The Sun. — London, England, 1861-02-20 00:00:00

prejudicial to tb .e public weal. (Hear.) After all the criti cism we ha ye at various times heard in this house, lam myself eve Ty; day more strongly of opinion that measures for the rec p astruction of Parliament ought to be large arid compreh enaive ones. If you cannot pass large and compre hensive measures, the only conclusion which I can draw is that tr here is no necessity for them—(hear)—but, whesayon ate d ' nlingwith a subject so important as the reconstruction of P erliament, you require all the responsibility of a Mini stry, and all the information and all the regard to various inter eats which can be secured by it, but which cannot be expected from gentlemen who arrogate to themselves the title of " inatependent members"—a title to which I trust we ?all, even when in office, have a fair claim. A gentleman leakes up n fragment of a great subject; he becomes ena moured with the results of his own meditations; he thinks that the conclusions at which he has arrived from the force of his own thought are the only ones which can save the State, and he is too eager to force those conclusions upon, the acceptance of parliament, without reference to the interests which their adoption may injure, but which ought to be dulyconsidered in any scheme which attempts to do justice to the whole country. I have the strongest objections to the measure which is introduced to-night by the hon. gentleman. I think that it would have a very injurious effect upon the country. I think that it would in many counties give newer to those who are not fairly connected with the pre dominant property and the predominant industry of the country, and I also entertain the objections which have been urged with singular ability by my hon. friend the member for North Warwickshire, which are well deserving the attention of the house, and which I am sure will com mand the attention of the public—(hear, hear)—but this is not the occasion on Which to debate the merits of the measure, because even with the rigid programme for the conduct of the Government business which has been an nounced by the noble leader of the house, we shall pro bably have another opportunity of discussing them ; nor should I have touched upon any portion of the scheme had it not been for the misapprehension of the hon. gentleman with reference to the conduct of the late Government upon this subject. Totally irrespective of my objection to an isolated measure—totally irrespective of my conviction that you ought not to deal with the subject unless you are pre pared to deal with it in a comprehensive manner—totally independent of the objections which arise from my belief that it is impossible, in the present temper of the country, to deal with the subject in a comprehensive manner, and giving credit to the Government for being actuated in the course they are taking —not by the mean motives which have been imputed to them bytheir particular friends —(laughter)—but by that sense of duty which I trust will always influence gentlemen in their position—it is with re gret that, under the circumstances, I shall oppose the mea sure of the hon. gentleman. I deeply regret that there appears to be a prospect of the waste of valuable time—of that limited portion of the session which is accorded to pri vate members not connected with the Government for their attempts at legislation. I cannot myself conceive at this moment—l am unable to form any clear idea as to what can be the object of hon. gentlemen opposite and their sup porters in attempting this reform of the House of Com mons by measures of retail. The great wholesale firm announced that it is a transaction beyond their powers of capital and enterprise. (Laughter.) What probability of success can attend these hucksters—(great laughter) who come forward to satisfy the wants of the nation when the great association has announced that it is im possible for them to accomplish the feat? Their object cannot be to obtain popularity in the country. I believe my self that, on the whole, there is no subject so unpopular in England at present as Parliamentary reform. Is it to obtain popularity in this house ? I will say nothing of my friends here, who, I think, during the campaign of reform here last year behaved with great temperance and forbearance— (hear, bear, and oh)—and gave every opportunity to the Government to carry their bill if they could. But I can say aemeahing of the feelings of hon. gentlemen opposite, be rms.% month after monthl watched their countenances, and saw men representing capital cities and large constituencies - whose teeth wore chattering in their heads—(laughter)— whenever the order of the day was read. Theirpallid visages could lot be concealed from the commonest observers; and in the lobbies you saw them shaking in their shoes— I renewed laughter) --at the threatening invasion of a £6 constituency. Why, sir, these are facts which -convinced me that the honourable gentleman and his friends will obtain no popularity among their co-mates and colleagues in this house by the course they propose to pursue. Well, then, what can be their motive ? Is it the honourable object of proving that, though they are taking an unpopular course as far as the country is concerned— though they are taking an odious course —(laughter)—as far as their intimate friends are concerned—that they are still consistent, they have not changed their minds, and though changes may have occurred in other quarters, they are the same as when they presented themselves upon the hust ings? If that be the result which they desire, then I say it is one which they can obtain without wasting the time of Parliament, and without still further injuring that cause of Parliamentary reform to which they are devoted. They can have a public meeting; Willies rooms may be once more en gaged—(laughter)—and, though no compact may be en tered into, still they may make a public demonstration which will prove to the country that their opinions are per fectly unchanged, and that whenever an opportunity offers itself they will carry them into effect, I really wish they would consider the practicability and feasibility of such a scheme, because it is only on Wednesdays the noble lord intends that they shall have an opportunity of bringing forward these measures. But on Wednesdays we have a prospect of some very important and interesting legislation—(hear, hear)—and I confess I look forward with dread to a repetition of the scenes of last year—(hear, b ear)—especially on the subject of that bill, of the intro- ' eduction of which notice is given this evening. In the House of Commons, especially when you have sat here a good many years, th ere i s a genial feeling, at both sides, of reciprocal respect and regard. Gentlemen on this side are therefore averse from a repetition of the sufferings of hon. gentlemen opposite. Why this unnecessary torture Why is the alarming prospect—sueh, for example, as that which as,aliated the member for the capital of Scotland— (laught er)—again. to be held out, to the annoyance of hon. mem'oers and to the waste of public time? I wish, after haviing performed an act of courtesy to these gentlemen, both of whom are • entitled to respect, in allowing them to bring in their bills, some private arrangement could be entered into by which we should hear nothing more of the subject. (Laughter.) We ought to act in the spirit of the age, and, as the spiri of the age is to offer testirsonials to gentlem en who perTorm public services, I shrug be most happy in such an event—and in this I am azure to speak the feeling of my friends—to join with the majority !opposite in offering to those gentlemen some mark of our respect and gratitude. The right bon. gentle man resumed his seat , amid considerable laughter and cheering. '.Kr. D. GRIFFITH withdrew his amendment, announc ing his intention to renew it in committee. Leave was then given to introduce the bill. PROBATE DUTY ON REAL PROPERTY. Mr. IV. WILLIAMS rose to move, " That in the opi nion of thie house real Property should be made to pay the setae pro'oate duty as that new payable on personal pro perty." The present state of the law as regarded the pro hate emty had been in existence since 1796, and the effect cf it e was to impose a probate duty of 21 per cent. upon 12,0 the personal property of a poor hard working man, while real property was comparatively exempt from the *tax, that class of property being only liable to pay per cent. prdbate duty when it reached £BO,OOO, and so on to £1,000,000. The hon. gentleman then referred to the in troduction of measures on this subject by Mr. Pitt, and to the result which placed the law in its present state from the year 1706. That measure was passed in an unreformed Souse of Commons, when 182 peers and boroughmongers were enabled to send their adherents into that house. The hon. member, after referring to the measures introduced in 1854 to impose probate duty on the property of corporations, l. maid that the object of his present proposal w as toe n a fac ise t the probate duty on real and per o so f n ss al o prop ert y—that the owner of land of the value 0 . 00should pay the wane probate duty as the poor man pa e id ds u on his £2O. Pro perty conferred by settlement, by d eeds of settlement, or gift, the amount of which he was info rmed e was as tounding, Porter, yet it did not pay one farthing probate duty. Mr. in his book on the progress of the nation, ate three-tenths of the property left by gtd that less than families never paid any duty, Now, he would ask, was that just orproper? revision The greatest men of their time were - in favour of a the law as , it now stood. Mr. Pitt was opposed to it, sad the right honourable gentleman who now filled the office of Chan ce ll or o f th e E xc h equ er described it as objectionable • and absurd, and that it should be altered. In passing the Succession Duty Bill, the right honour able gentleman said it wou ld p romo t e th e s t a bility of t he 'oeuntry, and give security to their constituents. The right hoe• gentleman the member fer Buckinghamshire also added that he Saw no difficulty in dealing with the ques tion, and that the disturbances in other countries, and the filling of t hrones, were owing to the existence of a class exempt from taxation., Much had been said of the enor mous taxation placed aaeounties, but he believed the towns paid equally as neuchef the local taxes as they did. It was also said that in the act ca eytmeing land a very heavy tax was paid, but he .denied .it, and assorted that it was managed like any other property. ; In 1832 an ecclesiasti cal commission reeommonded that this Mate of things should be altered, and that a transfer of landed property should pay duty. Some years after a bill was brought in by the then Lord Chancellor to carry those recommenda tions into effect, but having passed the House of Lords and com e down to that house, nothing came of it. He thought that as that was a representative legislature, and a reformed Parliament, such an anomaly in the law ought not to be tolerated. He appealed to the right hon. gentleman and m e high sense of honour, and well known sense of justice, to alter this state of things. 