The Press.
London, England, 1853-06-25 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

Mr. FIJIAN regretted that a measure so offensive
should have been offered to the Legislature. He
gave the mover and supporters of the bill all credit
for their good intentions, especially in having excluded
all specific attacks upon Roman Catholic establish-
ments from its pr►visoes. But this, he declared, was
not sufficient. The Roman Catholics still felt them-
selves injured and insulted. Mr. Fagan then de-
tailed, with much minuteness and many laudations,
the formalities which surrounded the conventual
system, and argued that it was altogether impossible
for any case of personal restraint to exist of such
nature as to demand or to justify legislative inter-
ference.
Mr. NAPIER, approving of the purpose for which
the bill was framed, aril by no means believing that
it deserved to be called cowardly or unmanly, feared
that it would not carry out that purpose effectually,
and therefore wished for further deliberation. Con-
sequently he supported the ainendment. His chief
objection was that the bill, while providing a remedy
for violent restraint applied to the person, did not
touch the question of the compulsory disposition of
property ; and he spoke at some length to show the
importance of that question, the frequent instances
in which redress was desirable, and the ►ncompetency
of the existing laws and tribunals to afford it.
Lord J. Itusssi.i. atnu►nnoed his discovery that the
bill was objectionable both as respected its assump-
tion of evils to be remedied and of the remedy it pro-
vided for them. Of the first it set forth no positive
statement, nothing but general allegations, unsup-
ported by farts. But the remedy was still less de-
fensible :

I own I should be much astonished if the house were
ever to consent to the passing of such a measure. it does
nut indeed empower the Secretary of State to mune per-
lams who shall visit those convents ; but it does empower
the Lord Chancellor—who, besides being a great judge, is
likewise a member of the Executive tioveniment—to
name commissioners ; and any one of those eommissioners,
on seeing reasonable ground to suppose that any remade is
detained in any house or building against her will, is em-
powered and required, with tho assistance of the justices
of the peace, to make finvible entrame into such a build.
ing. I ask, whore is the safety of our houses alter such a
provision ? I speak not now of convents, or of detention
in convents; but, I say, what oppression may be exercised
if a commissioner named by the Lord Chancellor—and we
know not what Lord Chancellor we may lave--is to be em-
powered, and even required, to break into any house in
which he has—not on any affidavit, not on the testimony
of any witnesses examined on oath—but on what, in his
own wind, he considers reasonable ground to suppose that
a female is detained against her will ? I have no doubt
that, putting aside altogether this question of convents,
there are at the present moment, and indeed at all times
this country, some houses—private houses—where
there may be persons who, others might say, were de•
tallied against their will. But at no time has the Legisla-
ture thought tit to set aside that general rule of law, that
sacred part of the constitution which protects the private
houses of Englishmen, and which is embodied in the com-
mon phrase that every Englishman's house is his castle.
(Hear.) To endeavour to provide, us is proposed by this
bill, for these chance or aocidental cases, would be, by
way of endeavouring to secure the liberty of the subject, to
set up a tyranny. (Hear, hear.) I therefore could have
no hesitation iu voting against the second reading of this
bill."
Respecting the amendment the noble lord declared
that he could not admit even sufficient basis whereon
to found a committee of inquiry ; ail the allegations
were so vague. Further, there were faculties inhe-
rent in every subject of full age to bind him, or her,
self for three, or even thirty, years, and thus effec-
tually to part with their liberty by a voluntary act
which the law as it stood recognised and sanctioned.
Without changing, therefore, the general system, and
so interfering with personal liberty in one sense, it
WAS imposible to devise any means of securing per-
sonal liberty in another, as proposed by the advocates
of the present bill. In relation to property, on which
Mr. Napier had enlarged so strongly, the case was yet
stronger. Either the evils existing required to be
dealt with by some comprehensive law, or it was un-
just to interfere at all. He would not consent to
partial legislation.
Mr. Moons denounced the whole affair from be-
ginning to end. The bill, he said, was a prevarica-
tion in its very title. The first reading had been
secured by a pettifogging fraud ; and it had been
argued, supported, and agitated for " with an amount
of insincerity and dishonest seeming which the
measureless hypocrisy of this pharisee of nations
could alone have supplied." (Laughter.) All Boman
Catholics, he declared, knew that their relations were
happy and safe in the conventual establishments.
None but Protestant bigots could entertain a suspi-
cion of undue interference, to say nothing of incar-
ceration. There had not Leen a case made out fur
the bill sufficient, in legal parlance, "to hang a cat."
He believed that the nuns were as free as any mem-
ber of Parliament—and freer than some—between

their "whips " and their constituencies.
Mr. WARNER liked the bill because it recognised the
fact that the priestly power was advancing, and that
it was the duty of Parliament to vindicate the supre-
macy of the civil law.

