period noble arrived? Ho thought the opinions put forward by 1858,10 rd twhheeSuetchreetna.rgyhtof hon. Sta tgeenue forF ni o nu rei n g o n w A t ff h t e si p rs re in Juno, in - sident of the Board of Trade brought forward his motion for the repeal'of the paper duty, should have prevented him from supporting the repeal of the tax. He stated distinctly that good faith required that the taxes on tea and sugar and Oiler 41'ti4/9r9 9 t' 9911 1 11mPti9a, p 11.9144 gir!A *Wawa, NA THE Su N, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, MARCII 13, 1860. the income tax reduced, before any other tax was repealed. The right hon. gentleman the Secretary of State for the Ho;ne Department held the same opinion; and he thought, ber for Buckinghamshire, addressed the house on that occasion, and said, upon every ground it was desirable that the duty on paper should bo abolished, and the right hon. . _ under such circumstances, they should vote for the amend- gentleman voted in favour of his resolution. This being so, he claimed the vote of the right hon. gentleman in favour of the measure before the house. (Hear, hear.) Carrying ment of his hon. friend. It was monstrous to raise an in- come tax on the general body of the people of the country, in order to enable the proprietors of cheap newspapers to out the purl ose which he had in view in reference to the abolition of the paper duty, he had interviews with Lord Derby on the subject, and that noble lord at one of those interviews dxpressed this opinion—that the paper tax was carry on their business. He had no wish whatever to oppose the present Conservative Government, but he thought the motion of his hon. friend a sound and just one; that the time had not arrived for repealing the duty, and sacrificing £1,200,000 for absolutely nothing, and for that reason he should certainly support it. Mr. ADAM BLACK would vote against the motion of the hon. baronet. From his own experience he could say that the duty was a very serious burden, not only to th 9 publisher but to the public. A ream of paper 241 b. in weight had to bear a tax of 3s. One of the works he had published would cost in duty between £3,000 and £4,000, and before it got into the hands of the public it would be in creased by the per centage upon the capital employed to nearly £7,000. Now, ho would ask, was that an economical mode of raising the small sum of £1,200,000 for the Ex chequer ? He thought it would be better for a short time to bear an extra ld. income tax, though he by no means ad. mired that tax, on the contrary, he hated it—(a laugh)— and he hoped to see it done away with altogether. bal in principle and in practice, and that it ought to be re pealed as soon as possible; and in 1858 the noble earl inti mated that if the Conservative Government held office for ,%o years, he thought it was likely that the paper duty _ _ _ _ . , would be repealed. (Hear, hear.) He now found by the last report .of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, that they looked upon the paper tax as doomed, and they asked Par -1 ament to legislate on the subject as soon as possible. Well, the house having resolved that the paper duty was not to be regarded as a permanent duty, he could not see bow the Government, being desirous of relieving the trade and industry of the country, could do otherwise than select it as that which ought tg be abolished. (Hear.) The hon. baronet (Sir W. Miles), at the opening of his speech, said that he did not mean to declare that he should desire that the paper duty should be continued as one of the indirect taxes of the country—although the latter part of his speech was at variance with the first portion of it, for he went on to show that the tax was a profitable one to the country. The Government, however, he (Mr. M. Gibson) thought, after the resolution that had been come to by that house, would have been wanting in their duty if they did not propose to abolish the tax in question. The noble lord had said that the report the commissioners had made had been got up for the occasion. Now, that was a monstrous charge to make, that they had got up a report to serve the Government. The question raised was, as to the collection of the tax; and he (Mr. M. Gibson) maintained that if this tax was to be continued, they must bring in a bill to define how the collection of this tax was to be made. But they were told that the definition of paper was very clear, and that it was to be found in the last decision of the Court of Exchequer. All that the Act of Parliament said was, that in whatever way paper might be made it should stillbe called paper. Now, the Court of Exchequer said that paper might be made from fibres for writing purposes, to which flexible sheets were applicable. Now paper came into collision with felt, which could be sold at a cheaper rate, and how were they to apply the duty to the article of felt. The commissioners, therefore, said, if the paper duty should be retained they must come to Parliament to define more accurately what was to be deemed paper. (Hear, hear.) He (Mr. M. Gibson) therefore said that Parliament must make up its mind after what had passed that if this tax be not thought to be ono of parmanent revenue it ought to be abolished altogether. The right hon. gentleman then re ferred to the third report of the Board of Inland Revenue of the last year in Lord Derby's last Administration, which ho contended fully bore him out in the view he was now taking of the question, and he farther asserted, that, with reference to such a tax, no men could be looked to for advice with so much advantage as the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, who, he believed, h a d g i ven th e i r d e lib era t e an d honest opinion. (Hear, hear.) In fact, if the duty had not been levied in the most considerate manner,it would not have been possible to have kept it on so long. (Hear, hear.) If the Commissioners of Inland Revenue say there is no way to relieve them from the difficulty in which they are placed but by the repeal of the tax, he must say that he considered the opinion of the commissioners was entitled to more re spect than the opinions of those hon. members who had spoken in support of the tax. The argument that this tax was one which stood in the way of the diffusion of know ledge was not the only one which could be used against it. Looking at the population of this country, the consumption of paper here was not at all equal to what it was in other countries. In the United States, with a smaller population, the consumption of paper was three times as great as it was in England, and America produCed rags enough to make much more paper than was made in this country. (Hear, hear.) In this country, with a larger population, it ought to be supposed that the consumption would be large. The hon. gentleman here quoted the authority of Mr. Rawlins, of Wrexham, to the effect that,in consequence of the greater facility of making paper inAmeriea,they were enabled there to sell it at' a price below what was charged for duty in England. Now, there was no doubt that the excise survey and other annoyances crippled the manufacturer in this country, and there were a variety of ways in which it could be shown that the duty on paper operated very injuriously in this country. Upon the coarser qualities of paper the tax was an enormous per tentage. A manufacturer in Bir mingham had told him that out of the manufacture to the amount of £33,000 he had to give so much as £12,800 to the Government. (Hear, hear.) Now, there could be no doubt that England possessed abundance of raw materials for making paper. It was, however, said in 1836, when the tax on paper was reduced, that this country had not a sup ply of the raw material. But what was the fact ? Why, that after the reduction of the tax the quantity of paper produced increased to 90,000 tons per annum, although pre viously to the reduction of the tax the produce was only 40,000 tons per annum. (Hear, hear.) Now, though they had nearly trebled their produce, the raw material had fallen in price 40 per cent, He was, therefore, convinced that the repeal of the duty would lead to a largely increased manufacture of paper, and that the raw material would also be largely increased, for ho held it to be a mis take to suppose otherwise, if they took the whole world and did not limit themselves to two or three countries. (Hear.) It was a fallacy to suppose that the manufacturer would pocket the paper duty when