The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-04-17 00:00:00

THE BUDGET SUMMARISED.

Mr Ilepworth Dixon, who was received with cheers, said
Ladies, Mr. Mayor, my lords, and gentlemen, thanks, mere
thanks, though they were wide and deep as wards could bear
there, would le a poor offering in exchange for such hospi-
tality and such kindly welcome us you, the citizens of Liver-
pool, have showered upon us, the seivants of literature, and
most of all upon that great servant of literature who is yiair
illustrious guest to-eight. " Bear, hear," and cheers Now,
some of those wits who have, fortunately for themselves, ad-
vanced a lit. le higher in civilisation than we have—l mean
the kindly humeurists of America—have a pleasaet way of
bantering us English people upon the particular method we
adopt of doing honour to men of genius by asking them to
dinner (A laugh ) They do not mean iu that gild-
fashioned way in which all kliollyolisposed people were
recommended whenever they met with an author to sup-
pose that he was a hungered, and go at once mei feet him.
-A laugh.) No ; they have a slyer and more serious malice
bathe way in which they look upon our proceedings. They
say of course in the most civil possible form, "Vail EOlflitill
see a prae. Mal people, eating and drihking are the main
bluffness of life, and your notion of the fount of homier is a
tureen 41 turtle soup." (A laugh.) Now, there is someth tug
in that sarcasm of our neighbours we may as well look at in
the face. It is our way. Some of us are sorry to think
that it is almost our only way, sad that when great honour
is intended by the popular heart and mind to be conferred
upon a man of great intellectual merit, the ready bee.ee
almost the only may 10 which the pr-pie of this mime rY ean
Fee a diroct nut to do what they Wkil l 0 do, tail. She hini a
dinner ( A laugh. 'it..., ladies and gentlemen, I win nut
going to fall out and quarrel like the lion in the story, with
my bread and butter. lam myself very weak on the points
of treats and wines, especially when the meat and wines are
of the kind upon which we have beee feeding to-
night. I think that a banquet is a very noble
pastime, and when the banquet is held in Sr. George's-
hall, enchanted witn lights and coloured with youth and grace
and beauty, awl adorned .d glorified by music and by wit
and humour like this, why it rises to a positive art, and I
cannot help thiliking, when ene %oinks seriously upon what
we make a banquet :erve, that we have got an amount .1
public function out of the knife and fork which no nation
has ever been reduced to the necessity of inventiog.
,Laughter and cheers ) Now Chose kindly and facetious
critics who twit UR about our philosophy of the knife and
fork, and the amount of public duty, the amount of public
recognition wh•ch we free upon the keife and fork, have
certainly something to say for themselves. Clearly, this
method of appreciating and rewarding great intellectual
service is not the way adopted by our neighbours. Now I
recollect passing only a few data ago through Berlin. I
there hiquired for my old friend Reinhald Pottle& Reinhold
Poulhe is a German gentleneus, fortunately for himself—a
German gehtlenian who has written a history of Enelartd, a
most admirable book, scenery scholar knows, founded upon
original research, upon the consultation of original docu-
ments ; and when I happened to inquire in a public
draw interotim for Reinhold Poulhe, I WAS fOld must go and
inquire for him in the Senate, (OR he hail been called to the
l'pper House by the King of Prussia, mainly on the ground
that he had written that admirable history of Engle.
(Applause) ; and I could not help thinking that it was a
very fortunate thing for Reinhold Poulhe, supposing that
he cares for being a senator at all, that lie was a German
and not an Englishman. Now there was living in our society
ill LOl.lOll, a few years ago, a most humorous and admirable
gentleman, whose conversation, and curious 11.1141
always charming, made him the delight of every sonety into
which he entered. ilis name was Washington Irving.
(Applause.) In this country he represented our great plant,
tion that wondrous republic which has grown lip on the other
side of the Atlantic Ocean. If that man had been an English
Washington Irving—and I think that probably the Ettglish
Washington Irving is in this room at this moment, the man
who is the English Washington Irving and a great deal more;
and yet I suspect that if any of you were to thud it repotted
as an fin dit in your new spatters to-morrow. that that English
Washington Irving had been gazetted as English Ambassotior
at Washington, I suspect you woulil all say " It is a joke."