178

ME. HENCHY promised to vote against the bill, and
Mr. It. PALMER in favour of the amendment. MI6

COMMIX objected to both.
Mr. CHANNERS replied. He had heard much elo-
quence but no arguments which even touched the
principle of his bill. He had been asked for het-,
and he had founded his measure entirely upon a
basis of fact, though not in the narrow sense enter-
tained by many hon. members, not on a single fact
picked up here and there, and to which the obvious
reply would be that they were merely exceptional:—
" He tested his CON upon the general result of all the
literature of the Church which established convents, sud
upon all codes, MIMIC ordinances, Mlnd decries of emu-
ells, emperors, legislators, and statesmen who had been
living in the land where convent* were established.
(('heers.) He rested it upon the last and met authorita-
tive council of the Homan Catholic Church, which had to
tied with the very evil the exislesee of which he was nut
bound to prove, but the iodises liability to which he
*Kneed. If this were it less*n lovely if historical iii-
vestigation, whether persona were sselnded in these eau&
lialiments of their own free will, or were the victims of
hardship anti injustice, he would have the hon. member
for Edinburgh, Lord Mahon, Prescott, and Hallam, put
in a library, and on the shelves should be ranged the wit-
nesses on whose test cony the ease should he decided.
And who were the witnesses'? Authors of the current
literature of a thousand years, tram the sixth to the six-
teenth century—poets, philueopheni, analysts, divines of
all ranks. from the Pontiff to the mendicant Mara. Aud
what had they writteu? He would set amide every witness
against whom there could be suggested any blau, He
would eliminate from that groat mass of testimony all to
which reasonable or unreasonable exception could be
taken. And did any man presume to tell hitu that in the
educated assembly which he had the honour to address
there was one who would nut blush, in the presence of the
illustrious council he hail assembled in unaginathst, to
hint a doubt that the feet, as he had Mated it, was made
out to every mind competent to understand the fume of
argument, Mid to appreciate it ? (Hew, hear. )"
Sir °minor: Barre intended to oppom both the se-
cond reading and amendment. Sir JOHN PAKINOTOM
decided to vote against the bill, in order that he
might vote for the amendment.
The house then divided:—
For the second reading
Against 207
Majority —29
Six o'clock having arrived, the house rose without
deciding upon the fate of the amendinend, which now
stands as the substantive question before it.
On Thursday the further discussion of the subject
was postponed for a month, by consent.

INCOME TAX.

The second reading of the Income-tax Bill wee
proposed in the House of Lords on Tuesday by the
Earl of Anzenzze, who recapitulated some of the
sums total of revenue and expenditure as set forth in
the budget-speech of the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer. After eulogising that speech and its author,
the noble earl rested the proposal to renew a tax
whose burdensome and inqtdiutorial character he
fully admitted upon this chief reason—that they
could not do without it. Hereafter, however, things
might look better; and he entered into some calcula-
tions tending to show that the revenue of the country
in future years promised so to improve an to enable
the house, if it pleased, to fulfil the programme
drawn out by Mr. Gladstone, and allow the income tax
to he reduced successively to Od. and bd. in the pound
at the termination of two and four yearn from the
present date, and cease entirely at the end of the
seven yearn' lease. Alluding to the plan suggested
by the late Government for graduating the incidence
of the tax, the noble earl stated that, after much de-
liberation, all schemes for that purpose had been
rejected as impracticable ; and ended by declaring
that, while they asked for a renewal of this tax as it
stood, they had provided for the remission of a large
mass of taxation in such modes as should he most
beneficial to the great body of the people, and add
most to their comforts.
The Earl of DEUDY was so well convinced of the
necessity of the tax that he would not oppose its re-
newal. At the same time, he believed that necessity
to have been in a great degree self-created by the
present Government, and also that the House of
Commons had been induced to adopt it by the lure
held out to the Liberal section of a new impost on
real property. Without contesting the arithmetical
conclusions to which Lord Aberdeen had arrived, and
of which there were no means of checking the accu-
racy, lie submitted that at best they were entirely
hypothetical, and that the proposal of our obtain-
ing such increase in the aggregate as would more
than make up for the loss upon remission was purely
speculative. The idea of the tax ever ceasing, under
the present system, was mere delusion ; and he believed
that in adopting it now, with all its injustice and in-
equalities, they were submitting to an impost of
which, though nominally granted only for seven
years, neither Lord Aberdeen nor himself would ever
live to see the end.
Lord l'oesaati and Lord BERNERB objected etrongly
to the tax on the score both of the general prin-
ciple and the details.

