The Press.
London, England, 1853-05-14 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

owners and cultivators of the soil without affording
them any eorresponding safeguard or compensation."
Altered eireumstances and prices since lkV had
made it only just t o the hunter to alter hi' taxes too:
" Half the rent as the criterion of the real stit 1111 l
farmer's income to be made the aubject at taxation wag
fixed in 11411, when the earn lows existed. and wheat ranged
at about (hats., whereas now, in a tone of teniporary. he
feared. bat great prosperity, it might be said tat lw sale ant
4th'. But if one-half were a tiny eriterion iu WV:. surely
nothing more than one.thinl eould be a fair crlivrion n l w."
The ease of the farmers stood upon this plain princi-
ple of truth and justice, that it' their income were
calculated at one half of their rent that was an over-
rated and excessive estimate.
Mr. Butane believed that the. complaint of poverty
and distress among the farmers was now ILA old song
and obsolete ; for he himself thought them vet)
well off :
" Many farmers with two hundred anal fitly acres kept
carriages of one kind or mother—aome with that tallO itaall4o
only ; they followed the hounds, and lived with conitiois—
and, so to speak, with a gentility quite lwyond the way the
man in trade with the apple umotuq of capital lived. The
hon. and learned gentleman lcul drawn one of tilose old
pictures about agricultural distress Willett haul been, he
thought, oblitenited for ever. They really must put a stop
to these speAlies, anal the subjeet alawiat to he lc: Nits
away. So far from there loving way injustice in charging
the farmer in the same proportions now as in past yl`llll4,
the vevy reverse was the ease; and he considered the MU
vantage of having a fixed maximum was in itself valuta to
large iwr eentage on the whole tax. It' them was way
of doing the saute for the traders they would accept it unani
mously. Why. farming was, he believed, ala tter tx.aale than
any other iu the country at this very moment."
Mr. BANKES, Mr. AOLION KV, Mr. HUME, Mr. MMANS,
Sir .1. V. Suculnr, and other members, continued
the discussion, chiefly by adding their several testi-
monials to, or denials of, the existence of agricaltuval
distress.

---- -
On dividing, the numbers were—
For the amendment
Against
Majority against the arneatintent
The income-tax resolution was thou and agreed
to without further debate.

'TIE LEGACY DUTY.
When the r. solution affecting the legacy duties
came on in its turn before the committee of ways and
means,
The CUANCEMon of the Excareuta, responding to
an invitation given by Mr. Disraeli, gave a prefatory
exposition of the details and the principles of his pro-
posed new tax on successions. Reason anif
mo not
clamour had induced him to suggest the tax. Ang
those reasons he dwelt upon the following
" In the first place it is plaits that the memare is esseu-
tbd to this main condition of the financial MetitillrliS of the
tiovernment—that, as far as in ns we will place a
ffiture Parliament in a condition to part with the income
tax: that we shall lay the gmund and pre pane a train of
(wises which will supply Parliatneat with the means of
dispensing with it, if they shall think tit, at the expinstion
of that term. ((heers.) Another purpose is to provide a
fund by means of which, dining that interval of seven years,
we may catTy into effect great and st%tended measures for
the reml.:sion of indirect taxation. (('hem from llu Micia-
teriul aide.) This is im important and esseutial rup)e,—
Hcar)—but 1 do not hesitate to bay that, behind stud inde-
pendent of all these, there is a purpo•.;e yet more perma-
nent in its character—Howdy, the removal of an anomaly
which is unjust in its nature, which is galling to the public
feeling—Wear, hear)—which liceoLies more and more
ing from year to year, and which we believe it to N. for the
interest of all dismiss§ to settle at once and permanently,
living convinced that the longer you postpone that settle.
ment the more difficult it will be to achieve, and the w -so
will be the terms upon which it will be effected."
Traversing, then, over a wide range of distinctions as
now recognised with regard to property, personal and
real, settled and unsettled. enctunbered or free, mid
examining the incidences upon each of the probate,
legacy, stamp, and other duties, as at present exit-
ing. Mr. Gladstone drew the general conclusion that
the system presented nothing but a spectacle of use-
less complications, unjust inequalities, sitel bUCCCSKi-al
fraud. It was high time to put all straight mid level.
He disclaimed the imputation of having conceived his
budget in a spirit of ly;tility to the laud, and ap-
pealed to the justice of the lauded gentry to support
the legacy duty :
" i wish, withoet any offence, to appeal to the sense of
justice which, from actual expcnience and knowledgeeme n , I sin
min
convinced does, and will, influence many gen tl ,
despite of what they think their own personal- inte!mts,
vote for this tax. 'The ancient fable ran, that when justioc
was banished front other quarters on emth, she still, for a
while, was to be, found among agrieulturists. (14higidor.)
Whether that fable were wisely conceived or not, I may
appeal. I believe, to your sense of justice: and 1 request
you to consider whether, before the tribunal of justice, the
proposition of the Government is one that ought to be ere
teitained. it appears to us, that as cannel maintain
or justify the present state of the law. null as you cannot
abandon soiree of taxation, the wise (*muse is to make
the tax general in its application. It ought to be an eqnal
charge without exception, though with adaptation, made on
all descriptions of property.'