11:e hoped he would take the subject into his serious consideration, for of all men he was the only one that could carry the abolition of this disgrace. tug law. Mr. HADFIELD seconded the motion. He wished to know what distinction there could be between an estate of £lO,OOO s-year and money in' the funds, and why should one be made subject to probate duty, and , the other exempt. The CHANCZI,Wit of the BXCHL QUER regretted THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 20, 186 L very much that he occupied the position in which his hon. friend the member for Lambeth placed him to-night, he anse on former occasions it was his dl* • impor tant proposals to the hettt, ; and certainly he was glad to acknowledge that the hon. member took a mos' prominent part not only with respect to the Succession D y Bill, but on others which placed the revenue of the c, witty under the direct control of that house. He had th < restest &dig ' faction in rendering that public tribute to his friend, be cause he made proposals which were in themselves just, and which were law at the present time. On the present deett= sion, however, his views were entirely opposed to those of the hon. gentleman, because ho believed ft was neither just nor rood for any practical purpose that the house should re solve that real property should pay the same probate titty as personal, Any one would suppof!o OlWt the distinction rt As this, that one property will real and the other personal, and that the pereenti paid all and the real nothing. But the hon. gentleman entirely omitted a most important fact, that a very large portion of personal property which passes into the hands of others pays no probate duty at all, because it passed under settlement and was exempt— Mr. WILLIAMS—But it ought not to be so. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER—The suc cession duty did not apply to money in the funds, and ho believed that if his hon. friend's motion passed ) it WoOld lead to a greater anomaly than now existed. l-le would pass that by; but he did not think the speech of his hon. friend clearly described what was meant by the succession duty. He spoke of the succession duty in the time of Fitt; but he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) ventured to say that none of the arguments which the hon. gentleman used in re ference to that time applied to the present. His hon. friend said that what was then urged ought to be done at present; but at the same time, what his hon. friend urged in that re-* spect was but a very small part of the question. His right hon. friend, now Home Secretary, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, succeeded in extending the duty, but the view taken of the subject by his hon. friend would, in the first place, be produetive of very small effect, and in the next, it had nothing to do with the discussion. The Suc cession Duty Act was analogous to the Legacy Duty Act. It was a tax on property paid ant of property itself. But the probate duty was entirely different in its character. It was a stamp duty, and one without compliance with which persons proving the will could do nothing, and could not give effect to the will. The probate duty, too, was not only a duty of great antiquity in itself, but it was most effective for its purposes. He should like to know if they adopted the zesolution of his hon. friend hoW they could carry it out. With respect to hereditary land, it did not require any will at all to pass. There was nothing that could enable them to lay hold of the land in its passage, and to obtain payment of taxation in such a manner as his hon. friend proposed, and his hon. friend would agree with him that in dealing with taxation they must not look at it theoretically but practically. What would be the first thing that a person who had come into the possession of land should do in order that he might pay according to its value ? He should go through three or our different operations in order to get at its real value. Could any thing be more inconvenient ? Why, in such a process, they would be required to take two or three times more from a person in taxation than would go into the coffers of the State. The proposal of his hon. friend would not only entail great expense and inconvenience in the valuation, but it would also entail great loss. See how it would operate. Suppose there were three or four co heiresses, who came in for landed property, and who re quired to value their land, and that sue co-heiress pro posed to go into the market to value her portion of it in order to effect an adjustment, see what consequences and difficulties the resolution of his hon. friend would be pro ductive of. Why, it would not at all work. If a man's landed property were unsettled property, they would not seek the mode of taxing it proposed by his hon. friend, but they would seek some other mode in order to bring about the taxing qualifications. His hon. friend proposed to apply the probate duty to land ; but the probate duty which he proposed to apply to land took no cognisance whatever of unsettled property, and by his plan some thing like four-fifths of the property of the county would be lost. The principle contended for by his hon. friend would be attended with very great inconvenience and hard ships, if practicable atoll; but as Chancellor of the Exche quer he was prepared to say that it would not be found practicable at all. He must call in a whole legion of official persons to assist him in carrying out his plan. He must, for instance, call in the Attorney-General and a host of other persons, in order, by some means, to enable the Chan cellor of the Exchequer to lay hands upon the pro perty. They had no difficulty in getting at the landed income of real property, but they had great difficulty in getting at that of other and different property. The probability was, that instead of bringing landed pro perty into a position to yield taxation to the State in such a manner as his hon. friend proposed, they would do infinitely worse—they would sustain loss and confer no benefit on the State. (Hear, hear.) He could not accede to the proposal of his hon. frietid, and he thought the pro posal he had made—and he was sure he would not make it if he did not think it just—would net prove practicable, and even if they regarded it for fiscal purposes, it would not be warranted. (Hear, hear.) It was his duty, look ing at and considering all the circumstances,. to resist the motion. (Hear.) Mr. WILLIAMS, amid loud cries of "Divide," said the right hon. gentleman had made a most ingenious speech, but the right hon. gentleman had never, notwith standing, touched upon the point which he (Mr. Williams) had in view. He maintained that it was most unjust not to tax landed property in the manner proposed. If a poor man was left the smallest sum of money by way of legacy be was subjected to two and a half per cent. taxation, while landed property was allowed to pass without paying any duty to the State. The house then divided, and the numbers were— For the motion .. 51 Against Majority The motion was consequently lost. INCOME TAX. Mr. HUBBARD, in rising pursuant to notice to move for a select committee to inquire into the present mode of assessing and collecting the income tax, said he did not feel called upon to offer any apology to the house for attempting to remedy, as far as lay in his power, the injustice and in equality by which the incidence of the tax was accompa nied. It was a charge which had been denounced by Mini ster after Minister, the great excuse which had been ad vanced to justify its imposition being the stereotyped phrase that it was meant to be merely of a temporary na ture. At the present moment, however, there appeared to be every prospect that it would be continued for some time, and the question of the shape which it ought to assume was therefore one which commended itself to the serious attention of Parliament. In the first year of its existence the amount of the tax had borne to the aggregate revenue of the country the proportion of £5,500,000 to £58,000,000, while the proportion was at the present day £12,500,000 to £70,000,000, and he must be a very sanguine man indeed who anticipated that the revenue for the next financial year could be brought up to the necessary amount without the renewal of the burden which, under the head of which he was speaking, was levied on the people. But it was not simply because the income tax seemed to be inevitable that he desired to see the mode in which it was raised undergo revision. He did not mean to question the justice of the statement that it was an admirable weapon to which to have recourse in time of war, or that it, produced great re sults, but he must contend that if it were to be laid up in the fiscal armoury care should be taken that its edge was kept keen and bright, that its use did not inflict heavy blistering wounds and leave behind lasting and rankling resentment. Now what, he would ask, were the features of the tax which caused to be attached to it the odium in which it was generally held ? It was, .in the first place, said to bo inquisitorial, but the complaints made against it upon that score were, he must admit, in his opinion, somewhat exaggerated, because, after all, the state ment of a man's income, which was rendered necessary in the process of its collection, need be made only to a very few persons, who were bound to be secret and discreet in the performance of their official functions. Although, however, 1 he made that admission, he could not help regarding the tax as extremely unjust and unequal in its incidence, and as tending as a consequence to foster and sustain an ime mouse amount of immorality. Into the history of its opera tion it was unnecessary that ho should enter at any length. He might, nevertheless, state that Ilr. Hume had in 1851 ob tained a committee to inquire into the subject, and had sub mitted to their consideration a scheme supported by the recommendations of eminent actuaries, for removing the inequalities by which the imposition of the tax was sur reundell. That scheme the committee had regarded RR im practicable, but he should beg hon. members not to nu away with the idea that no means of providing for the more equitable incidence of the tax could, therefore, be devised. For his own part, he had endeavoured to discover some such scheme, and in explaining his views upon the subject he should take the word " equitable" to imply the levying of the tax upon everybody according to his means. Tak en in that light, no species of taxation, he might add, could be more equitable than indirect, to which, however, there was the strong objection that its adoption to an unlimited extent was calculated to press heavily upon the labouring classes far-sighted saga city objection of which Sir R. Peel with saga city and laudable courage showed he unders tood the force when he undertook the 'H ercu lean task of making