The Press.
London, England, 1857-03-21 00:00:00

290

because there will be some items falling in—such as
1,300,0001. of Long Annuities—and there will be a
cessation of the payments, amounting to 2,000,0001.,
on account of the Exchequer Bonds. lam satisfied
to assume that the farther falling, off of 3,000,000/.
of income tax will not increase the deficiency of the
former years. But you have a permanent deficiency
from this year to the amount of no less than
6,500,000/. Is not this a circumstance worthy of
serious consideration? (Hear, hear.) I ask your
lordships what hope can be seriously entertained
that the expectation will be realised that in the year
1860, or at any subsequent period, we shall be
relieved from the intolerable pressure of the income
tax ?
There are three, and only three, modes by one or
all of which we may attain to a balance between
revenue and expenditure. In the first place, this
balance may be obtained by the increased produc •
tiveness of the present taxes; or, secondly, by the
imposition of new taxes ; or, thirdly, by the institu-
tion of a rigid system of economy in the national ex-
penditure. I fear that we may have occasion to
apply to all three.
My lords, I lay great stress upon the elasticity of
the national revenue when it is relieved from the
pressure of the direct taxation that weighs it down.
But it would be folly to suppose that the increased
productiveness of the existing taxes could raise the
revenue to anything approaching 6,500,0001. in the
course of a single year.
With regard to the second mode, I know with what
distaste and disgust the country looks to new taxes
in time of profound peace.
There remains, then, the third mode—a close and
rigid attention to economy, and a strict reduction of
national expenditure. (Hear, hear.) The principal
branches of that national expenditure are, first, th

payment of the national debt, which cannot be

reduced, except by the application of accruing sur-
plus revenue, with due regard to faith towards the
public creditor. Next come the civil establishments,
in which I do not think any material reduction can
be effected; and then come the three great branches
of the army, the navy, and the miscellaneous esti-
mates. My lords, it is in these three branches,
and in these alone, that any considerable reduction
of expenditure can take place. (Hear.) I should be
one of the last to wish to see the military establish-
ments of this country reduced below a state of effi-
ciency. I should be sorry to see them reduced to the
point at which they were kept between the years 1840
and 1850. (Hear.) I think that such a state of our
military establishments is not consistent either with
the honour or the safety of the country. The only
principle which I recommend is that which combines
economy with a due regard to the efficiency of the
public service, and that which I am most anxious to
vindicate and support is the necessity of keeping
your military and naval establishments as strong as
you can in all that relates to military science, in all
which cannot be produced on the spur of the
moment or in the efflux of a moderate space of time,
of placing your army in that• state of efficiency in
which it is the duty of the Government and of the
country to place it—organically strong, but numeri-
cally as low as is consistent with the duties it has to
perform in time of peace. (Cheers.) I lay this
down as a principle, but I shall not pretend to enter
into details on this subject.
With regard to the miscellaneous estimates, they
have increased most formidably in the last few
years, and this not from any fault of this or that
Government, but from the pressure and extrava-
gance of Parliament. (Hear.) It has formerly
been the theory that Parliament ought to be the
check upon the tendency of Governments to spend
money ; but with regard to the miscellaneous esti-
mates the duties and positions of these two bodies
have been reversed, and the Government has been
the check, but not a sufficient check, upon the
extravagance of Parliament. (Cheers.) I do not
propose to go further on this topic, and I will there-
fore only urge upon the consideration of your lord-
ships and the country that if it is desirable to get

THE PRESS.

rid of the income tax, and if we do not wish to see
it incorporated into our system of taxation, we must,

in the years between this and 1860, apply ourselves
vigorously and rigidly to such a system of economy
and of reduction in oar expenditure as is consistent
with the attainment of that object, and so as to render
it possible to square your balance of revenue and
expenditure.
But, my lords, it is quite obvious that the expen-
diture of this country, with respect to the nature and
extent of your warlike establishments, depends upon
the system of policy, and more especially upon the
system of foreign policy, that is to be pursued by
the Government. 'Cheers.) If you determine that
that policy shall be one of respect for the indepen-
dence and for the rights of foreign nations—of
studious abstinence from interfering with the purely
internal concerns of other countries—of an anxiety
to avoid by every possible means a language, tone,
and temper which shall show you ready to substitute
in case of fancied insult and injury a tone of menace
and braggadocio for that of reason and conciliation—
if you are slow to take offence and ready to accept
explanation and reparation, when it is offered in a
friendly spirit—if you do this I have no fear, in the
present condition of the world, and with the general
feeling that prevails in nearly all foreign nations,
that we must be prepared to keep up large war
establishments in time of peace. But if you proceed
upon an opposite policy, and are determined to
meddle in the internal concerns of other countries—
if you attempt to dictate the mode in which they shall
deal with their own subjects, and interfere with them
when the interests of your own subjects are not con-
cerned—if you threaten and bully, and use the language
of menace to those who, although weak, are too proud
to listen to you, when you tell them how to behave
towards their own subjects—if you adopt such a
course of conduct, I take the liberty to tell your
lordships that you must keep your establishments
upon a war footing—that you must be prepared to
back up every petty quarrel in which you may be
involved, that you must he ready to provide on the
shortest notice for a war that may spread over the
whole face of the world. And, my lords, above all, if
you lay down this formidable and dangerous princi-
ple, that your subordinate officers in every part of
the world shall have the power at their discretion of
committing this country to a war—if you lay down
the further principle that, right or wrong, after they
have done those acts they must be approved by the
Government—and, further still, that, those acts being
thus approved by the Government, it is beyond the
competence of Parliament to take cognisance of those
transactions, with the view of condemning them, upon
pain of being charged with a factious combination
against the Government, then, my lords, you may
give up the idea of reducing your army, you must
hold yourselves armed cap-it-pie for the fight, and
you must be ready to plunge into the horrors of war
in every part of the world at the discretion of men
proud of their brief authority, and ready to make the
most of the confidence of the Government at home.