Respecting the ratio of the duty, the Chancellor of
account
non-
rateable
Exchequer entered into some minute particulars,
stating that, as a general principle, the heavier pro-
portion would be made to fall tqu:
o or
rateable pninerty, while rateable prep t
of its peculiar burdens, would he less heavily visited.
This distinction he proposed to substitute for the
unfair one now existing between real or settled pro-
perty Lula utt,.atied iusysouoat
spis.urs to us that to that ilistinetion them is aome.
thing like a principle. that the cleat burden which hills
upon rateable property, whether real or not. in various
forms. is a It-n fair matter to take ferret view when you are
considering the amount at which von shall fix your legacy
duty. or tax masa succession. for these respective) dttatlip•
lions Of property. ( firm% ) ebur prop. mai therefore. wit Ii
respect to rateable property is this. We do not propose to
establish daerent rates Of ditties: lint we peopose that the
person succeeding never shall be eitareisl with those duties
upon any interest in the poiperty higher than his life
interest. nse clfect of this is a matter of computation.
admitting of some latitude of opinion, but I do not think
it will he very far Irmo the mark it' we say that the etteet
of that distimtion, unit some riellateirill aalautages, Will
that rateable 1e.,1101.ty will. oo the whole, pay a wide under
onelialf of the liintey duty paid by property not coining
motor that description."
Reverting to his estimate of two millions as the
K(41111114.. amount of allitiimal rot mow to be antici-
pated when the new Dix eqino into full operation, Ito
entered into some caleulations showing the grounds
on which he had arrived at that stun total, but pith-toed
that a ‘ory small proportion of the amount would in
reality he anima front land. And in all cases the
duty was not to be payable toad twelve months after
the demise of the property whereon it was charged.
After concluding his expoii Mr. Gladstone replied
to sundry queries tottelting various points in his
scheme, and the further debate was adjourned to
Friday &yesterday).
SECONDARY MTN' Sil MEN TS.
Earl GREY on Tuesday detailed to the House of
Lords the resnits of his own long experience touch-
ing the system of transrortntion and other secondary
punishments. Admitting the numerous difficulties
that surrounded the question, and the necessity of ab-
staining in future from transmitting coronets to certain
colonies, and especially to Van Diemen'a Land,whielt
had heretofore coustituted the main outlet for the
eriminnls sentenced to removal front their native
land, the noble earl maintained nevertheless that it
was absolutely indispensable to preserve, and employ
occasionally, that species of punishment. lie in
sisted also on the necessity of renaming its actual
infliction, after sentence to that effect ball berm
passed, more certain titan it was at. present.. On this
pint he accused the Government of having violated
the spirit if not the letter of the law, by abolishing
transportation in practice, though they still retained
the name as a principal item in the list, of penal
awards. Titus the law itself became disperaged,
tit,. effect of a judicial sentence, either by way of terand
ror or warning, was neatly effaced :
To tletermitio that tninsportstion should no longer
imply ultimate removal from this country, yet to coat' e
in the courts of law solemnly to sentence convicta to Ire
transported beyond the seam for seven or fifteen years. to'
for the term of their natural lives—to ItHOW thaw
tenet.* to be considered its nttorly unmet ttt i t and that
tninsportat hot should not in futurt• imply di 'siltation at
all—to come to that, decision, upsetting the policy winch
tor IWO 0.111116 CH 1111.11 la-en acted upon by the t loActiente•tet.
awl Parliament of this country, to ti' . that step without
mithewity, or the saoction, et ill,• concurrence ill any
way of Parliament. was, he was humid tie say, in his HO-
-16011, to go Iwyond the legitimate powers mid ditties a
t Weir alto held for the tinie being the executive powers elf
the country. (Near.)"
inferring from a variety of symptoms and circum-
stances that the Ministry intended to persevere in
their course, and dilating upon the injurious conse-
quences that must. follow the pir.etice t f keeping
all our convicts at. home, Earl Grey moved an ad-
dress to the Crown—
" mom that tar Majesty sill te eraelotAy pleased to
latent
of that the arrangement w!d• respect to the punishment
••f senteneed to transportsnon. which were In fin ••••
they Year 101:4, buoy net Is',•Lautteel in stela a wanner as to to, •
tent the ultimate removal of such offenders f this Cunntl)•
Until a fall aeroaat of any contemplated alteratisof in the above
arraaemacets Amu bleVi• b 4.4.11 tell I before Parliament, and till
Perlisment. shell Woe kid au opportunity of eomilderiug the
measures It may he Intended to adopt liato. iourly to their heing
earried into ef‘4,ention."
The Earl of ABERDEEN denied that his 4 oyt 111-
ment had violated, or designed to violate, the law re-
specting transportation. They were ('idly aware of
the value of that punishment, and meant to retain it,
hut were met by practical difficulties which Karl
Grey was himself chiefly unental in creating.
Van Diemen.* Land had been the chief outlet for
convicts, and that was now closed through his mea
stars and promises when Colonial Secretary. The
great object now was to find substitutes among our
other dependencies, and thus they did not despair of

doing
"No doubt the field is diminisheil. ltnt there are
manta that still remain. awl I think that by a gikal athninia•
tration at home the number of com ids tran+ported may
be su diminished es possibly w Ina weans ut accommo•