Eng land the Emporium of free .trade and abolishing those burdens which bore upon the subsistence of the people. Following the history of the income-tax from the period of its imposition by that great statesman up to the present day, he found that it had been placed before the House of Commons in the light of a compensation tax, which, if justly levied, ought to be levied upon the same principle as the indirect taxation which it superseded. In dealing with that view of the case he might be allowed to quote the opinion of the late Mr. Wilson on the subject, who, in the summary of his scheme for the equalisation of the income-tax, which he had been fortunate enough, a few . days ago, to find in the pages of the Economist, said : " The broad principles upon which I have proceed e d may Ibe thus plainly stated :—I have attempted to regal d in come not at its nominal amount, but in proportion as it is, from its characte r , actually ava i lable for i mme di a t e expenditure ; because it is exactly in that relation that it would have con tributed_ to revenue Linder the system of Custom and Luise ... duties,,which the income-tag lies repl.ab'ed to a certain i eitent." . Such was the language of Mr. Wilson, and he felt assured ] the house would receive with deference the expression of the views on the subject of taxation of a gentleman whose great financial research and energy of mind had enabled him to acquire a position in this country which caused him to be selected for the discharge of those high and important' ditties in the performante Of which his life had been sacrificed. (Hear, hear.) He would iio* 13roceed to the consideration of the matter to which they had to apply these rules. All incomes must come under one of three heads. They were either the pro duct of capital in the 4haVe of interest, rent, or the usufruct hi rnoiaey ; or they were the product of capital utilized by the application of skill and labour ; or, lastly, they were the product of unskilled labour itself. With the last category they had now no concern. They could not beneficially levy a tax from the earnings of pure labour. In the first place, the cost of collection would be enormous compared with the amount received ; secondy, the impost would largely fall, as a matter of course ) on the capital which employed that labour ; and thirdly, it would wholly neutralize the happy results of the great change made by Sir It. Peel. Their attention must, therefore, be confined to the trio first categories be had riattled. With respect to the first category—viz., incomes arising from invest ments either in visible property or money lent on any public or private security, these comprised all that class Which some persons have described as " the lazy In come," but which he preferred to term " spontaneous in comes," because they were produced independently of any personal labour or exertion by the individual owners. All those incomes, when they had been brought to their relative equality of bearing, arid had had allowances made for burdens of various kinds which ought to be, but which were not, deducted from the present tax, should in his opinion, be treated as incomes of the highest character, and subjected to the largest amount of takatioh which Patliatnent in its wisdom shotiid think it necessary to impose. In the next category he placed all trading and professional incomes, all salaries, offices, and employments to which personal laborer attached. The great distinctive mark belonging to these Was that they were all industrious incomes ; of Which labour Was an indispensable. element—if the labour ceased the income leased also Being naturally precarious in their nature, they required large abatements to be made from theta on account of the ' futhise provision which the individual was obliged to makes either for himself or for others dependent on him. (Hear, ' hear.) And here he must say he hoped the house would be content to deal with classes of income, and not with the cases of individual owners. He therefore deprecated all those invidious arguments which had the eiteet of confusing things totally distinct in. their .nature. He deprecated all ad captandum arguments arid appeals ad ntisericordiam in favour of interesting and defenceless woolen, Orphaned daughters and widowed mothers, struggling on a pittance derived from the public funds, as also all contrast between such deserving persons and the selfish bachelor who, revel ling in the enjoyment of a large income derived from personal exertion, would therefore receive the benefit of any allowances granted to industrious incomes. He hoped the house would deal with the question in a large and statesmanlike spirit, and without any revival of bygone party struggles. Taming, then, to the first class of incomes to which he had alluded, he would quote the following opinion given by Mr. Wilson, to whom he had before referred. Mr. Wilson said : " With respect to all incomes, I consider that the tax should be regarded in relation to the essence of the property from which the income is derived, and not to the accident of the tenure under which it is held at any particular mo ment, so that all incomes are treated in relation to their source only, without regard to the tenure of their owner— exeepting terminable annuities, which stand on special and distinctive ground." He asked the house to accompany him through the sche dules as they stood in the present Income-tax Act. In Schedule A the first item mentioned was "land." It was acknowledged that land was taxed at a rack-rent, and yet everybody knew that rack-rent was subject to payments for insurance, repairs, and agency before the landowner could be said to have the net income available for his expenditure. He proposed, therefore, that a deduction should be made equivalent to these necessary outgoings. On houses, to which the same argument applied, he thought there ought to be a still larger abatement, because the expense of repairs was greater than on mere farm buildings. He next came to mines and quarries, which were now rated to the income-tax on the gross income without regard to the fact that such pro perty mightbe in a state of rapid exhaustion. A rational man having an income of that description would ascertain the probable duration of such property, and lay by a compensa tion fund to keep its amount intact. The house ought, on the same principle, to allow a deduction from the income-tax in order to compensate the outgoings on mines and quarries. In schedule B stood farms, but he did not propose to touch them, because he did not know that their occupiers, at least, had anything to complain of. In respect to schedule C, the public creditor was subject to this serious grievance, that when he happened to hold his claim on the Govern ment in the shape of a terminable annuity the Government took the liberty of taxing not only the interest which he received, but the capital that was repaid to him. (Hear, hear.) Ho wished to see that injustice terminated. Schedule D dealt with industrious or precarious incomes. In regard to these he thought he was not asking too much if he said that an abatement of one-third of their gross amount should be allowed before they fell under the incidence of this tax. (Hear, hear.) He suggested that the same indulgence should be extended to all offices and employments included under Schedule B. He was not without authority in making these recommendations, because in the Succession Duty Act, introduced in 1853 by his right hon. friend, it was provided that in estimating the annual value of lands used for agricultural purposes, houses, buildings, tithes, rent charges, and other descriptions of property yielding a fluctuating income, allowance should be made for all neces sary outgoings. That was what he asked—all necessary outgoings. He asked that those who had to pay a tax year by year should have the same measure of justice awarded to them as owners of property when they came to be taxed on succession. That class disposed of lands and houses. As a corroborative circumstance it might be mentioned that in the income-tax recently promulgated iu India an allowance was made on houses, but it was limited to one sixth part of the rental if the owner could show he had spent that in outgoings during the term for which he had been assessed. Again, with reference to mines and manors, the 26th section of the Succession Duty Act made the deduction of all necessary outgoings. These were his precedents for the allowance of all necessary outgoings. He now came to terminable annuities, and here the right hen. gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had himself supplied a remedy for the evil in the 31st clause of the Act, and according to the tables in the schedule annexed to it for calculating those annuities. He simply proposed to introduce the medium of justice provided by those tables themselves. With reference to precarious incomes, the main question which engages the interest of the community, opinions thoroughly coincided as to the remedy to be ap plied. That remedy was that they should make a consider able abatement on incomes of that description before taxing them. Mr. John Stuart Mill upon this point said,—" I would tax temporary or precarious incomes at a lower scale than permanent or certain incomes (not becalse of their lower selling value), but because their possessors are liable to be called upon to save something to provide for their own future years or for those dependent on them." Thus, while rejecting the scheme proposed by Mr. Joseph Hume, Mr Mill gave a definition of his own which led to the same result. Some maintained that incomes of this nature should be taxed at one-half, others at three-fourths of their amount. He had been led by a series of calculations founded on what was stated by Mr. Porter in his "Progress of the Nation" to adopt a somewhat different rule. In 1852 the question of a revision of the income-tax was mooted in that house, and inthe following year a new I ncome -t ax A ct was passed ' under the auspices of his right hon. friend. In the 54th clause a concession was introduced for the first time—that a saving of one-sixth out of any ineonie, if invested in the purchase of a life or deferred annuity, should be deducted from the income before it was brought under the incidence of the income-tax. This was his precedent—that was his justification. Parliament had no right to treat the whole industrious classesas children, saying to them that if they were economical and saved their money and invested it in a policy of life insurance, or a deferred annuity, a special in dulgence would be given to them. The industrial commu nity had a right to exercise their economy in any particular channel. Having once admitted the principle of a deduc tion, Parliament had no right to tie them down as to the way in which they should exercise their economy for the purpose of receiving the amount of deduction conceded. There was but one thing he found fault with in this clause. Instead of one-sixth he would make it two-sixths, and no thing could bo better than its effectual