The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-04-06 00:00:00

A FREE BREAKFAST TABLE.

The following letter, in couueeticn with the alterations
proposed in the new Budget, wilt% hue been bent to The
haw; for publication, may PO,E,SS aOme tau, interest just
DOW !•••• _ • •

While I most cordially acknowledge the unrivalled
accuracy and fairness of the report of the Parliamentary
Debates in the case of speakers of all shades of opinion,
I venture to hope that on will allow me, as the only
member who expressed his disapproval of the diminu-
tion of the income-tax until the taxes 013 the breakfast
table vrere abolished, to supplement your excellent re-
port of my speech by sonic of the additional facts and
arguments on which I based my views, and I ask this
indulgence with the more oonfidence as the recess leaves
your columns comparatively free, as I intend not to
add a syllable to what I stated in my speech, while I
will endeavour to compress my observations into nearly
telegraphic limits, even at the risk of perspimity. I
Under the discouragement and difficulty of address- I
ing an impatient and unsympathetic audience, in addi-
tion to the remarks which you have reported, I said
that the working classes would be equally astonished
and disappointed that while three millions was taken
elf the payers of income tax, the manual labour class
only received a doubtful benefit in the shape of •
, peddling reduction in the coffee duties; that we were
! bound in honour, in the face of the country and the
world, to do justice to the majority of the population
not represented in Parliament but that the Budget
was entirely in favour of the rich ; that if the working
classes only paid their fair share in IS7I, then half
the deficiency of £3,000,000 should have been placed
on their shoulders; but if, as the Chancellor of
the Exchequer's course proves, they ought not to have
borne this extra burden, when it was removed they
should have obtained their proportionate share of the
remission of taxation; that America is about to grant
the free breakfast table, and that the atistocratic and
plutocratic House of Commons Slaalld be ashamed to
be less liberal to the poor than the Democratic House
of Representatives of the United States; that tea,
sugar, and coffee lire necessaries because they are uni-
versally given in workhouses and gaols; that it is
contrary to the Constightioti to tax Rime who are not
represented for necessaries; that a large proportion of
the poor are even excused bicat rates; Ont the profit
and expenses connected with the duties on the break-
fast table involved a cost to the consumers of ten mil-
lions, though only yielding £6,300,000 to Government
independently of cost o: collection; that the export
and transit duties on tea in China amounted to 4d. per
pound, while by Treaty they should only be lid. per
pound, and, adding 21. of profit on those duels, the
consumer lost another 611. per pound, all of which
might be saved by compelling the Chinese to observe
the Treaty and abolish our import duty as an ample
equivalent for the export duty, and thus tea might be
sold retail at lid, to Bd. per pound which now costs 2s. ;
that the saving to the people of England by buying
tea at 6d. instead of 2a, would be nine millions sterling,
and if the consumption doubles, as it probably would,
eiffiteen millions sterling; that as the Chinese popula-
tion is about 460,000,000, and an they drink about 10
pounds per head, if we doubled our consumption it
would only be about 21 per cent. on the production,
and would probably not enhance, perceptibly,
the price received by the grower; that to
make up any deficiency in the revenue by the
free breakfast table the wine duties should
be raised to the some rate as the duties on spirits in
Proportion to alcoholic etrength, as the rich should pay
as much for alcohols as this poor ; that publicans'
licences should be adjusted on an ascending scale, re-
taining present unit instead of stopping at £.50 of
rental, so that the man whose rental was £l.OOO should
pay twenty times as much as the man whose rental
! was £5O ; that Clubs should take out licences; that
grocers should be allowed to sell nine and spirits at the
same rate of licence as publicans instead of paying £2B
against £5, by which means another million might be
raised; that the house-tax should be levied on all houses
which, if in London, would be worth £2O, by cubical con-
tents, number of rooms or otherwise, or else on all houses
occupied by persons who paid income-tax and who were
not of the labour clays. That the income-tax should be
remitted to the extent of RlI9 Ds. Hid. (under £100) on
all incomes up to £3OO, and not merely to the extent of
4:80, as those hi receipt of £99 llis. 114 d. are exempt;
and I added that I protested against the reduction of
in the ire-sine-tax in preference to the remission of
the taxes on the breakfast tables as equally unjust and
injudicious, and that I thought it astonishing and dis-
tressing to hear rich members of all parties in the House
of Commons user their turtle and champagne cordially
sanctioning the confiscation of the entire surplus for
the benefit of their class, and doubting whether it
would not he a violation of the Constitution to allow
the wretched out-door pauper, the helpless widow, or
the poor seamstress of Spitallields a cup of untaxed tea
with their crust of dry bread.
Your obedient servant,
J. G. T. Sizzueut.
Knoll-lodge, Malvern Wells, March 27._