foreign paper was to be ad mitted free of duty. They had been told that the paper duty was not a farmer's question, but he contended that it was so if the subject had fair consideration. It had been shown that flax fibre and flax refuse could be converted into paper, and the farmers would, therefore, be enabled by the sale of these articles, and of straw, to the paper manufacturer, to com pensate themselves for any reduction that might take place in the price of wheat. (Hear.) Many other articles of farm ing produce could be profitably disposed of in that way, which were at present destroyed. If the farming interest, therefore, would only give their support to Government in this matter, they would find that in the end they would be largely benefitted. It had been truly said, that the tax upon paper was a fair on the diffusion of knowledge, although some lied stated that it was simply a clap trap to make such an.assertion. The saying, however, was not his (Mr. M. Gibson's). It had been used by the right hon. gentleman the member for Hertfordshire (Sir B. Lytton) in a speech which he made on the subject some years ago. In the reign of Queen Anne they found that the duty was remitted upon the paper used in printing books in the Latin, Greek, Orien tal, and Northern languages, and he did not see why, in the reign of Queen 'Victoria, they ought not to remit the paper duty altogether. (Hear.) It might even be argued that the English was a northern language. (Laughter.) The paper duty was a tax upon knowledge, because it was a tax on the principal means of spreading knowledge amongst the people. If the paper duty were 6d. instead of 11d. they would still be told by its opponents that is. was nothing on a book cast ing two guineas. But that was not the question. The ques tion was how this duty acted on publications of extensive circulation at a low price; for these were the only publica tions by which they diffused useful information amongst the great masses of the people. The hon. baronet the mem ber for Herts had once advised the great political party to which he belongetl not to resist the repeal of this duty, which stood in the way of the refinement and improve ment of the priapic. (Hear.) The right hon. baronet told his political friends that their own principles would be pro moted by the repeal of the duty, which would remove the impediments to the promulgation of knowledge. They wished at that time to have a penny Conservative daily paper, which they now had, and it was selling wholesale nine copies for 6d. Now, nine copies weighed 11b., and therefore paid a duty of 1/d. ; so that for every pound's worth of that paper ss. was paid in the shape of paper duty to Government, and this 55., after being originally advanced by the papermaker, afterwards advanced by the wholesale stationer, become increased to 7s. or Bs. So that for every pound's worth of thin penny daily Conservative paper 78. paper duty was paid to Government. (Oh, oh.) Such a tax must, of course, be an immense impediment in the way of the success of cheap periodicals ; for supposing the paper in question to have a circulation of 25,000 a day, which he had no doubt it was, then the paper duty to them amounted to £2O a day. This was somewhere near the mark; but he had not made any exact calculation. But the question was not merely one affecting the penny newspapers, but all cheap periodicals. If they were to have cheap newspapers and periodicals, they had a political interest in making them as good as possible. An impoverished Press instead of being productive of good, would be productive of evil to the country. Amongst cheap publies'ime, perhaps the Religious Tract Society" held the first place. Many hon. gentlemen no doubt subscribed to that excellent institution, including probably the noble lord who had just addressed the house. The Religious Tract Society was the most Catholic and probably the largest of all these institutions. He did not know how many tons of paper this admirable society made use of in the course of the year. He be lieved that the secretary of the society had been applied,to for this information, but had net been able to supply it. But there were two excellent publications issued by this society, the Leisure Hour and the Sunday at Ifome—(hear, hear) — and the paperd uty on those two publications alone amounted to £3,000 per annum. It was surely an enormous sum to pay the Government for permission to publish these two publications. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Charles Knight, the well-known publisher, had stated that during 20 years, he had spent £BO,OOO in remunerating authors in connection with various literary publications, and £50,000 in the paper duties. (Heals) It was no clap-trap, therefore, tecall the paper duty a tax upon knowledge. The paper duty was not only a tax upon knowledge, but it was a great drawback on the freedom of authors. Had the large sum of money (£50,000) paid by the publisher alluded to in the shape of paper duty been at his disposal for the remuneration of au thors, a higher style of literary talent would have been secured by the money which, as it was, went into the Ex chequer. Seeing, therefore, that the present opportunity had occurred, and that public expectation was excited on the subject, he hoped the house would consent to the second reading of the bill by a large majority. (Hear, hear.) Mr. HORSMAN said he had heard with interest the speech of his right hon. friend, who had been very lively about the Tract Society, and very eloquent about rags, but as to the principle of the bill, he had not touched it at all. (Hear.) By a skilful process of Parliamentary manipulation it was E 0 arranged that the treaty carried the budget, and the budget carried the treaty. (Cheers and laughter.) So now, the budget and the treaty combined were to carry the paper duty. Under the semblance of a small remission, the house was called upon to agree to one of the most important financial changes ever submitted to Parliament by any Mi nister—important, not only because of the principle it in volved, but also because of the consequences to which it must lead. He could not allow his right hon. friend to sepa rate the income tax from the paper duty. (Hear, hear.) The Chancellor of the Exchequer made a calculation of the in come and expenditure of the year, and, on balancing his account, placed the income-tax at 9d., with which he had no fault to find. But then the Chancellor of the Exche quer performed another operation, making the remission of the paper duty, by means of which he created a deficit of upwards of a million—(hear, hear)—and how did he fill up that deficit ? By- an additional penny on the income-tax. (Ilear.) It was on this last point that he had to grapple with his right hon. friend. To abolish the paper duty and substitute an additional Id. income-tax was not a remission of taxation at all. (Hear, hear.) It was a. mere shifting of the tax from paper to income. (Hear.) When they heard of a remission of taxation they understood it in the sense of a relief to the whole community, and not the relief of the manufacturing class at the expense of the rest of the people. (Hear, hear.) Such a " remission" as this was virtually no thing more than protection for that class, and, under pre tence of free trade, a perpetuation of favouritism and mono poly, (I cAr, 44r.) r 9 tiAQ 1 . 