application. The same indulgence he found was given in the Indian Income tax ; so that the principle had been adopted by the mem bers of her Majesty's Government in several successive stages; and it would be very agreeable to the house to apply it in a still more expansive manner. Now, as to the mode of assessing industrial income, Mr. Hume proposed to ' charge interest,—say, at 3 per cent, upon the capital, or assumed capital, engaged in :industrial professions, to ca pitalise according to the age, or (in ignorance of the age ) a t 14 years' purchase, the residue of profits, after deduction of interest, and then to charge the income-tax. A trader having £lO,OOO capital, and making £9OO a-year, would be treated thus by Mr. Hunte's process, the income-tax being 3 per cent. :—Profits, £100; charge interest, £3OO on ca pital of £lO,OOO ; capitalise £6OO. at 161 years' purchase, £10,000; total, £20,000; interest at 3 per cent. £600; in come-tax at 3 per cent. on interest £lB. The plea for a limited assessment on industrial incomes which he had ventured to advance was founded on the assumption that, comparatively with incomes of a higher class two-thirds only were expended, and the assessment he recommended was therefore limited to two-thirds; thus, in the above case, the £9OO returned as profits would be assessed at 2 per cent., or £lB, without requiring either the capital or the age of the trader to be communicated. Another grie vous feature of the operation of the tax in its existing shape was the immense amount of fraud which attended its collection. (Hear, bear.) He was sure that the Chan cellor of the Exchequer who had so lively a sense of what was just and honourable, could not fail to regard with in tense pain what he believed to be the necessary continu ance of a tax which involved the perpetuation of such a 1 mass of immorality. (Hear, hear.) The amount of delin quency which came to light was immense, and it might well be supposed that the amount which did not come to light was still more extensive. It was obvious that schedule D did not return anything like what it ought to do. The fact was that people felt they were being robbed, and when a man was smarting under injustice, whether that injustice came front a private individual or from a Government, he would endeavour to do justice to himself in his off n way. (Hear, hear.) The only remedy was so to alter the tax as to make it, as far as possible, fall with equal weight upon all classes of the community. (Hear, hear.) It was a curious fact that, as the Act now stood, two men earning the same amount of income might pay the tax in very different pre portions, without a violation of the law on one side or the &her. For example—one might make an income of £lO,OOO in each of three successive years, and, of course, ho would pa y income-tax upon that amount. the 8 e cTheand£2s,ooo other might make £5,000 the first year, nothing income would be £30,000, and the a verage, as in the oththird. His aggregate er case, £lO,OOO, but in the first year notwo would pay nothing at all, while in than £lO,OOO ; or his average income him to pay upon more piece of legislation in the Amore absurd for three years. Amo he would pay upon . Ss t , h oo e o t , h i i n rd t t h h o e secondA C t wo uld h e enacted, and this portion of way of taxation was surely never the Act, at all events, ought ined before Mr. ume s shape. One of the witnesses exam h t made the fol committee, who had been himself a mere an ~ lowing statement :—" The merchant makes his own rest the not to be left in its present , The greatest indulgence is in that respect shown himy State. Merchante and pforessiottal teen make their own re turns at their discretion, and whatever the retiirn is it is hardly possible to find out whether it be true or not." The witness, therefore, expressed the opinion that, in conside ration of the opportunity thus afforded to merchants and prs;fessional men to cheat the Exchequer, they ought to be satisfied with the income-tax in its present shape. The mercantile community looked upon such evidence with ex treme disgust, and the last thing which a man possessed of any Potion of morality or integrity would do would be to eteil himself of the stibterfage suggested to him by the witness in question. (Heat, heat.) The house would see that the main conclusions at which he wished to arrive were—first, that spontaneous incomes should be assessed upon 'the net instead of the gross rental ; and, secondly, tied Upon industrial incomes an abatement should be made of one-third. Ife believed that the amount of abatement which he proposed might be stated as f allows : upon land, 1-12th ; upon houses, 1-6th; and upon industrial incomes, 1-3 d. An important question was the amount of loss which the revenue might sustain from the adoption of such a measure of reform. There would undoubtedly be a diminished revenue arising from land and houses, although the new modes of aesessinent which had been recently , mooted might go a considerable way in supplying the de ficiency so created; but, with respect to schedule D, upon which he proposed to make the largest abatement, he was perstietleil that the amount of loss would be little or nothing at all. Ito had that •sonfidence in the innate integrity and justice of Englishmen that ho believed they would when fairly treated act fairly in return, and that the Government efordd got as much out of two-thirds of the, assessment, under sucli d system as he had suggested, as from the whole assessment at present. (Hear.) The Income-tax Act, it might be said, was a very large measure, and its recon etruction would be a work of great magnitude. He ad mitted that, but t still, he thought that the measure of re form he had ineeted them to consider might be given effect to by very brief and simple provisions. It would only re quire the following enactments ;---1. That an allowance from the rack or valution rent of lands be made of one twelfth for necessary outgoings. 2 That an allowance from the reek at Yalution rent of houses be made of one-sixth for necessary ontgoinge. 3, That an allowance be made upon the rents or royalties of mines, quarries, and ironworks, upon proof of diminished value for the replacement of capi tel. 4. That upon tithe rent charge, besides the parochial fates, an allowance shall be made of 5 per cent for repairs, irisiiteneei and agency, and when care of souls is annexed a surd of &lOC/. ifs ettrete's stipend. 5. That upon profits of trades,: professions, and salaries, and offices and employ ments having duties discharged by the holder in person, an allowance be made of one-third prior to the assessment. 6. That section 133, of sth and 6th Victoria, cap. 3,5, be re iealed. 7. That all trade returns shall state the amount of nterest paid oil borrowed capital, the same to be assessed on the full amount thereat. 8. That for the purpose of assess ment to the income-tax the interest of the capitalised value of all annuities terminable with years or life shall be calcu lated ettording to the tables 1 and 3, appended to the Suc cession Duty Act. It was with much anxiety, but not *ithout confidence, that ho submitted the resolution to the deeisinn of the house. He was deeply impressed with the magnittide of the interests at stake. and well aware how vitally important it Was to the finances of the country that the mode of taxation by which they were supplied should be a regulated gul w t a h t eidt the by sympathiesequity sense people. ; A n a n d d fu s r h t r er ld , lie carry honour, integrity and morality , t han even for the advance ment of our country in wealth a nd material prosperity. cry o not but feel a greater solicitude fo r o ur national (Hear, hear.) The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER—The task which I have to perform May at any rate have an agreeable commencement, because it is my iity to acknowledge in the face of the house that no one can be better entitled than s my hon. friend to submit this most important and most in tricate question to the notice of the house, inasmuch as he is a man qualified for the work equally by his position, by his character, and by the hi g h reputation which he h as acquired in the discussion of ques ti ons o f peLitical economy. (Hear, hear.) Having said so muc h o f th e perb:ln who makes the proposition, I wish that I could continue in a similar strain ; but I must confess that both the proposal of my hon. friend for a committee of inquiry, and more espe cially that which it is not possible to separate from his pro posal of a committee, viz., the particular nature of tho plan which he has submitted to the house, and which is to be the text and guide of the inquiry—compel me to pursue a different course. (Hear, hear.) I shall not enter into any general statement of opinion about the income-tax. My own opinions upon it—as far as they are general opinions— have been declared long 'ago, when I formerly held the office which I have now the honour to fill ; and I am not aware that I have in any re spect departed from them. I should also say of my hon. friend's motion that I shall not look so munch at its terlits and its technical character as to what is its avowed object. No doubt many questions arise in connection with the as sessment and levying of the income -tax which may be in quired into by a committee with more or less of utility, but at any rate without any peculidr difficulty er danger. If, for example, we were to take the question of the arbitrary standard , so to call it, which has been fixed far levying the income-tax under Schedule D—a system which the Legis lature has established according to the best of its information and belief, but which of course involves many points open to discussion, if wo were to refer to the question whether the income-tax should be collected half-yearly or quarterly ; these and many other matters might be the subjects of in quiry by a eommittee without raising any difficult or dan gerous questions. But those are not the subjects to which my hon. friend wishes to direct our attention ; and I must say that I think he has done wisely in confining himself in his speech to the exposition of his main purpose, because either he or his committee would be distracted from that purpose by mixing with a question so grave and so deep as that upon which he has just now dilated those other mat ters which refer, in comparison, to the merely technical de tails of administration. (Hear, hear.) My hon. friend's proposal is that different rates of tax should be laid upon the different schedules. (Hear.) He has stated that in a manner which gives a colour to his proposal for a com mittee—(hear)—nor can the house vote in favour of his motion without attaching at least a provisional sanction to his plan for reconstructing the income-tax. (Hear.) My hon. friend has himself stated this point in a most candid and ingenuous manner ; for he said that he could not ask for a committee from this house if he was not prepared to preface that demand with the submission of a plan which should be apparently unexceptionable in its