And this, my lords, leads me to the peculiar cir-
cumstances under which an appeal is to be made
to the country. Your lordships need not appre•
bend that I am about to enter into the merits
of the China war, or to examine the legality
of the proceedings of Sir J. Bowring, or the prudence
of the steps he has taken. I am going to assume
for the present that the whole of those steps were
legal ; but I desire to point out to your lordships the
position in which this country is placed by the
adoption of these assumed legal proceedings of Sir
J. Bowring. It is no little inconvenience, and no
slight public evil, that in the month of March, just
at the commencement of the session, and when the

House of Commons were about to commence the
business of the country, we should be interrupted in
our proceedings by a dissolution of Parliament—a
dissolution that creates the greatest possible incon-
venience both to public and private affairs, and which
involves not only the loss of time of the dissolution
itself, but that further loss of time caused by the
arrangements consequent upon the meeting of the

SATURDAY,

new Parliament, and which will render this coming
Parliament even more unproductive of beneficial
measures than was promised us in the very meagre
programme of the Speech from the Throne at the
commencement of the present session. My lords, of
course that inconvenience must be submitted to. I
shall be told that the Government having had a
hostile vote passed against them, it became necessary
for them either to resign or to appeal to the country.
But, my lords, whose fault was it that a ques.
tion was ever raised involving the character or credit
of the Government? I am going very humbly to
offer my apology for your lordships' house and for
the House of Commons for having so far misunder-
stood the spirit of the Constitution as to believe that
it was within their competence to take notice, and,
having taken notice, to express an unbiassed opinion
upon the conduct of any official with regard to whose
proceedings the Government, by command of her
Majesty, had laid papers and documents before Par-
liament. I may be mistaken, but I certainly have
believed that when papers are laid upon the table by
her Majesty's Government, it is for the very purpose
of inviting an expression of the opinion of Parlia-
ment upon them. My lords, I conceive it cannot be
said that, in respect either to this or the other House
of Parliament, we have been anxious to interfere
with the discharge of the duties of the Executive, or
that we have interposed any obstacles in the way of
the exercise of those functions which properly belong
to the Crown. They have manifested, on the con-
trary, a degree of forbearance which I do not blame,
but which I venture to say is almost unparalleled.
(Rear, bear.)
What is the case with regard to the war in Persia?
A quarrel has been entered into, troops have been
despatched, war has been declared, an expedition has
been sent out, a fortress has been taken, negotiations
have been entered into, negotiations have been con-
cluded, peace has been made, and from the first to
the last, from the hour when the quarrel began to
the moment when I ant addressing your lordships,
the House of Lords and the House of Commons have
not had one single scrap of paper or one single
official document which shows the object, the cause,
the intentions of the war, or the terms on which it is
terminated ; and the House of Commons, which
ought to furnish supplies upon an estimate of ex-
penses, are not likely to know anything about that
expense until they are called on to pay the bill
already discharged by her Majesty's Government.
(Cheers.) Therefore I say the House of Lords
and the House of Commons have displayed no undue
anxiety to interfere with the Government, or to
hamper or embarrass the Executive. (Hear,
hear.) But, when papers are laid before Parlia-
ment, it is an invitation on the part of the Crown
for Parliament to express its opinion on the subject-
matter of those papers, and, if we do not, we grossly
neglect our duty, as by tacit acquiescence we may be
assumed to sanction acts most repugnant to our
feelings, and in our judgments most objectionable.
(Hear, hear.)
What has taken place in this instance? Upon the
perusal of these papers a motion was made in the
other House of Parliament by a gentleman usually,
I believe, a supporter of her Majesty's Government,
and most undoubtedly wholly unconnected with the
Conservative party. That motion expressed on the
face of it—l forget the precise words—the opinion of
the House of Commons that the papers laid upon
the table failed to afford sufficient justification for
the officials in China. I gave notice and brought
forward in this house a motion varying in terms, but
entirely to the same effect; and what was the course
pursued by her Majesty's Government in both
houses ? Why, to assume to themselves the whole
responsibility of the conduct and judgment of Sir J.
Bowring; to make themselves parties ; to insist on
being censured, or rather to insist that Parliament
should either forbear expressing an opinion or be
charged with a desire to censure or displace her
Majesty's Government. Now, I will venture to say
that if, instead of her Majesty's Government vindi-
cating to the uttermost the conduct of their agents,