941i4r1i9A4 tuc te4 Paci pgar • Mr. MAGUIRE, after having listened attentively to the speeches of the hon. baronet, and those who had supported his motion, had heard no reason whatever to shake his de termination to support the measure of the Government. If there was any force in the argument of the hon. baronet at all, it was that trades should be monopolised only by those who possessed large capitals. But he said, why should not enterprise and industry be opened to men with small capi tals and small means ? With respect to the incidence of the duty on large and expensive books as compared with cheap papers and periodicals, the hon. gentleman read a commu nication from Mr. Potter, a practical printer, in answer to the statements made by Mr. Bohn on that subject. Mr. Potter, in fact, said that the duty acted with most destruc tive effect on the publications which were most in demand. On the Cornhill Magazine a saving of a halfpenny a copy would be equal to £l,BOO a-year, which would no doubt be spent in improving its literature and engravings. The hon. baronet who had moved the amendment had talked of let ting in the light and air to the cottages of the poor ; but there was light of another kind, the light of knowledge required, and by sweeping away this tax it would be more wisely and universally diffused among all classes of the people. He contended that the growing of flax would be con siderably promoted by the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take. the duty off paper, and the agricul tural interest would be proportionately benefited. instead of flax being grown for its seed, it would be cultivated to secure the straw and refuse, which would be used in the manufacture of paper. The duty had been condemned by the House of Commons and the Commissioners of Excise, and its continuance ought to be no longer sanctioned. The trade and the country expected the abolition of the tax. The penny newspapers wero morally and honourably conducted, faithful to t heir friends, but fair to their opponents, and not characterised by that abominable license which diSgraced many of the newspapers at the other side of the Channel. He wa- not amongst those who were ashamed of the penny papers — Lord R. CECIL—One of them is difficult to be read. Mr. MAGUIRE—An hon. gentleman - below him whis pered that one of the cheap newspapers was rather unread able at the present moment. Take the duty off, was his answer, and the publisher could afford better paper. Be lieving that the abolition of the paper duty would tend to the spread of education amongst the people, and give a new impulse to a great trade, he felt bound to vote against the amendment of the hon. baronet, and to support the propo sition of the Government, even though that proposition might entail another year's income tax. Lord R. CECIL said that in the abstract no one wished for the continuance of a tax—a tax was in inself an abomi nable thing. Therefore, the questions really was, not whether they should or „should not repeal the duty. Those who argued the matter in that way, did not put the case as it should be stated. What the house had to decide was, a question of the bal i rce of taxation—whether hon. members were for their constituents to pay the paper duty or to pay another penny income tax. Both taxes produced about £1,200,000, and he was justified in say ing that they counterbalanced each other. The paper was in his opinion, a tax which took a low place in the order of those taxes which ought to be abolished. He knew that in saying this he was speaking in opposition to a resolution which the house had unfortunately adopted. We depended for our raw material to a very great extent on foreign na tions, some of which were barbarous and unenlightened on questions of protection and free trade. We depended on Spain, Portugal, and Italy. If in France and Hungary the prohibition on the export of the raw material were removed, still the increase of consumption would bo sure to increase the price of the article, so that things would remain un changed. The only difference would be that the £1,200,000 would be taken cut of the exchequer of this country and put into the exchequer of other countries. (Hear, hear.) Again the supply of the raw material was excessively li mited. Numerous pamphlets had poured in upon hon. members from all quarters for the purpose of demonstrating that fact. If nothing could be substituted for rags and the supply of that.article remained limited, then what relief could the consumer of paper obtain from tho pronowsi re mission of taxation ? What appeared extraordinary to him (Lord R. Cecil) was, that no two members of the paper trade could agree on the subject. An hon. member con nected with the trade had told the llou-le that he had paid the Chancellor of the Exchequer in one year £3,003 duty on paper; but the duty paid by the public on the same quantity of paper was no less than £7,000. That showed, at all events, how the trade could tax the people. As to the phrase " tax upon knowledge," that was a grand, high sounding, sentimental cry. (Hear, hear.) It was a delu sien. Out of the £1,200,000 paid as a paper duty, only two-fifths of that sum were paid for paper on which news papers were printed. He . did not think any reduction of the duty on paper would benefit the consumer. It had been said that it was an anomaly for the Government to pay large sums for the education of the people, and again tax the means of education. Was that so? Why, the so-called tax upon knowledge was limited to very cheap books and very cheap newspapers. Now, with respect to the latter, what were the people at large likely to learn from penny papers ? They might know something of what hon. members said in that house. and scraps of foreign intelligence, but of what great use was that as a moans of education to the lower classes ? (Hear.) As to books, it was well known that no one liked to pay odd sums for what they had purchased. You could not charge for a novel now selling at ls„ nil You could not reduce the price of printed matter in the ratio of the exact fraction which the tradesman might derive from the remission of the duty, and consequently, while the public at large would derive no advantage whatever from the re mission, the revenue would be diminished £1,250,000. (Hear, hear.) Mr. M. GIBSON said that the hon. gentleman had wan dered from the i guestion before them; and bad introduced a variety of subjects which were not within the limited scope of the question before the house. The house was to recol lect that they had now agreed to the Commercial Treaty between England and France, by which, amongst other things, they had agreed to admit foreign paper into Eng land upon the duty imposed upon the home manufacture, and he had also to remind them that they had, by the vote given on the motion of the hon. member for Essex, given their assent to 'the general policy of the Government. And what was that ? Why, that after providing for tho expen diture of the country they agreedto a reduction of the indi rect taxation, with the view of relieving the trade and in dustry of the country. His right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed, when laying the budget before the house, to apply the £2,200,000 which fell in from the Long Annuities to relieving the indirect taxation of the country. Well,the French treaty had swallowed £1,190,000 of this £2,200,000. Well, supplemental reductions had also been made in that direction, but these had been met by other changes. There was, therefore, £1,000,000 of the £2,200,000 to be applied to the reduction of the indirect taxation of the country in accordance with the vote of that house given upon the motion of the hon. member for Essex. It was not a question between the paper duty and the income tax, but whether they would lessen the indirect taxation-of the country. This being so, the next question to be considered was this—had the Go vernment, in selecting the paper tax as the proper one to be abolished, exercised a sound judgment ? (Hear, hear.) He might here mention that the hon. baronet who brought this subject before the house had at first placed a notice on the paper that he would, on the question that the bill for the abolition of*the paper duty be read a second time, move an amendment that it be read a second time that day six months. The hon. baronet had, however, that evening changed his am en d men t b y mov i ng a reso l u ti on , the effect of the paper which wa s th at i t was inexpedient at that t i me to a b o li s h u t a y k . ed T h h o e w ri i g t h a t pp h o o a n r . ed ge t n h t a le t m it an wa h s a in v o in xp g e re di a e d at th to e resolution, abolish the paper duty. (Hear.) The hon. gentleman might attempt to apply the means which the Government had in its hands to reduce the sugar tax or any other indirect tax that pressed upon the community, but after the vote they had come to on the budget, ha was afraid that the hon. baronet could not get rid of the additional penny income tax. Now, why did the Government select the paper tax rather than any other indirect tax as that one which they should abolish ? The Government, in reviewing the various indirect taxes which pressed upon the trade and industry of the country, looked to those which had the greatest claims upon their consideration with the view of promoting the end in ques tion. Well, then, what did they find ? Why, they found that for the last 25 years those who were entitled to h ave th e greatest weight with Parli ament had given it as their opinion n h o a n t e t n h t e p in a p d r