main outlines and general principles. The demand for a committee of inquiry is a very grave demand—at least it is a very grave one for those who take the view that is token by Her Majesty's Government with respect to any plan which shall alter the main structure of the income-tax by imposing different rates of tax upon the different schedules. To a committee of general inquiry, particu larly if generally desired by the house, they might not have seen—l ventured upon a former occasion to intimate that I did not think they would see—any vital objection ; but, at present, the issue which we are join must in the main be not whether we are prepared to adopt the precise details of my hon. friend's plan, but. whether we aro pre pared to give encouragement to the principles which are at the bottom of those details and which formed the sub stance and staple of his speech, (Hear, hear.) I do not think that Tier Majesty's Government would be justified in assenting to the proposal of an inquiry so prefaced, avowedly and without disguise holding up the banner which my hon. friend has lifted upon this occasion, unless they were prepared at least to say that they saw no dill culty of a character approaching to danger in any coun tenance of a plan founded upon such a basis. I do not wish to ruffle the sensibility of an author, but I think that my hon. friend is entitled to less credit for originality than he seems to think. It is my fate almost daily to receive financial suggestions identical in their purport from scores of gentlemen, each of whom believes himself to be the original and sole parent of the idea. That is not quite my hon. friend's case ; but I see opposite me two right hon. gentlemen who may substantially claim some of the credit which is to be given to his plan. Tho right hon. gentleman the member for Wilts proposed in the committee of 1852 that the tax on Schedule D should be three -fourths of the tax on Schedule A. (Hear, hear.) My hon. friend pro poses that it shall be two-thirds. The difference between them is not great, but such as it is it was very nearly split by the right hon. gentleman the member for Bucks, who, on the part of thejGovernment, proposed in 1852 that the tax on Schedule 1) should be 5d., and that on Schedule A 7d. in the pound. The authority of the right hon. gentle man, lent at that period for a moment to a plan substantially like that of my hon. friend was, I think, subsequently—l must say to my great satisfaction—withdrawn. But my hon. friend substantially reproduces this proposal that we should proceed to adjust by deduction—for hedoes include another feature in his plan—that we should proceed to ad just by deduction the several payments of income-tax in most, at least, of the different schedules, and to establish a great difference by a very great reduction in the case of Scedule I). That, I think, is a very fair description of the general character of the plan of my hon. friend. I will not enter at large upon the financial portion of the speech of my hon. friend ; but 1 must say that I was struck with the sanguine temperament which appeared to have dictated it. For how did he treat the case of Schedule D ? He says that there are enormous evasions in Schedule D, because persons engaged in trades and professions feel that by law they are robbed. My hon. friend feels deeply the immo rality attending the collection of the income aax ; he knows that that immorality is concentrated in Schedule D, and he proposes to reward Schedule D by a reduction of one-third of the tax. (Hear, hear.) But what a sanguine view my hon. friend takes of the Morality of the people I He says, "They commit this peccadillo because they feel that they are robbed by the law, but if you will only deduct one-third from the tax which they are liable to pay it will set it all right again." (Hear, hear.) You will recover and recoup, he says, the one-third of the tax leviable under Schedule D, surrendered by law, in consequence of the honesty of the taxpayer, moved by this appeal to his feelings. The offer must be of precisely 33 per cent.—that is the standard, that is the temperature which is necessary to bring him up to par in morality. (Laughter, and " Hear, hear.") I must confess that I entirely differ from may hon. friend with regard to his opiniou as to results. As I have spoken of the immorality under schedule D, I must not omit to state my conviction that a large portion of those who pay under it every farthing that they ought, and in in every case of doubt rule the doubt against themselves-- - (hear)—but there is no doubt that all the roguery in the country larks in the folds of that schedule. In the , year 1850 I produced b e f ore th e h ous e the undoubted case of the residents of a particular street in London, who had re turned their profits for the income tax, and had also re turned them for compensation, and who had in the latter case returned them at 10 times the amount which they had returned for the former purpose. (Hear, hear.) I ask my hon. friend, does he not think that these worthies who were unfortunately not individuals, for they were inhabi tants of a street taken together—does he think that the magical and soothing effect of his 33 per cent. would have been such that they would have raised their statement of profits ten times, or does he think that perhaps the truth was between the one-tenth which they sent inafor income tax, and the tenfold sum which they demanded for com pensation ? If so, it is clear that these gentlemen would have been sad losers by my hon. friend's proposal, because to come up to th e true standard of their profits they would hate had to add infinitely more than one-third to their assessments. t I must say I think parts of the speech of my hon. friend were calculated to exercise influence over the Ittiwis of the taxpayers under schedule D. It is cer tainly a strong, expression to say that they cheated the Exchequer because they felt that the Legislature was rob bing them, and I felt sorry to hear that expression used, for it is not impossible that ono of these wavering con sciences--(laughter)—when in doubt as to the return which he should make on the next issue of assessments, may recollect that a gentleman of my hon. friend's high character declared in his place in Parliament that he was robbed by the Legislature--(hear, hear)—and may find some comfort and encouragement in the operation of reducing his profits from the sanction which he may think ho derives frem that statement. But when my hon. friend went on to comment upon the inefficiency of Schedule D in making every man tax himself—omitting to state that no man is taxed higher than his income in any one year, and that the benefit of averaging is given to him when ever the average is in his favour—instead of telling us that the Legislature robbed the taxpayer under Schedule D, he ought, I think, to have drawn a more just and generous in ference, and to have stated the length which the Legislature has gone to diminish in some degree the severity and inqui sitorial nature of the tax, exposing itself to criticism violat ing uniformity, and introducing a positive anomalyinto the enactment in order to mitigate the incidence of the tax on the traders of this country. (Hear, hear.) That, however, was not the use he made of his argument. Let us now look at the proposals of my hon. friend. He proposed to proceed in the most agreeable manner by a method of deduction. He goes first to one man and says, " I deduct so much from you" —he next goes to another and says the same, and from the last, under Schedule D, he makes an enormous deduction. It would be a most pleasant process to go on deducting all day—to give to every man his relief. The landlord might think you were not sufficiently liberal to him in deducting only one-twelfth, but it is impossible to criticise too closely the plan of my hon. friend—it was conceived in a spirit of such unbounded generosity. (A laugh.) Lands were to have one-twelfth, houses a sixth, mines something which none of us sitting here exactly understood—(laughter)--and Sche dule D was to have a third. Who is to pay for these deduc tions ? (Hear, hear.) I want my hon. friend, when he makes these captivating speeches, to write on the frontlet of the financial edifice which he constructs this graffel and true doctrine—" The abatement of one man is the taxation of another." (Hear, hear.) If you take away id. to relieve somebody under Schedule D, you must put it on somebody else. It is not enough to say, in general terms, " Such is my confidence in the morality of the English people that they will pay up, and set the account nearly right ;" that I can assure you is not the way in which we must deal with the hard and rigid figures of finance. But my hon. friend says he will deal with classes. I suppose he will not deny that by his scheme schedule A is to be more highly taxed in proportion than any other. if you make deductions of one-twelfth and one-sixth on the two great elements, lands and houses, in schedule A, and if from scheduleD you deduct one-third, or twice the amount, it follows that you raise the taxation on schedule A relatively to schedule D. (Hear, hear.) I should be very sorry to commend my hon. friend to the purgatory of reading Par-. liamentary speeches, especially such as have been delivered by myself; but in a responsible position, and endeavouring to convey results of the best inquiry which the Government of the day could make, I did state to the house that at that moment, with a sevenpenny income-tax, while schedule D paid 7d. on the net income, schedule A paid not less than 9d. Has my hon. friend examined into the question, or why does he think it would be just to impose further bur dens on schedule A ? (Hear.) He says you ought to take one-twelfth, or about 8 per cent., off lands. A deduction to that extent would in some cases be insufficient, while in in others it would be exorbitant and wholly unnecessary. In Scotland, for instance, where most of the charges are borne by the tenants, why should the landlord have one twelfth deducted ? As to the article of agency, I cannot at all admit that it forms a legitimate deduction. If a man does not choose to take the trouble of collecting the proceeds of his own property, he is not to expect that the charge which he thus incurs will be allowed him. (Hear.) In cases, moreover,where the landlord does not pay for repairs, 8 per cent. would be an extravagant and needless boon ; while, if he is liable to them, the allowance would be in -lequate. My hon. friend's calculations with regard to b•-• break down utterly. It is totally impossible to make houses - an average of repairs. They may depend on anything liar the building materials, on the nature of twenty things-ou whether wet or dry, on the ren the particular climate, • ' • classes of occupiers. In tale of the houses, and the 'd be an ample allow many instances five per cent. won.