Now why would It be a joke? You have all been reading in
the newspapers this week that Mr. Motley is very likely
to come to Nfitgland to represent his country in London.
(Applause ) I believe there is not one mail in 500 amongst
the intelligent poi thou of English society who does not
rejoice that that original and great and brilliant netter is
coming over here to represent his country. (Applause.
But suppose Mr. Motley were an Englishman and not an
American, and it were suggested that is the infinite Mill-
:nutty into which a mere official polity has got us in our
intereoerse beyond the Atlantic, some man who had the
sympathy of both countriex—a man who had gone to the
hearts of intcrical,s as he hail gone to the hearts of English-
. men—shou.4l be sent over, ano by the magic of that common
sympathy which he had previously evoked, and which he
had shewn the power to eviike•iierl con inns, make up this
quarrel, you would say, no doutie7 it is quite right to send
. him ; butt am sure you would say, if he wished to go, he
has not the remotest chance of getting his commission. Well,
, now, why should that be/ I will tell you why it la—l cannot
tell you why it should be, for it should not be. That items-
siiility arises from this f let—that you are not governed hy the
actual living powers of ourpreseut society. You are governed
by an official formaltm, which is the mere tradition of a lone-
liest life. (cheers and interruption.. Gentlemeit, pardon me,
hut if you are Of a different opinion, this iso free hall Cheers.,
I say that we are goverued—that we are ruled by the eircuntlo-
cotton mike, reid by headsof depart meets holdleg outrun vital
sympathy with those two great forces which are matting the
great present and future life of this country—,cheers and
interruption,—fiterature and commerce. We are governed
by officialism anti red-tapeism, which belongs to the pest,
and does not belong truly to the present, but simply clings
to us as a fossil of the obi feudal spirit.--;Cheers, aud cries
of" No, No' ") I am perfectly content to differ with any
gentleman who hohestly differs with tee I say that is try
view. I say that the living force is there net seen—the in-
tellectual element is not seen. Why, the greatest ministers
we have hat lately are intellectual men—they are distill
guished authors even—and yet in Rote of their sympathy
with the intellectual movement of our time they cannot
overcome the inertia of the departments •(4 beers) And
yet, ladies and gentlemen, neither commerce nor li-
terature complain of this. Both enterpree and thought
know what they are about they have their own
duties, and they feel besides that they have their own
exceeding great reward. Will anybody tell me that the
head of any department, or any circumlocution Mike exist-
ing, has a field like our illustrious guest of tonight ? ,Cheers.)
That man has an empire beyond that of the highest monarch
that now lives. ,Cheers.) It has been said that the Queen
of this great empire has a kingdom upon which the sun
never rote; yet her empire, great as it is, Is neither so wide
nor no deep as that of the man who rules in the empire of
your affections and in the kumilem of thought. I.ltieera )
Our guest of to-night has that mighty empire. We are his
very hunoble friends here, but we are received by you with a
kindness which is tiot new to Ille. I have experienced this
before ; anti, while thanaing you in the riame of the many
eminent gentlemen who are members of our profession, 1110
1,0 with a very sharp sense of my inability to do anything
like justice to this great toast. (Applause).
Mr. F. S. Ball propose'! "Our distinguished ViMtors,"
associating with the toast the names of Mr. Alphonse
Esquires, Mr. Andrew Halliday, and the Mayor of Mamhen
ter. The gentlemen named responded.
Lord Boughton then proposed the " Newspaper Press," to
which
Mr. G. A. Sala responded. In doing so he said( I have
not travelled here to make a speech, lad to add nty minutest
mite of a leaf to the chaplet which you heve this evening
placed on the lirow of Charles Dickens—to do honour to the
I' remost writer of English prise, and to an illustrious
Englishman. tthreat cheering.) If I say one word more, it
will beta thank Lord Houghton for the Kind way in which he
has spoken ot the profeosein to which I belong, anti to which
lam proud le belong. (Cheers.) In his early yeuth, the
guest of this evening was a distimpsished mernher of the
press. Renewed cheering.' When I was a ehi•d in petti-
coats, harles Dickens was already a distingu shed press
and when I was sti I a child he had written for the
En-tt,tto Chrontert those "sketches ,(y Boa," which reasi ttlrw
:ts fresh and as vivid as when they were first Binned, more
than thirty years ago. (Cheers. We, the hacks, the penil-
e-liners of the press, are prood of our master, proud of the
man who, once a member of the reporters' gallery of the
Monte of Comnions, has risen until he has meow( tied to the
Chair lately vacated by Sir Walter Scott. Metal I will
say no more; I cari say no more. Of my own personal rela-
tions with Charles Dickens, I will only briefly s. ate that for
twenty years he has been my mute: of letters, and it is
to his fo.tering kindness that I am Indebted for having
been encouraged to take to literature as a profession. tGreat
cheering.)