r e cl o du t t y a o x u e ought h o t f tnothet country, n continued t a h s a o t n e of h it o t ug e p ht e t r.. 0 be„abolished at the most convenient opportunity. They commenced with the commission that sat in 1835, to con sider the whole question of the Excise duties, and they found that that commission had reported against the paper duty being considered as a permanent tax. Well, he (Mr. Milner Gibson) moved a resolution on the subject ton years ago, which stated that such financial arrangdment ought to be made by the Government to enable Parliament to abolish t h 9 PaVIC4II4I W9l l , tic IWO gealgoth *Wm- duties, both on fiscal and on moral grounds, the Chancellor reply to that part of the speech of the right hon. gentleman of the Exchequer, more than any other public man, stood which refers to me. (Hear, hear.) Until to-night I was pledged; and how did he get over the difficulty? It was really not aware that I had by any unhappy or casual . ex by coining a new principle of political economy, which in pression given him any occasion for that terrific onslaught order to be believed would require faith enough to remove a which we have heard. I was not aware that any expression whole chain of mountains. (Hear, and laughter.) It was had fallen from me on Friday night which could have a mistake to say that you would benefit the labouring classes wounded the feelings of the right hon. gentleman, and I can by remitting the duties on commodities through which only say, apart from what has occurred this evening, that I they obtained employment. (Hear, hear.) This was the am extremely sorry for it. (Hear, hear.) The right hon. prineiple of his right hon. friend, which was certainly as gentleman is not quite right, I think, in supposing that he bold as it was novel, and as false as it was novel and bold. has always been remarkable for the particularity of his (Hear, hear.) Supposing a man had gone down to the language. (Hear, hear.) It is fresh on my mind that on Liverpool Financial Reform Association, and said that the Friday night last the right hon. gentleman said with a working classes would be benefited by repealing the blandness of manner for which he is well known that Sir R. duties on articles consumed by employers. (Hear, hear.) Peel had conducted his finances in the spirit of a statesman, In those days of refinement such a person would be pro- while the present Chancellor of the Exchequer had cora bably laughed out of the room, but there were days inenced as a spendthrift and finished as a footpad. (Loud when :he would have been removed from the cheers.) In the contrast which the right hon. gentleman place by a speedier and less ceremonious process. has drawn to-night between the policy of Sir It. Peel and Would not a reduction of taxation on articles of prime ne- the present Government Ido not think he has succeeded in cessity stimulate and increase labour and employment ? producing a sharper antithesis than on that occasion. (Hear.) (Hear.) The questions were, they had a million of taxes to • remit, and would they remit them from articles largely con- I pass from those considerations to the question which the sumed by tho working classes, or from paper? The Chan - house has to decide, and here I q uite agree with the right cellor of the Exchequer says, " I'll remit it from paper, hon. gentleman that he has not minced the matter, for he because to do so will increase employment ;" but he (Mr. has shown such a picture which it would be perfectly won- Hoi smart ) contended that remitting the duty on tea and derful to have from any other source than his own,. (Hear.) sugar would enable the people to lay out that million in another and more productive way, which would yield the The right hon. gentleman has imagined a letter which the right hon. gentleman a surplus. The people did not want Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote to the hon. member for to lay out the million on tea and. sugar, but they wanted to Birmingham, but it must have been observed how much lay the money out in something else, and that would yield more the hon. gentleman dwelt upon what he imagined more emp_loyment than the right hon. gentleman antic`- than upon the facts. (Hear, hear.) It is necessary for me pated from the remission of the paper duty. In the one case, they gave up a million in favour of the manufacturers to ask why the right hon. gentleman has imagined that a of paper, and of the consumers of paper, who were mainly series of errors must follow the alterations in this yea r?— composed of the rich classes and those who paid the income and he panned his remarks in deference to the increasing tax, and they retained the million upon the hard-working cheers of a very small but intrepid band on the opposite side consumers of tea and sugar. (Hear, hear.) There was one tax which affected the consumption of the poor, but which the house, which led the right hon. gentleman to a climax was not a war tax, and that they allowed to remain un- when he deliberately asserted that the budget of the pre touched. But it had been said by the Chancellor of the sent year would be in accordance with a general system of Exchequer, " You are about to admit the operative classes confiscation. (Loud cheers.) There may be here and there to a much larger share of power than they previously en in this house a few hon. members who partake of - that joyed ;" and to that the working classes reply, but " you i . but I own I think it will be a waste of time to have broken your, promises to us." You led us to hope that opnion, you were going to remit two millions of taxes on tea and reply to such observations, and I prefer leaving them to sugar, and this year you put on a war tax which came up the sentiments of persons out of doors, and to let to one shilling. But how long would it remain there ? De- them stand refuted by what I will venture to call their putations would come up to the Chancellor of the Exche own absurdity. (Loud cheers.) I will venture to ask how quer and tell him that those two millions on tea and sugar were a tax on temperance. Now, the Chancellor himself the right hon. gentleman intends to vote to-night was a temperate man, yet he told them that the deficit of because the mo tion of the hon. member for Somerset is' nine millions was to bo made up partly by retaining those not merely a declaration that it is inexpedient to two millions on tea and sugar. Well, then, the voice thus abolish the paper duty, but it is a declaration, so far as I raised would reach the large towni, and would say, " You must lay the tax upon property ;" and remember he can understand it, that this house will not vote the income (Mr. Horsman) told them they must lay it on property. tax as proposed by her Majesty's Government. (Cheers.) (Hear, hear.) Now it was here that he challenged the right The right hon. gentleman has most ingeniously made a hon. gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and told speech in which - he has raised a contrast as between the him that the question of direct or indirect taxation was the claims of the paper duty on the one hand and the sugar and problem of the day, and that they must eventually lay the paper tax directly on property. (Hear.) No one felt that more tea duties on the other. (Hear.) Though the right hon than Sir It. Peel. Be (Mr. Horsman) must say that a man gentleman has pointed out errors in the present course, he of the great ability of the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not proposed the repeal of any other indirect tax. He ought to review the whole question, and to justly shift the has only raid that the Government have made a hiad selec burden, and not apply to the working classes to pay the tar . hon. What is the view of the right hon. gentleman ? Does —(hear, hear) —and he should have done that honestly in the broad daylight, and placed the pressure of taxation ho agree that this million or so ought to bo bestowed upon where it ought to be placed. (Hear, hear.) He should some other indirect tax ? If he does not, then what are all not have shifted the burden from ono class to another in these appeals to the house respecting the tea and sugar the manner he had done, and he should not leave the masses duties, if he does not mean that they should be repealed. at the mercy of the tax collectors. The Chaucellor of the (Hear, hear) If the right hon. gentleman has no inten- Exchequer could not believe thattbe poor had any burdens, and if a tax was