- ee t eld not be suffi ance for repairs ; in others 25 per cent. us. denies the cient to cover the reduction in value. Noboay e deny inequalities of the present tax ; I cannot pretend te them—l do not seek to disguise them; but my hon. filen, by coming in and giving a boon to some taxpayers would aggravate the sense of these inequalities sustained by others. It has always been a popular notion to fix different rates o schedules, and it is possible that this house may some dayf be drawn into a resolution in favour of such a plan ; and, indeed, it would have been more convenient if my hon: friend had adopted that eutuso instead of moving for a com mittee of inquiry. A bill based on such a resolution may even be brought in, but I tell my hon. friend that never will such a plan as he has proposed stand the scrutiny to which it would be exposed before passing into law. My hon. friend proposed with regard to mines—the property, of all others, which is most intricate and difficult to comprehend, except under most favourable circumstances—that every mine in the United Kingdom should be valued with a view to the imposition of income-tax, and that the valuation should be renewed from year to year. Why, to attempt to obtain anything like trustworthy accounts of the value of the different interests in particular mines would, in the first place, lead to such an amount of fraud as would flood Sche dule A as well as Schedule D with immorality, and, as suming the valuation to be made in the best and most satis factory manner, it would double, treble, or quadruple the incidence of the tax by the expenses necessary for arriving even at a proximate conclusion. My hon. friend founds an argument on the Succession Duty Act, which provided, with respect to certain branches of real property, that valuations should be made with allowances for outgoings. But under the Succession Duty Act we were dealing with property which was not to pay small amounts every year, but which was to pay a large amount once in 35 or 40 years ; and it is perfectly intelligible how, in the one case, it. might be well worth while to incur the heavy expenditure inseparable from valuation, while in the other such an outlay would be unwarranted and unnecessary. (Hear.) There is a provision for valuation in certain cases. There is a provision for entering into an examination of outgoings in order to fix the amount. And, by-the-by, I must remind my hon. friend that when Parliament passed that act we did not say that outgoings should be estimated at one-sixth or one-twelfth, but we said that there should be an exami nation of what the outgoings were. (Hear.) What was a perfectly good plan in the case of the succession duty would, from the nature of the case,, be a totally impracticable one in the case of the income tax. In Schedule D my hon. friend says there must be a deduction of 33 per cent.—a de duction on everything in that schedule • but there is to be no deduction in Schedule A. I say no 'deduction, because the compensations which my hon. friend proposes would be much more than balanced by the additional burdens which Schedule A. should bear in consequence of the relief to Schedule D. But in Schedule D there is to:bete uniform de duction of 33 per cont., and in this waymy hon. friend pro poses to cure an injustice and get rid of an anomaly. Now, let me see how my hon. friend cures the injustice and gets rid of the anomaly. There are many businesses under Schedule D worth 25 years' purchase. (No, no.) I do not pretend to say they aro all of so fixed a character that each is worth 25 years' purchase. (No, no.) I do not mean to say that this is the average value of trades and: businesses. I speak no.v of businesses of the highest class, and I say you may find some under Schedule D which are worth 25 years' purchase. The profits of a banking business are in many cases worth 25 years' purchase. From that down wards you come to what are worth 15, what are worth 10, what are worth 5, and what are worth less than 5. My hon. friend proposes to apply a uniform deduction of one third to the whole. If hon. gentlemen who hear me think 25 years' purchase too high for any business, let them take any figure they like. It is not necessary for me to state what figure I consider to be the correct one. It is enough for me to say that there is an enormous difference in the values, and that if I take the best business under Schedule D, it is worth five or six times as much as' the worst busi ness ; but my hon. friend proposes to snake a reduction of 33 per cent. on the best, and to put the worst on only the same footing. (Hear.) If you can make a deduction which is 'compensated for without any unjust burden being placed in another direction, that is very fair ; but if everything which my hon. friend takes off of anybody must be put on somebody else, then I say his plan only aggravates the evil which it professes to cure. (Hear, hear.) And what per sons are to bear the brunt of my hon. friend's plan ? They are the fundholders. Ho has invented a deduction for the landlord, he has invented a deduction for the owners of mines, he has invented a deduction for the holders of houses, and he has invented a deduction for persons in business; but he admits that he has no deduction for the fundbolder. (Hear, hear.) And who is the fundholder ? The fundholders are a body of 300,000, and the great mass of these are persons holding £2O, £3O, £4O, or £5O a-year. The great bulk of them are people holding life interests. My hon. friend declines to deal with individuals; he says he deals with classes. Take as a class the Arsons with small incomes—persons whose incomes may bel£loo a-year, and whose interests are but for a short term, whose lives may not be worth five years' purchase; and my hon. friend pro poses to aggravate on these people the burden and percent age of the tax in order that he may deduct 33 per cent. from the Income-tax payable by the wealthiest banker in Lon don. If the object of the house be to cure an injustice and get rid of an anomaly, I do not know what arguments may hereafter be in vogue, but the arguments used by my hon. 'friend are not those by which the financial proceedings of this house have hitherto been directed. I wish to treat with the utmost respect the feelings of those who I know entertain—and honestly entertain—the idea that an equal rate of income-tax is unjust. I have always felt that that sentiment is not supported by reason, and such has been the opinion of much greater men who have had to deal with this tax. But though it is not supported by reason it is deeply rooted in the popular mind, and therefore, as far as it goes, it is an objection, and a strong objec tion, to the use of the income-tax as a permanent im post. Necessity drove us to the income-tax in 1842, and necessity has attached us to the use of it. (No, no 1) When I used the word "attached" I meant not as a bride groom is attached to his bride, but as a captive is attached to the car of his conqueror. (Laughter and cheers.) Others may be of opinion that on the whole the income tax is a con venient instrument for raising a revenue ; but I assure my hon. friend and those who think with him that I think great respect is due to the feelings of those who are un doubtedly impressed with the belief that the general ar rangement of the tax is unjust, while I am of opinion that it is incapable of improvement. My hon. friend has shown ,us that this question is one between Schedule A and Sche dule D. I do not regard this as a mere motion for inquiry, because after his speech it is impossible to separate the in quiry he asks for from this proposal itself. The case, I say, lies between Schedules A and D, because Schedule C can scarcely be taken into account when we consider its num bers. I think my hon. friend was not successful when deal ing with the case of the fundholders when he reminded us of the act which provides that no tax shall be levied on divi dends paid on money lent for the public cor venience. It may be that in form you have not kept faith with the pub lic creditor, but in everything else you have ; because laying the tax on the dividend is mere machinery. You have merely required him to pay the same proportion of his in come as any other person pays, and no more ; but, with the law before him, my hon. friend proposes to act in a manner that would not be in accordance either with its letter or its spirit. He is sailing very near the wind. Before the house comes to the conclusion that the arrangement of the income tax ought to be altered in the manner propo'ed bylmy hon. friend. I would entreat them to consider what we did in 1853. The Government of Lord Aberdeen was then in office. It was thought that a part of the burden ought to be removed from incomes which were the produce of exertion, and put upon incomes which were not the produce of exer tion ; and the Government did that in the first place by exempting from income tax within certain limits—one sixth—whatever portion of income might be applied for life insurance. And here I :would say that my hon. friend ought to take salutary warning . from his own abjection. This I as ph tat A@ priimplo did, to a comiclorakdo extent, attain the object and did not involve in it any unsafe tendency of operations. But my hon. friend and the house should recollect that it was with reference to this precise subject—not the question between land and personalty, but between fixed property and those incomes which do not pro ceed from fixed property—and for the purpose of reducing the balance, that the Succession Duty Act was introduced. There was an opinion which received countenance from former Governments and prevailed widely in the house and country, that the burden of taxation as a whole was such that it called for some increased relative burden on fixed property. It was for the purpose of meeting that feeling that the Succession Duty Act was introduced. Wo said, " We know not how to reconstruct the income-tax, but we can apply a means for increasing the relative burden on fixed property. ' I think the passing of the Succession Duty Act may be taken as fairly setting at rest any question of this nature. (Hear.) I hope my hon. friend will also bear in mind that we were in hopes we had got rid of what aro called questions of class legislation. He knows very well that no plan of this kind has ever obtained authoritative support. It was pressed upon Mr. Pitt and Sir R. Peel, and rejected by them as entirely impossible. This house appointed a committee to examine into the subject. The committee sat for two years and made no report, and the only plan sub mitted to the committee has been condemned to-night by my hon. friend himself. Gentlemen of the highest intelli gence, who were thoroughly conversant with the subject, went into that committee predisposed to some alteration, but they came out of it thoroughly convinced that the thleg was impracticable, and, if practicable, would be mis chievous. (Cheers.) My hon. friend ought to bear in mind that this is, after all, a question which sets class imme diately in conflict with class. l It is a question, " You shall pay more—l shall pay less." The mode in which he would give effect to the principl e is most objectionable, and