The Press.
London, England, 1857-02-07 00:00:00

understood those pledges as the right hon. gentleman
understands them. I have not forgotten them. I never
can forget to the latest day of my life, and I must remem-
ber with gratitude, if not with satisfaction, the conduct of
the House of Commons at the period when those measures
were adopted, and the generosity of the sentiments which
they evinced. I must endeavour to answer that conduct,
at least, by what depends on me ; and I shall endeavour to
answer that conduct by striving to bring the expenditure
of the country and its fiscal arrangements into such a
shape as will allow the extinction of the income tax in
18tin. (Cheers.) The right lion, gentleman said, and I
think truly, that he would not view narrowly and jealously
the mere circumstance of the Government possessing a
large sum of money through the accidental operation of
an Act of Parliament for a single twelvemonth, if he were
satisfied as to the purpose to which the money was devoted.
But the right hon. gentleman is not satisfied. Sir, 1 am
like him in that respect, and it is my intention to bring
that matter fairly to an issue on the floor of this house.
Sir, there is another point not altogether unimportant,
in which a portion of the public are interested, and in
which I myself have a personal interest. On the Ist of
April there will still be a half-year's income tax due. It is
material to consider whether that half•year's income tax is
to be considered as ways and means applicable to the ser-
vice of the year or not. I hope it won't be thought a piece
of impertinence if I object to consider it as simply ap-
plicshle to the service of the year; I was going to say that
it was my property. That would be au extravagant expres-
sion, and would lead to altogether erroneous notions. But
my meaning is this :—ln the year 1834 we asked the house
to provide us with 12,00%0001. additional taxes, which was
thou estimated for the tint year of the war. It was neces-
wiry that we should make provision for the thst six months,
during which our receipts for new duties would not be
forthcoming. I said, we do not propose to borrow money
for the expenditure of the year while it continues ou this
scale ; but although we do not propose to borrow money,
yet as the taxes which you have granted cannot be received
for six months, we ask you to enable us to raise money by
means of instruments which will hold in pawn the proceeds
of those taxes when they fall due. Well now, sir, that is
the purpose to which the half-year's income tax which will
become due on the Ist of April is pledged; and in my
judgment, the engagements into which the Government
and the house entered at that period ought to be honestly
performed by devoting the proceeds of that half•year's
income tax to the liquidation of the debt thus contracted.

Sir, I have detained the house, I am afraid, too long,
and much longer than I had intended ; but my duty upon
the subject was a special duty, and I feel it to be one of
so much importance to the house, and of such deep interest
to the country whose feelings are so much excited upon it
that they are hardly to be described, that the House of
Commons is bound to assume its proper functions, to
guide the country towards right conclusions, to establish
rational principles, to enforce them at all costs, with
respect to the expenditure of the country, and to grant to
the country that relief which it is entitled to anticipate.
With respect to the resolutions of which the right hon.
gentleman has given notice I wish to say only one ward.
He will feel that the precise mode and time of his motion
must have reference in some degree to what has been
stated by my right hon. friend the Chancellor of the
Exchequer. Rut, at the same time. whatever the proper
time or the proper form may be, when he or any other
gentleman makes a motion, having for its purpose the
giving effect to the financial arrangements of lS;i3, he will
find me, as he is entitled to expect, among his warmest and
most determined supporters—(cheers)—because I feel
that I have no choice with regard to such a question; and
that it would he my own duty t.l raise it if the right hon.
gentleman had not announced his intention to do so.
Fidelity to this house and to the pledges which it has by
implication given to the public render imperative the.
raising of that question. No doubt the right hon. gentle-
man, when he spoke of the settlement of 1553, bare in
mind that we have contracted some 91,000,0001. or
40,0011,0001. of additional debt, and that the interest of
that debt must be provided fur, and that certain modifica-
tions of what was determined in IW must be made.
That additional debt grew boni fide out of the circum-
stances which have occured since, and which it was not
in our power to foresee. Other circumstances may occur
before 1860 which may require other alterations to be
made. The principle to which I understand him to give
his adhesion, and to which I give my adhesion, is this,
that nothing has occurred, either with regard to the
creation of new debt, or the necessity for new expenditure,
which calls upon this house to depart substaatially from
the pledge's that it gave in 1'4)3 with regard to the cessation
of the income tax upon its present basis, with its uniform
rate; and that it is the duty of the house to adhere to its
pledges, and to give effect to them by the use of every
constitutional power that it possesses. (Cheers.)

Lord PALMERSTON pronounced the statement made
by Disraeli, with reference to the existence of a
si crt t treaty with Austria guaranteeing tl that power
her Italian possessions, to be" an entire romance ":
The speech of the right bon. gentleman opposite
appeared to me to be au instance of the dangers into which
men of eminent talents, and who distinguish themselves in
various hues, are sometimes tempted to fall, by indulging
on one occasion in the exercise of talents which had
obtained for them eminence in another capacity. The
right hon. gentleman stands pre-eminent iu this house
for statesmanship, eloquence, powers of debate, and other
valuable qualities, but he has risen to great reputation as
a man of genius in another department of intellect—in
short, as a groat master of the power.. of the imagination.
lam not going to acetv:c the right h-o. gentleman on this
occasion of having been indebted to his imagination for his
facts, and his memory for his argument, as was said of
another distinguished orator, but I must say that a great