required he should lay it on the broad back %ion to give any relief at all to the consumers of tea and of the working man—he is able to bear it ; and the pro- sugar, but if he has been merely playing off the repeal of posed tax wail, bye sudden wind of taxation, shifted accord- these duties against the repeal of the paper duty, then I say ingly to the shoulders of the working classes. (Hear, hear.) he has only intended to bewilder the house and the people. It became arbitrary, and ultimately ended in confiscation. If he thinks it right that we should (Hear, hear, from the Opposition.) Now, let them no t mince grant these remissions the matter. (Laughter.) Let them give "honour to whom to trade and industry, and - that we have only made a mis honour was duo." This was not the budget of the Govern- take in the mode, then this is but a secondary matter. But ment—(hear, and cheers from the Opposition)—it was the we carefully examined into the cases of tea and sugar on budget of his hon. friend the member for Birmingham. the one side and of paper on the other, and we came to the (Hear, hear, and laughter.) His hon. friend had, in the autumn, made a most able financial statement at Birming- conclusion that the repeal of the paper duty would be by far ham, and he (Mr. Horsman) could imagine the Chancel lor the mo st beneficial to the community at large. And this is of the Exchequer saying—" I have read with great interest a principle which"' think my right hon. friend had not in your speech at Birmingham. You have made a convert of his view : we did not deny the expediency of a repeal of the me. (Laughter.) I beg you'll come up by the early train to Downing-street, And help me to frame my budget." (Laugh - paper duties, but we deny that any decrease of duties to the ter.) And when they had ,the twin stars closeted together, same amount would produce the same increase of trade. his hon. friend might say to the right hon. gentleman —7 The grounds which induced us to propose the repeal of the "Don't go too fast; you are too impulsive; converts always paper duties were founded on careful examination. It is are so. (Laughter.) You be led by me' those two millions on true that by reducing the war tax on tea and sugar you tea and sugar do not touch at all. There is the paper duty, take that off, and lay it on in another way—it will only be a would cheapen articles of general consumption, and give a penny ; get rid of this tax on industry, and the rest will general impetus to trade ; but when we looked at the paper follow, and you can hereafter mislead, by your embellished duty, we found it recommended itself on most peculiar con and disguised rhetoric, end we will produce a prime article sideratiOns. There is no commodity so much in use, and it is of the last new and best Oxford mixture"—(cheers and loud a great error to call it a commodity consumed mainly by the laughter)—the last and newest sample of the Oxford mix ture. (Great laughter.) Well, they had had two samples. 'rich. It is consumed by the rich, but it is also enormously They had had the treaty, which the hon. member for Bir consumed by the poor, who can hardly get any commodity mingham had told them was the dearest object of his affec which is not required to be wrapped in paper, which of tions, and it was also the child of the Chancellor of the Ex course enhances the price. The paper of the rich may be chequer. Both however, like all pregenies, must have two enhanced four or five per cent. by the duty, but the paper parents. (Renewed laughter.) They might assume that of the poor is enhanced forty or fifty per cent. Does my while the hon. member for Birmingham enjoyed the pride right hon. friend foreot that another great use of paper is of paternity, it was upon the Chaneellor of the Exchequer this, that it is a most important raw material in this sense, that devolved the pains of labour. (Tremendous laughter.) that as a wrapper it is an indispensable accessory to nearly The first-born was Master Treaty. In the fulness of time all our exports and manufactures f Of the whole £ 1 , 200 , 00 0 appears Miss Budget, with every prospect of a numerous levied, a very large proportion is paid for wrappers on manu-' progeny. (Cries of " Oh," and laughter.) And then already factured goods. But that is not the whole case. lam sure had timely notice of a - third approaching birth. He held in the right hon.gentleman has taken no pains to examine his head a letter from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to a into this truth. What he says may be perfectly true as re ofegyman in Wales, who had written to him complaining d the qualities upon which the duties are usually levied, the income-tax, and of the grievances of the rating to the poor. Mb Chancellor of the Exchequer replies ; and he garde we e besides have to deal with the enormous mass of raw material applicable for so many purposes, but which is ar beo'ins by knocking down this unfortunate clergyman, 'as rested in its progress to manufacture by the operation of the he knocks down everybody. (Laughter.) He has then the excise duties. That is perhaps a view of the case which the courage to write and publish the following :—" I must re right hon. gentleman never had before him; but that was the mind you that the cause of the income-tax is not the will of ground upon which the Government came to its conclusion. the Minister, but the will of the nation—(a laugh)—which w e felt that in abolishing the duty we should be relieving a few years ago was content to expend on the military ser a vast number of trades, which but for its imposition would vice"—so many millions. be most probably in a flourishing condition. Permit me t o The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER — Be so give one example. Here is a material as hard as corrugated iron' good as to read the passage. (Hear, hear.) (The right hon. gentleman here held up a sample of Mr. HORSMAN (reading the extract with the aid of his the material.) It is one-fourth in weight to the same bulk, eye-glass, and apparently with great difficulty)—" On the and costs a very small friction of the cost of the iron; it is " supply servi hear . c " es ]—X2l . 000,000, [The Chancellor of the Exchequer— to entirely uninflamm urea by and not in any d egree ac t e d by temperature. It is made impervious to wa t er by pitch, Heir, , t fit expend on the same services X 21,000,000." and is corrugated-fit for roofing. Let me tell my right hon. An HoN. MEMBER—£3I,OOO,OOO. friend that had we been in possession of this material in 1854, when shelter was wanted for the army in the Crimea, Mr. HORBMAN—I think the right hon. gentleman says the increase is principally on the military expenditure of and when the best expedient we could think of was to send the country, but I can't read it. (Cries of " Bead, read 1") out thousands of wooden huts, which on account of their I can't read it clearly. weight could not b o t a k en up from Balaclava to the camp, Several HON. MEMBERS—Let the clerk read it. you might saved not only a vast amount of treasure, have Mr. HOR.SMAN (throwing down the document which but also a vast amount of human life. (Hear hear. ) Here is he had boon endeaYouring to decipher)—l can't read it. If t ie account given of this material by the manufacturer . I have touched on a point which I can't make oat—and I "Near four years ago I took out a patent for corrugated confess I can't-1 must apologise to the house, and so I leave this unfortunate clergyman. (Hear , hear.) Perhaps, sheets of papier -mache for many purposes, principally house 4 however, the right hon. gentleman might meet him that building. With it you May live in a paper house, as by night as he did on Friday, by saying that on that question corrugating, it can be made invulnerable. It is a non-con her Majesty's Ministers had not been so fortunate as to find ductor of heat, and from its various qualities it is admirably favour with him. Perhaps, too, the right hon. gentleman adapted for military huts. Yet simply in consequence of the might again go so far as to say that he thought his (Mr. excise regulation , we are unable to manufacture it. If those Horsman's) sense of duty had better remain inscrutable, regulations were removed hundreds of thousand of tons of (Hear, hear, and laughter.) He (Mr. Horsman) must, at " This is raw material could be used in the manufacture : . .. any rate, confess that there had been three great questions a material which appears to possess