the prin ciple itself is fraught with danger to the country. The House of Commons has been at all times ready to adopt every practicable method for lightening the operation of the income-tax in those cases where it bears most hardly. To such cases as I have mentioned—those of the poorest payers of the tax—the attention of the house may be directed with advantage, without the slightest apprehension of introduc ing a dangerous principle in operation. But Ido hope that while the house retains the anxiety to apply practical re medies in cases of hardship, they will remember the great ' social dangers which arise from agitation and the excite ment of expectations which cannot be fulfilled, and likewise the enormous, importance of the fiscal instrument with which they are undertaking to meddle. (Hear, hear.) These objections appear to me to apply in the fullest force to the plan of my hon. friend. That plan, as I say, is stamped on the motion which is made for a committee of inquiry, and the Government, believing that no good could arise from a committee of inquiry so undertaken, but that it must result either in evil or disappointment, cannot do otherwise than recommend the house to put a negative on the motion of my hon. friend. (Cheers.) . Mr. WHALLEY, who rose amid loud cries fora division, expressed his regret that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not had the opportunity of replying to his plan, because it was entirely free from all the objections made to the plan of the hon. member. It was simply that such portion of the revenue as was required to be raised by a property and income tax should be raised in the same mod o and on the same principles as the poor-rate. The bills for the proven • tion of adulteration and the punishment of forgers of trade marks had become necessary from the wholesale demorali sation of the trading classes, which had resulted from the income-tax. In answer to the observations of the Chan cellor of the Exchequer that the Succession Duty Act was a sufficient settlement of the question between landed and personal property, ho reminded the right hon. gentleman that the Constitution of the colliery from the earliest period recognised land as the solo source from which the burdens of the State should be defrayed. Mr. HUBBARD, in reply, complained that the, Chan cellor of the Exchequer had not treated the question before them on its merits, but had endeavoured to meet the force of the arguments which he had used by a mere reference to the effect which might be produced bn particular classes. He (Mr. Hubbard) had deprecated invidious references to extreme cases, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was sorry to say, had not thought proper to take the same course. The right hon. gentleman endeavoured to get up a feeling of sympathy for the fundholders, as persons in the position of women and children and small 'annuitants ; but it was not statesmanlike to single out individuals and claim on their behalf the rejection of a measure like the present, as if it were calculated to benefit rich landlords only. (Hear, hear.) He wished the house to understand he did not desire to confine the committee to his own that thought he had sufficiently guarded himself frona plan. -nation ; but the truth was, that his right hon. any such imps. . ve been satisfied whatever course he friend would not • lie had simply asked for a committee might have taken. It have referred to Mr. Hume's his right hon. friend won't' little it was able to do after committee, and pointed out how . ht forward a scheme sitting.fer two years. •He had bro:.s old that to grant a that was plain and feasible, and he was committee would be to identify it with his I!Zheme, and that the house ought not to commit itself in that viZ.V. (Hear, hear.) The house knew the terms of the motion which he had submitted, and it was en the terms of that motion alone that he asked them to decide. (Hear, hear.) Sir S. NORTHCOTE rose amid loud cries of "Divide." He only wished to explain to his hon. friend who had just spoken the course which he should feel it is duty to pursue if he pressed his motion to a division, and to express the hope that after the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the expression of feeling on the part of the house, he would not ask them to divide. (Hear, hear.) The nature of the proposal his hon. friend had made was one that it would be quite impossible to carry out to a satisfactory re sult. They could not separate the appointment of the com mittee from a favourable reception of his plan, and he could not shut his eyes to the fact that there were many objections to the adoption of that plan. (Hear.) The inequalities to which it would give rise were sufficiently obvious. Take the case of Schedule D, in which his hon. friend proposed a reduction of 33 per cent. Schedule D included incomes not only from trades, but professions ; but a great income derived from a trade in which a large capital was employed would be put on the same footing with that received by a lawyer, who by a day's ill-health might be deprived of his income altogether. (Hear.) His hon. friend had discharged his conscience by bringing forward this subject, and had given the house an opportunity of considering his scheme. He hoped he would be satisfied with having done so, and not put his friends to the pain of voting against him. (Di vide, divide.) The lions° divided, when the numbers were.— For the motion Against it Majority .. ---4 The announcement of the numbers was received with loud cheering. BURIAL OF DISSENTERS. Sir M. PETO aObtained leave to bring in a bill to make further pro vision with respect to the burial of persons not being members of the Church of England as by law estab lished. BOROUGH FRANCHISE. Mr. BAINES, in rising to move for leave to bring in a bill to extend the Parliamentary franchise in the boroughs of England and Wales, said that the object of the bill was single and simple—viz., to extend the franchise which was fixed by the Reform Act of 1832 at £lO to £6, according to the bill proposed by the Government last year. His belief was that such a measure might be discussed, by this house with greater advantage than in the form of those great and comprehensive measures hitherto introduced. He had not intended saying anything on the merits of his bill, for he had reason to hope its introduction would not be re sisted. But, after the observations of the noble lord at the head of the Government at an early period of the evening, the tendency of which was to discredit and impede motions such as the present, and after the observations of the right hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli), the house would, he trusted, in fairness allow him to offer a few observations on the remarks of those distinguished persons. He must express his great regret at the tone which the noble lord (Palmerston) had adopted on the question of reform, upon which the noble lord had come into office. Mr. HARDY rose to order. He wished to know whether the hon. gentleman was in order in referring to a speech made in a debate on another subject. The SPEAKER—The hon. member will bear in mind that the noble lord in his speech referred to two measures, only one of which was then before the house. (Cheers.) Mr. BAINES said he was replying to observations made by the noble lord, in anticipation of his motion. He re • peated that he regretted the tone of the noble lord. One might have supposed that a Minister sincerely attached to that cause on which his Government was based, if he had not thought it wise or expedient to bring forward a measure himself, would still think it his duty to the principles he espoused not to throw obstructions in the way of pri vate members. (Cheers.) The noble lord's first objection was that these measures would interfere with the other business of Parliament. He stood in the midst of mem bers who had had more experience than himself, but he challenged the' noble lord, whose experience extended over half a century, to adduce a single session in which a measure like the present could be more conveniently introduced. What great and absorbing question of public interest was about to demand their attention ? There was a Bankruptcy Bill before the house, 50 clauses of which were agreed to in a single night, and which was likely to pass before Easter. What other measure was before Par liament ? What question involving foreign danger or do mestic crisis existed that need prevent the discussion of his bill ? The noble lord made another objection. He said it was not expedient for private members to introduce ques tions of reform. But he would ask the noble lord to look around him on the Treasury bench and see whether almost every man there had not first introduced as a private mem ber those reforms which he afterwards as a Minister car ried to a successful issue. (Hear, hear.) The noble lord the member for the city of London in 1819, eleven years before he took office, asked for leave to bring in a bill on the subject of Parliamentary Reform, having reference to the borough of Leeds. Did not that noble lord also move for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts when he was out of office ? The same might be said of most of the great questions of late years. He knew that these measures had been intro duced by men of distinction and talent, while himself and his hon. friend (Mr. L. King) were very humble in position. Still that did not affect the principle. Did not Lord Grey i n troduce a measure of reform 40 years before h e carried rt out as a Minister? Did not Mr. Wilberforce for 20 years urge as api ivate member the abolition of the slave trade yrs ? r . Pitt, very question e s R t o i Richmond, ofm o p n a d r , i it s n d e n o i t ahreyr Reform eminent w ra h e e n n supported l‘l out of office. Mr. Plunkett brought in a bill for Catholic Emancipation when he, too, w as out of office. Did not the hon. members for Rochdale and Birmingham contend in that house for the abolition o f th e corn aws years before any official members took up the question ? (Hear, hear.) The greatest measures h a d been, in fact, introduced by those who were not in office, and forced up on those who were in office. But th en i t was said Parliamentary Reform ought to be treated, as a great and comprehensive question. tza t ted it ? iz Zasit After what they had seen,could it continue to be so not because it had .been thus treated failed —b ecause it attacked xoPY Ult*-1 rests and prejudices ? He very much doubted whether the time had not come w] aen Parliament would see an end of great and comprehensive measures on this subject. Take the disfranchisement 4 ,f the small boroughs and the redis tribution of seats. Did not every one see that these small boroughs would be it npediments in the way of carrying a great and comprehensive measure, and that they would so continuo for many ; years ? What constitutional means existed of overcomi: eg the objections of the proprietors 1 1 He asked whether n dorm had not many distinct parts, and whether they might