174

Lord BROUGHAM also pointed out its many anoma-
lies, but consented to accept it under a choice of
evils.

The Marquis of LANSDOWNE expressed his faith
in Ithe possibility of its extinction, notwithstanding
all that had been said on the other side. Taken as a
permanent tax, he allowed the force of the many ob-
jections that were urged against it.
lane bill was read a second time, and went through
committee on Thursday.
" ORNAMENTAL " TIMBER.
The committal of the Successions Bill being re-
sumed on Monday night, a discussion took place on
clause 21, respecting the principle on which house
and woodland property was to be valued for the pur-
poses of this tax, and especially with regard to the
exemptions to be allowed on the score of necessary
outgomga and " ornamental " timber.
pMr. Downtown inquired what basis of estimate
would be laid down for the valuation of trees, and
how it was to he decided whether or no they should
be taxable or exempt under the bill. There were
thousands of trees on the grounds laid out by the
poet Shenstone, and described in the " Leasowes,"
which were in truth invaluable, but whose value de-
pended entirely upon their picturesque position and
poetical associations. Lord Grenville paid enormous
prices for some beeches which were worth little ex-
cept for their situation in the landscape. On the
other hand, a noble lord had 17,000 trees blown down
in one night on a Scotch estate which no one could
he found to purchase even by the trouble of carrying
them away.
Mr. GLADSTONE offered to amend the clause by
changing the word " ornamental " into "timber left
standing for the purpose of ornament."
In the course of the long debate which ensued Mr.
HENLEY objected to the vagueness of the definition
of "necessary expenses ;" to which the SometToo-
GENERAL replied that the words were well understood
and could be exactly defined in a court of law.
Sir J. HANWER found reason to apprehend unli-
mited litigation from the uncertainties involved in
the bill, and asked why, when taxes were taken off
foreign timber, they were to be laid upon our own ?
Sir J. Tmouoro moved some excisions in the
clause, wishing to test the question whether timber
ought to be included in the new tax which the bill
would create:—

" The ingenuity of the Jewish law went to the extent of
taxing mint and eummin, but they never dreamed of taxing
the cedars of Lebanon. (Laughter.) The apostolical
fathers of our Church took even the tenth ear of wheat, but
they never thought of tithing growing timber ; nor had the
latter ever been rated to the relief of the poor. (Hear,
hear.) Besides, it would be exceedingly difficult to define
what was taxable timber, or to say what was fur ornament
and what fur shelter. There were places where the cut.
Ling down of trees would render the land utterly valueless.
If, for instance, the timber were removed from places on
the coast of Norfolk, the soil would be absolutely blown
away. He also saw objections to the mode in which it
was proposed to levy the tax. Great injustice would be
done by this clause, and discouragement shown to those
gentlemen who now took a pride in improving their estates
and ornamenting the country, by planting timber. (Hear,
hear.)"
The CHANCELLOR Of the EXCHEQUER pleaded that,
as matters stood, large quantities of timber fell under
the legacy duties, were valued and taxed without dif-
ficulty or injustice (except sometimes to the Exche-
quer), and that the amount of the tax after all was
little more than nominal :

" But the question they had to decide was whether thit-
her should be exempted altogether from the operation of
this tax. (Hear, hear.) He did not mean to say that it
was vital to the financial efficacy of this measure that tim-
ber should be taxed, and he had already stated what a
small sum would be derived from it. But it was a pies-
tion of principle more than anything else, and, without
exaggerating its importance, he must say he thought that
the committee ought not to strike out timber front the bill.
It would be better to meet the difficulty of the ease by in-
serting such provisions as might be thought necessary for
preventing abuses of the law relating to the liability of
timber. His plain reason was this, that, however uncer-
tain timber might have been in former times, considered
as • mercantile commodity, it had of late years become a
merchantable commodity to a great extent. (Hear, hear.)
There were many places in England and Scotland where
timber was as good and certain a source of income from
the estate as any part of the estate whatever. He, there-
fore. did not think it would he wise in the committee, if it
intended to maintain impartiality. to exempt timber from
the operation of the bill. (Hear.')"

The discussion still continuing,
Mr. C. BRUCE remarked that 1)r. Johnson had re-
proached the Scotch with the nakedness of their
land. They had since endeavoured, by extensive
timber plantation, to do away with that reproach, and
now came the Chancellor of the Exchequer with a
tax upon them for their pains.
The SOLICITtiR-GENERAL proposed, by way of com-
promise, that certain words should be inserted in the
clause limiting the taxable amount only to that
which should be actually received for timber and
trees felled and sold during the term of the succes-
sion.
Various practical objections having been urged
against the adoption of this middle course,