all the qualities neces before the house during the session, the part taken by the sary to render it capable of answering the most important Government as to which he had felt it his duty to con- uses , and o f which there are unbounded masses of the raw demn. Two of them were involved in the bill before the material whic h it is impossible to apply to. the creation of house; and if he asked him what his third objection was, this trade on account of the excise regulation. I will not he would say—asking the house to excuse th e vu l gar ity of enter into many questions connected withfor these-not the mere relief (Cheers, and laughter.) When the Reform Bill was intro- of existing manufactures, but for the rem?val of what amounts duced, and put off for a fortnight, he conjectured it was a to a positive prohibition, which you might as well prohibit sham, and he stated that the relation of the right hon .gen- by law as by our excise regulations. And now I hope the will see hat tleman to it was the greatest sham of a ll—(ch eers , and oh) house 1 we acted `viselyin proposing the reduction —for he had already supported the bill brought in by the of the paper . duty, - instead of the duty on tea and sugar, be right hon. gentleman opposite, with a gentle protest that it ' cause by doin g so you may call into existence two or three went too far. He thou g ht s th en , th a t th e ex p ress i on o f the times as m uc h tra d e as you would by hon. uld by the reduction of the Chancellor of the Excheq uer was no t called for by which he sugar duties. (Hear.) The rightgenemit tl n say s the _ obtained a cheer from th e h on . gen tl emen s itti ng b e hind grand p r i nci p le of Sir It. Peel was to reduce duties, but not the Treasury bench, when he said that his sense of duty had to repeal , them. Well, I should have supposed that when better remain inscrutable. (Cheers and laughter.) Let that ri g ht hon. g entleman undertakes to instruct us in the him, however, give a word of advice to the right hon. gen- d with . hi ' asures. Who repealed policy and principle . s of Sir R. P l he would at least have tleman. (Cries of " Oh," and laughter.) It was this. He made himself acquamte w i me a said the right hon. gentleman was the last man in thatpapersoap, duty as a ques house who should diverge from political questions to invite a the duties on the export of t w e e? , o t f h s e o p and of glass ? I do not hesitate to say that, taking ngas ten years ago, but as it tion not in the state in which i war of personalities; because, in the four corners of the British empire, there lived not a politician so vulnerable asor any other duty is now there is a far stronerca w s a e r for its repeal than there ever was for the repeal of glass he. No man had owed so much as he did to the forbear ance of the House of Commons—(oh, and laughter)—no rf tly true that this is an increasing duty, man was ever so largelyindebted to its generous indulgence. hear.)V has l b t e i en repealed ee for the last twenty years. (Hear, (Cheers and counter cheers.) No cue ever insulted him byrepealed, but it was a duty of asking the question whether the epithet " inscrutable ' thegreatest claim. to be and admit that the duty is not one of those which has lt•d which the right hon. gentleman said upon , was applicable to any political eccentricities of his, but ' ano th e r occasion tha o t ther m ought to be repealed. And now should any one venture to describe those eccentricities, he had £2,000,000 and more of indirect taxes expenditure,_ is not that an op (Mr, Horsman) would treat him with more generosity. fa ll ing in an d w il il 7 when £1,400,000 of casual receipts are going (Hear, and laughter.) No one knew better than the right hon. gentleman that when, in their hot war of party and t ity, if ever there is to be an opportunity, for the re ? (Cheers.) The other policy is simply political strife, any man in that house chose to separate to be applied to our yearly himself from the manoeuvres of faction, he was quite ter- this— that you take whatever you can, and throw it into P pe ° a r l of this duty tain to be assailed with petty personalities and expressions, the gulf of expenditure. (Hear.) . The hon. baronet (Sir which, coming from ordinary quarters, no man of sense W. Miles) brought forward his motion in a manner to con ad character would trouble himself about, but which as- nect the question of the income tax as far as he could with sumed a very different character when they proceeded from the paper duty, and he brought it forward without any a Minister of the Crown. The character of the house and notice, which I must regret, though I don't mean to charge the independence of its members were compromised by pro - him with wishing to stifle discussion. All I regret is, that ceedings like those, which were altogether unworthy of his motion, as it stands, is not true; that it states as an un those who resorted to them. He wished now to draw the doubted truth that which, in my opinion, is exactly the attention of the house to the position in which it stood. reverse of truth, and mixes up questions which we ought to (Oh, and divide.) They saw at that moment the necessity keep separate. Why is the paper duty an increasing duty ? For this reason, that it is in niost cases acce ssor y, an d i s sub of the bill before them, which was nevertheless f rau g ht with the most dangerous principles. The right h on. g ene ject to the causes which are in themselves accessory— suc h, tleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer claimed the confi- for instance, as when we repealed duties on advertisements deuce of the -country by saying that he was following in and newspaper stamps. That measure resulted in a greatly the footsteps of Sir Robert Peel. Now he (Mr. Horsrnaonn) that the paper duty was a good duty. You cannot expert increased demand for newspapers, though it was no proof could show that, so far from that being true, the right hon, that grea t an P ewer manufactured goods without paper to pack them ; how, then, gentleman had abandoned in every respect thae mples of that statesman, and attached himself was it possible that the duty sh.ould not be an increasing and bolder school. (Cheers.) With duty? (Hear.) Suppose you laid a heavy very tax upon stance, his whole measure was a flagrant abandonmen o an exceptional in- mustard, you would not materially diminish the demand for he professed to keep in the principles of that policy which - Peel consisted roast beef (a laugh), and yet mustard is an accessory to view. The great principles of Sir Robertfuture deficit ;yet, roast beef. He might observe Ihe singular state of things in making the country secure again st wning the burdens generated under the influence of the paper duty, especially the right hon. gentleman began.by and by anticipating the in the book trade. The effect of the duty has been the crea of the country with a heavy deficit, ney e arising from which tion of one chain of monopolies, and on the whole way from revenue of future years, the defici d taxation. Sir Robert the maker to the reader it became a succession of monopolies. he knew must be met by increase th The publisher cannot de a l • national finance as to facilitate e with the paper maker;'he Peel so operated on the tax. Instead of following his dealwith the wholesale stationer, and the wholesale stationer discontinuance of the income threw obstacles in the stands between the paper maker and the public. (Hear.) example, the right hon. g . entleman • eleatin Sir • •Robert Peel's principle Next to these comes the publishers, and for the higher class way of its reduction. e 2 the increased consumption of of books thiscountry continues to be the dearest country in , was to reduce taxes, and by t they were reduced ,t o rest ore the world. Ther e i s F rance publishing books value for th e commodities upon which rmer state. The policy of the right value, for little more than one-third the price of ours, and if the Exchequer to its f o rmer d that principle by destroyin we compare our railway library with that of France, it is am ple on I g a , hon. gentleman tramp a tax • atm at the moment of its being a disgrace to a country which prides itself upon its menu branch of the indirect substituting a war tax in its place. factures. (Hear, hear.) But besides the stationers and pnb most flourishingl and_leobert Peel denounced class legislation, Ushers, there is the printers' combination—one of tho most (Hear, hear.) Sir . his budgets confer boons on th formidable kind—which proceeds upon this proposition, and aimed at making working classes. The Chancellor of the Exchequ er , on th e that no woman must be employed in the trade, although we the manufacturers and the middle all know that woen areculiarly adapted from their small contrary, enriched . withheld from the operatives their finge just to the delicatepan line of type (Hear, hear.) Some h ers c • classes,, while he Robert Peel, with all the power he could hon. gentlemen may be inclined to smile at my holding that demands. Sir to 1 the • Parliament steep income tax as a proposition ; but I believe it is an undoubted truth that command, exhortedet any unexpected emergency,so that by women are admirably suited for that particular trade, not great reserve to moot know what a great with t d'n they are absolutely and entirely excluded from making foreign nations . . e , resource we had, san i g at once as mighty an engine for war as it would it by the combination of the printers. Such ie the result of it might be guarantee for The these laws, which end in produch?g a cluster of monopolies peace. measure of the be a powerful the Exchequer, however, made it a great re- in the trade. My hon. friend the member for Somersetshire Chancellor of hclass interests were tocontend. referred to a report which has recently been presented to the lief fund, for veleic assail him. Next house from the Board of Inland Revenue ; and I only wish year the clamour the paper-inalreaa' would •emissioof the that those hen. members who followed him would have fel would be for the is ell n lowed the tone in which he alluded to it. (Hear.) The hon. ba while the licensed vide, crs would coerce him the third. Thus our great resource wa . - mid have broken do • d properly criticised rand most the proceedings of the Govern- Thus ' an 'and also my proceedings in introducing that report, when the hour of trial came, ~, c'gravated by commercial ment, • but he cast no aspersions on the able, t• 'amid be awake to the - pressure, bad harvests, or a war, we b... , honourable men, who conducted the Board of Inland Re magnitude of our folly and the reality cf • .he disorganise- venue—that vast department, with its vast public interests, tion which history warned us was too often tie: precursor and which is generally marked as a credit to the ceuntry. of national convulsions. (Cheers.) , (Hear, hear.) _ But the noble lord (Lord It. Cecil) says that The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER—Sir, ete ''' is a report made to order. He has no right to say that any hour of the evening, especially at the late hour we have ea ,_ a -, abuse of the privilege of a member of Parliament It le - lan t) rclo wale v . - 4911 P .84914°3 1 * 9144 "IcletlTAtz t 9 P 9 yew 01.19 rt • my to Wie PA . Pali '@ g ill A 494448. 411"ja PA . portant station in the public service, and-whose feelings are quite as acute as ours, and to let it go forth that they are capable of sending us a report made to order. (Hear, hear.) I can only say that I hope the noble lord is sorry for having used such terms. This is no report made to order. The hon. baronet said that he thought it was a pity we had induced the board to make such a report, and he hoped no such thing would be done again. But my hon. friend was guilty of that error in reasoning which to use an agri cultural simile is putting the cart before the horse, because he says the Chancellor of the Exchequer had formed an opinion that the paper duties should be abolished and having done that he directed the Board of Inland Revenue to make a report. It was the Board of Inland Revenue that formed an opinion first, and the Government in iscrifseg Se their de cision on the subject were euainly influenced by the opinion of the board—(hear, hear) —and surely the hon. baronet will not tell me that in that case the Government were wrong in informing the house that those who were respon sible for the collection of the revenue had given them fair notice that the final term for the collection of those duties was rapidly approaching. It would have been a breach of duty on their part if they had shrunk from , telling it (Hear, hear.) What does that report come to ? This house thought fit to pass a vote promising the repeal of the paper duty in 1853. In that year the difficulties of levying the paper duty had not been found insurmountable or very serious, and it is therefore since the vote of the house that these proceedings hale taken place which have reduced the board itself almost to despair. What does the hon. baronet expect to do with this motion ? Does he consider what would be the effect of carrying it ? There must be a new set of rules altogether for enforcing this duty, which has bean condemned two years ago by the unanimous vote of the House of Com mons. (Hear, hear.) The care of the paper and the sugar duties was one which had to be decided by us on peculiar considerations. lam sorry to see that my hon. friend gives no weight to the argument that the repeal of the paper duty bears as directly upon the rural labourer as on the dis posal of the rural commodity. If we take the disposal of rural commodities T am told there is an hon. member of this house much given to the cause of protection, even now in its decline, who has lately taken an active part in the formation of a society to promote the growth of flax upon this ground, that so long as you will depend only on linen manufactures you cannot grow flax ix the country, but if you are permitted to apply any kind of fibre to the manufacture of paper, flax will become a profit. (Hear.) If the paper mills come into his immediate neighbourhood my hon. friend will pay more dearly still for his labour. lam sure that ho will do so willingly for the good of his country , — (laughter)—but whether he does or not it is an object which we are bound equally to promote. (Hear, hear.) To increase the demand for labour in the country, but par , titularly for rural labour, is the best and most legitimate object to which we can direct our efforts in any commercial legislation (Hear, hear.) lam sure in saying that I give no offence to the great employers of the congregated masses in the country, but it is in other parts of the country—it is in Ireland and other places where the wages of labour are lower, that we ought to quicken the demand for labour. (Hear, hear.) We have now to deal with two very different questions. My hon. friend wants us to deal - with the two at once. He wants us to vote that there shall ; be no repeal of the paper duty, and that there shall be no further remission of indirect taxation. These two things are combined in the mind of my hon. friend, but the are not combined in the mind of the Government, and think they cannot be combined in the mind of the house. We considered the position in which we stood—where we should stop in our remission of indirect taxation—and we came to the conclusion that, under all the circumstances of the time, viewing the state of the expenditure and of the re venue, the lapse of the annuities, the lapse of the war tea and sugar duties—taking all these circumstances into con sideration, and adding to them the fact that we were going to apply £1,500,000 of casual monies to the service of the year, we came to the conclusion that at least £2,000,000 of indirect taxation ought te be repealed. (Hear.) I may say with truth, that that was understood by the house and the country to be the principal announcement contained in the financial plan of the year. (Heat.) But it did not rest there, because the member for Essex made a motion which had for its object to condemn the remission of indirect taxa tion as not being opportune. That motion was rejected by a majority of over 100, and that being the case I ask gentlemen opposite whether they did not believe that that decision of the house did not amount to an acceptance of the doctrine that £2,000,000 should 'se remitted ? (Hear, and " No. That is our belief, and that is the belief on which we aro going to ad. If my hon. friend succeeds in his motion, our first duty would be, therefore, to remind the house of those other cleims which were so eloquently put forward by the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Horsman) to night, the claim of the people with regard to tea and sugar —(hear)—and the claim of the Exchequer Bonds to be paid up. It is not therefore a question between the acceptanceor the repeal of:thefpaper duty on the