not with advantage and ease be treated distinctly—whether,. indeed, the house was not more likely to arrive at a cool, dispassionate, and safe conclusion by taking them separately rather than all together. (Hear, hear.) There was the borough franchise separate from the county franchise, and both were separate from the mode of voting, either secretly or openly. Then there was the dis franchisement of those boroughs which were thought un worthy to retain two representatives, and many other ques tions.bearing on reform might bo treated with advantage by .separatinithem from each other, and by giving each a distinct consideration. (Hear, hear.) It appeared to him,. lookin,y, "to the state of parties, that they had gone beyond the time when great and comprehensive measures were likely to be carried, and if there was to be a practical reform in this cou'atry it must be presented, examined, discussed, and decided ooint by point. (Hear, hear.) The noble lord the member fGT London had made use of a figure much re pea,ted since. The noble lord had said that a great wave of public favour was,requi red to carry a measure of reform over the bar of tilie House of Lords. That might be the case if it was one of those great comprehensive measures—a first-rate ship of the line, or Qtteen's ship, but a small' barque might find water enough to float it over the bar and might afterwards obtain a safe anchorage in the Constitu tion. (Hear, and a laugh.) The right hon. gentleman opposite had been pleased to make himself merry withthose private and independent members who were so arrogant as to presume to offer to the house a measure of this kind, and the term he applied to them was that of "hucksters." He really wondered that the right hon.. gentleman, who had himself for all but two years of his. pu blic life been a "huckster," should have cast that im putation on private and indepen dent members ; and when the right hon. gentleman entered on a Governmental branch of trade he did not carry it on with so much advan- tage as to be entitled to assume so high a tone with private members, for in a very short period his Governmental business termimtted in bankruptcy. The right bon. gen tleman seemed quite at a loss to understavd the motives - which influenced hint and the member for Bost Surrey to persevere with measures . of this nature; but the answer was so simple that he was ashamed to trouble the house with it. He earnestly believed in the truth of the prin ciples of reform. It wn because he was a Reforwer—be cause there were rights *filch ought to be redressed, that he having special information bearing on the subject, and see ing that it was the determination of the Government not to bring forward any measure of reform, felt it in the light of a duty to introduce the bill which he now offered to the house. The question of reform and of the rights of the people, and the wrongs of those excluded from the fran chise, were the same this year as in last year. (Hear.) Therefore, if others failed in their duty, or, being differ ently circumstanced, thought it no longer their duty to bring forward measures of this kind, he did not see why private and independent members should be prevented frOut doing so. That they were founded on good princi ples would not be denied in that house, inasmuch as the two points embraced in his bill and the bill of the hon. member for East Surrey were taken from the measure introduced by the Government last year. (Hear, hear.) To the objection urged by the noble lord at the head of the Government and also by the noble lord the member for London, that the country did not want reform (hear, hear), he answered that nothing was more certain than that the deliberate opinion of the people of England was in favour of reform (" Hear," and some cries of "No "), and that that opinion would sooner or later find expres • sion ; and carry a memure of reform to a triumphant issue. (Hear, hear.) Could this be doubted when during the last nine years reform had been brought forward by four successive Governments, and - when the extension of the rights of the people had been recommended by the Queen front the throne? Could it be doubted, above all, after the :last general election, which took place on the lone Of reform or no reform, or, at any rate, on the issue of Lord Derby's reform or Lord J. Russell's reform ? It was well known that Lord John Russell sketched out his plan of re form, and the very point on which it differed most from the plan of the right hon. gentleman opposite was in regard to the borough franchise, which the present bill sought to ex tend. He might then, say that the Government of the day stood on the basis of an extended borough franchise. (Hear.) It was not consistent, and he did not know that it was right, in the Gcru.ernment to give up this question ; but it was their duty, after what had taken place in respect to the manner in which tiley were put into office, to give every facility to indepeno,qnt members in bringing forward point by point those great pt inciples which they had them selves been compelled to abatudon. (Hear, hear.) He be lieved that there was an amount of dissatisfaction arising in the country in consequence of the declaration made by the noble lord the member for London at the opening of the session. He neither blamed nor praised the course taken by . the noble lord on that oceasiori, but he had heard from seve ral quarters that great dissatisfaction had been caused by it.. He knew that a great many of his constituents were greatly grieved by the tone then adopted, and he believed that stiff more dissatisfaction would be created by the tone adopted that night by the noble lord at the head of the Government. (Hear, hear.) The assurances which ho received, both in and out of the house, convinced him that it was the sine cere and earnest desire of a vast number of honest men to have the question of Parliamentary reform brought for ward in the shape in which he and the hon. member for East Surrey now ventured to place them before the house. It was undoubtedly his intention to persevere in coking the assent of the house to the measure which he m0 .,, - ,ed for leave to introduce, because for severed years ii e, not taking an extreme position in politics or om this questisn of reform, had been convinced that the exten sion of the borough franchise was a measure of justice, safety, and true statesmanlike wisdom. He believed that he should be able to prove such an advancement on the part of the people of this country, especially among those dwelling in boroughs, in education, intelligence, and poli tical knowledge—such an iwprovement in religion, in tem perance, providence, and in fact in everything which con stituted men fit to exercise the el:ctive franchise—that it was no longer wise, and he (lid not know that it would be any longer safe, to de2ay the admissioei of the great clash which his bill embraced to the full privileges of the Con stitution. (Hear, hear.) The hon. member conclnded by moving for leave to bring in a bill to extend the franchise in boroughs in,En gland and Wales. . Mr. HADFIELD seeonded the motion. Half the revenue of the country was pa,ki in taxation by the classes who were not represented. that was a state of 'things that, could not be all owe d t o con tinue much longer. With what hcoiluarinttryy, w w o i u t, m an r d em pl e a m y b fu e ln r i e t s a s l s o. the noble lord had treated the subject the h ouse would, no doubt, remember; and the Cllear.) The industrious classes of society could no longer be treated with indif ference. Lord PALMERSTON said—Anyone who had just come Into the house, and who had only heard the observations of my hon. friend who has proposed this mogon, would really imagine that I had announced an intention of opposing it. But so far from that, I distinctly stated I should not op pose either the present motion or that of the hon, member for East Surrey (Mr. L. King). As to the remark).* of my hon. friend on the tone of the observations I made at an earlier period of the evening, his criticism—if I may use the term—is totally misapplied. I am not conscious - of anything in my tone open to the objections he has made. (Hear, hear.) I am not conscious of the hilarity and levity he describes. I certainly did state plainly that the house last session indicated in the most conclusive manner its indisposition—(" No, no," and cheers) —to pass the measure of reform we proposed, which measure combined in itself both the proposals of my hon. friends plus another measure that I thought very likely to be proposed by s other independent member—(hear, hear) —and I atatedfor l a t the decision of the house given by that indisposition— be ill — c w all as i n t a o t d f e o c l i l s o i w on ed , s b in y e a e n i y t led the tion at large of displeasure with th e course the house pur- Zathtitatwi.lalthoef tithe! sued. I stated that my objections to reintroduce the mea sure of last year were two—one as to the point of time, the other in point of substance. I think that a sufficient inter val of time has not elapsed to lead us to suppose that the opinion of the house is much altered ; and, in substance, the two proposals now made approach so nearly the provi sions of the measure the house did not approve, that I do not think either measure is likely to be more successful than the bill we introduced. I stated that the Government had not thought it their duty to bring in this Session the measure of last year. My hon. friend, in the first' place, condemned the Government' for not having brought in a comprehensive measure; but in the further progress of his reasoning, his 'mind appeared to come to a clearer conception of the nature of things—(laughter) — for he then told us it was more particularly the function of private members to introduce reforms of this sort. (Cheers.) But I do not think he held out a very brilliant prospect of, success in the instances he quoted of private members who laboured for a great number of years before they accom plished the ends they had in view. I can only say I do not think his observations apply to the course the Government has adopted. I offered ne objection to bringing in this bill; hut I simply said, we shall not think it our duty to make way for bills like this and that of the hon. member for East Surrey by giving up for them days that may be appropri ated to the public business. (Hear, hear.) Leave was then given to bring in the bill. POST-OFFICE SAVINGS BANK. The second reading of this bill was postponed till Friday. BANKRUPTCY. The report of the committee on the Bankruptcy and In solvency bill was brought up and agreed to. The house adjourned at a quarter to 12 o'clock. • LONDON : Printed and published by MIIRDO YOUNG, at No. 112, Strand, ranter, at THE SUN Office, No. 112,Strand , in the Precinct of the Savoy. in the County of I , licidleseir , Viredneadayi February so, 1801. _ ,-s` ~~- T the , and Nsrep! beai N, bar, 7 'F With and. of flou t Voci SI Wed be - li . Ausl Al GRI Eigl area seen *filo vitt elev , Itall Mon at N 'and 01V bea ter, eft) an, 811 gei