Mr. Charles Dickens afrin rose, and was twain received
w`th erielarise. lie toil: Gentlemen —for I nitress m 511

The Income-tax is to be lowered from 61 to sd. in
the pound; the duty of a shilling in the quarter now
imposed on foreign corn is to be removed; the tax
on fire insurance is to be altogether remitted ; the taxes
on locomotion are to be greatly reduced ; the tea li-
cense is to be abolished; and the assesatd taxes are the
equalised and lowered. The effect o these changes will
bra diminution of the public burthens by £3,060,000, of
which sum £2940,000 aril]. fall during the present year.
The cases of the income-tax, the corn duty, the fire
insurance duty, and the tea license are very simple.
They are dealt with, in the first instance, by definite
reduction, in the other instances by total remission.
The assessed taxes are in a different podtion. AS
those who pay them know, they are imp...A on male
servants, on carrisges of different descriptions, on
horses, on persons wearing hair-powder, on persons
using armorial bearings, and on horse-dealers. Mr.
Lowe's propeals in regard to them may be briefly
stated. The tax on hair-powder, which brings in
rather less than a thousand a year, he remits alto-
gether. The people who have chosen to soil and dis-
figure themselves or their servants at the cost of
El 3s. Cal. a head will, if Mr. Lowe's proposals be
accepted, be able to do so for nothing. The conse-
quence, probably, will be that instead of powdered
heads multiplying, they will altogether disappear.
A fantastic absurdity, which has been practised
as a sign of wealth, will no longer be indulged in when
poverty can ape it. Mr. Lowe intimated that he
would be glad to get rid in the same way of the tax on
armorial bearings; but not being able to do without
it, he thought it well to make it more useful by in. .
creasing it, or rather by equalising it. Persons who
pay a carriage duty of £3 10s., pay £2 12s. 6d. for
armorial bearings. The charge to others is I3s. 2d. Mr.
Lowe substitutes for these duties a uniform rate of
£1 Is. If the armorial beariegs are painted on a car-
riage, an additional duty of El is. will be levied. From
these changes he expects a benefit to the revenue of
£B,OOO. The carriage duty is also to be equalised.
Carriages with four wheels, anti drawn by two
horses, now pay £3 lffs. They are henceforth to pay
I:2 2s. ; and pony carriages are to be taxed, not accord-
ing to the height of the animal or the size of the wheels
as at present, but by weight, at 155., as gigs. Horse
dealers whose license in London costs £27, and in the
counti y £l3, a distinction which when it was adopted
was relative to the supposed greater magnitude of
London business, will henceforth pay £l2 10s. Male
servants, for whom their employers now pay rates
varying from £1 la to 10s. (11., will henceforth be
charged at the uniform rate of 15s. Mr. Lowe deals
with the taxes on locomotion, repealing the duties on
stage carriages, and the tax of a farthing mileage,
and leaving only the duty on horses, which he reduces
to a uniform rate of lffs. Gil. Hackney coachmen who
have hitherto paid £l9 will henceforth pay £2 2a, or
£3 3s. ; aril in the case of Hansom cabs, only 15s.
'The duty on post-horses is to be abolished. These
changes will no doubt have the effect of bringing a
better class of public vehicles into use than those
which are now employed, and will serve to connect
the lines of railway more closely than at pre,ent with
the ontlying 4 stricts. which now are practically
Revered from them. The relief granted to thg country
in the matter of the assessed taxes is about £420,000.
That derived from the abolition or reduction of other
sites is £2,640,000.