one hand and an escape from the tenpenny income tax on the other. I do not see how you can escape from that tenpenny income tax, because if you do not accept of the repeal of the paper duty we should take the earliest opportunity— ; within a few days probably- - of inviting the house to repeal the war tea and sugar duties. But as the tea duty is unfavourably circumstanced at pre sent in consequence of our relations with China, I should probably invite them to repeal the sugar duty. And, let me ask, what security will you have for your revenue if you do that P We should have given away the sugar duty which at all events is a perfectly intelligible and tena ble duty, and one which the people are content to pay as long as they are satisfied that it is required for the public service. But if we give up the sugar duty, which we can keep this year, the next year eve should be asked to give the paper duties, in accordance with the expressed resolu tion of the house and the opinicns- of the commissioners of inland revenue. That, 1 appramil, would not be * profitable or safe muse to adopt. (Cheers.) It is better, in my opinion, to adopt the course we now propose—a. course which will stimulate the trade of the country and obviate the inextricable difficulties of levying the paper duty. The question, then, really is not whether £1,000,000 of indirect taxation shall be repealed, but simply in what manner it shell be supplied? That is the principle on which we shall act. I believe that the house will adopt the proposal of the Government, and I have the more assurance of that from the fact that I have not been able to understand from the speakers on the other side what duties they would propose to repeal. My hen. friend the member for Somersetshire did not quite see the inconvenience of introducing the treaty as he introduced it in this debate. He founded his appeal on the lowest chess of payers of income tax; but it Is not a question as to them, no one proposes to add a penny to their income tax—the addition to it is a penny ; but let me remind the house that the qw:stion as to what exemption from income tax shall be allowed still remains to be dealt with. The hon. mem • ber for Lancashire - has given notice of a motion for the par tial exemption of all incomes up to £5OO. I don't think that such a change will be adopted by the house, because it would be beyond precedent, and not only inconvenient but dangerous. But the question what amount of exemption shall be given to persons of very small means is a question entirely open, and with respect to which latitude may be allowed to the house in perfect conformity with precedent derived from the history of the income tax in former years ; but let me ask my hon. friend if it is a fair test of the income tax to take only its incidence on the very lowest class who pay it? (Hear, hear.) The income tax is a grievous tax in its incidence to that body of persons, and for my own part I would neither be astonished nor complain if the house was disposed to increase the partial remission which it makes on their behalf now or at seine future time. It is impossible to deny that it is a grievous tax as it affects per sons of small incomes, and especially of small fixed incomes. (Hear, hear.) . 1 have heard it said that I have given a full account of all the phases of the income tax. I have de scribed them, and my opinion remains now very much what it Was before upon that subject. (Hear, hear.) I think the vices of the income tax are many, great, and manifold ; but I said that why you retain it, in my opinion, was because it was essential to assist in giving those great benefits to the people which alone made it endurable, and caused it to be endured. (Hear, hear.) It has many vices. but it has one great virtue, which is this—that in the main, without any injustice in its general scope, without any of those idle dreams of plunder and confiscation, which we have heard to-night, idoes make the property of the country subservient to the uses of the state within limits which are v s e e s r n wh n e ht thenar e w with res p ect beneficial. (C (Cheers.) r s the.) The ppaper the Governm e nt duties is this : W e thi nk it part o f our pu bli c d uty, par t o f solafoeseitai pledge o n n d f of for r twh p e gave to the country which has given such a general and warm support to our financial measures, that we should redeem the pledge which we gave a month ago — viz., that under the existing circumstances of the present year, we should ask for such a repeal of indirect taxation as should not exceed two millions of money. We desire the house to exercise an impartial judgment on the question — what is the best mode of applying that sum ? but for all the reasons I have stated, we submit that the wisest and most prudent choice we could make was to determine to repe al the paper duty, and to give freedom to a great bran ch of industry, which we have great reason to hope will de velop itself in a thousand directions, and add to the demand for labour, and through the demand for labour to the prosperity of the country, in a degree out of all proportion to even the considerable amount of revenue which the dutynow represents. (Cheers.) Sir J. PAKINGTON, who was listened to with much impatience, and threatened to move the adjournment of the house if he were not listened to, denied that there was any understanding, as alleged in the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer when introducing the budget, on the part of the house to the effect that when the Long Annuities fell in the amount should be applied to the repeal of indirect taxes. On the contrary, it was generally understood that the money would be applied to the reduction of the income tax. (Hear, hear.) The budget was a great boon to the oa eters of coal and iron; and to the rich it g ave the boon of taking a the duties on wine and silk, but what did it do for the work ing classes? It maintained the high duties on tea and sugar, and upon those of small incomes it inflicted the grievous hardship of doubling the income tax. He would ask the Government, again, what was the amount of the duty they were going to abandon? The gross amount last year was nearly £1,300,000, but there was now a rumour that in the current year, to end at the close of this month, the paper duty would yield a million and a half. He wanted toknow whether this was true, or was there any difference from the £1,300,000 of last year ? It was not a question of whether the paper duty was or was not a good impost, but whether the state of the revenue was not such that they could not afford to part with it. He contended that it was unwise and improvident to do so, and that the moment was most inopportune. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said the right hon. baronet had asked him to explain his reference to the amount of revenue to be lost by the repeal of the paper duty. He had not stated the details to-night, but on the first night, when he made his financial statement, he spoke of a million, because that was precisely tho sum which he found, by the estimates of the Board of Inland Revenue, would be lost by the repeal of the duty during the next financial year, supposing that repeal to take place on the let of July ; of course, if the repeal were postponed, it would be somewhat less ; but the further amount which would take place in the next financial year would be £230,000 more, in addition to the £1,000,000, making 10 ,r_ the next financial year, according to the estimates wit h which he had been furnished, £1,230,000. Against that , there were three direct sets-off to be made—one being f°,. the savings in the Inland Revenue establishments a secon d for the savings on the whole of the paper used for, Govern; ment purposes and in the Government establishments, and the third being the saving by the abolition of the impr esse d stamp and by the changes in the regulations, the amount o f . which would be altogether, he supposed, £lOO,OOO 0i £150,000 a year. He knew nothing whatever of the M: mour which the right hon. gentleman had mentioned a bo ut the million and a half. The house then divided— For the second reading. Against it 53 Majority for the Government ,se The other orders were then disposed an d the hoa adjourned at two o'clock. - - - - - - LONDON : Printod and Published by MURDO YOUNGni of No. 112, Strand, Printer, at The S un Office, No. 11 1 Strand, in the Precinct of the Savoy, in the ootta t s ° TueNdUs Much 13, 186-0. ir`