The Express.
London, England, 1848-02-25 00:00:00

406
Doduct Increarc 1.275

E10,7,...5

Total decrease in nuns 3 '.30 but lacrosse of tat, £lo,;05
bur of bow.
He begged of the noble lord (Morpeth) opposite only to con-
sider for one moment what the results of such a statistical
return must prove in a sanitary point of view. The facts
which he bad quoted were alone sufficient to induce the
house to reconsider the tax. There was a very mistaken
idea afloat with respect to the amount of the window tax
being a fair criterion of the value of a house. lie vrntured
to assert that there was no kind of relation between the two.
As a proof of his assertion, ho would state the fact that the
houses in Poland and Berwick.streeta were in no instant:
rated at 2001., but sexily- at 401., 50/., and 601. a year; the
amount of window tax levied in Poland-street was 4161., and
in Berwick-street 8081. But in St. Jan.es's-square most of
the houses were riled at 5001., 7501., and 1,0001., none being
rated so low as 1001., and yet the window duty ouly
amounted to 669/. In Berkeley-square no house was
rated so low as 9th., but mostly. at 5001., 7501.,
and 1,0001.; the window duty levied was only 7121.
lit Grosvenor square no house was rated under 300/., but
moat at 5001., 7501., and 1,0001.; whilst the window duty
levied woo only 983/. So that whilst Berwick, Poland,
Broad-streets, with only one house in them rated so high as
1601., paid in the aggregate 1,2301. to the window tax.
Piccadilly. without a louse under 701., and with many a%
high as 1,0001. and 2.0001. a year, only contributed 1,7911.
to the window duty. In Oxford.strem there ware 503 houses
paying 2,3101., or an average of 41. I Is. window duty for
each house, whilst 10 houses in Dufour's-place paid 781.,
or 71, 18s. per house, and 40 houses in Broad-street paid
3321., or 61. 161. per house to the window tax. Amongst the
exemptions to the window tax he found at the head, Ireland,
and he found it recorded that when Mr. Robinson, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, was asked in 1821 why Ire-
land was exempt from the window tax, his reply was that the
poor people of that country, in order to avoid the payment of
the duty, had stopped up their windows to a degree that
rendered their dwellings unwholesome, for which reason he
had taken it off. He earnestly begged the noble lord's
(Morpeth) attention to the reasons advanced by Mr. Robin-
son. There were other exemptions from the window tax,
amongst which were public offices and agricultural dwellings.
But there was one class of exemption which operated exclu-
sively in favour of a rich class, and which was denied to the
working classes—he alludel to-the manner in which the tax
was assessed upon chambers at Oxford, Cambridge, and in
the Inns of Court. lie would now al the attention of the
house to another vexation connected with the tax. It was
provided that no window merely blocked up with wood
should be exempt, and the consequence was that many per-
sons over the country who had sinned through ignorance
had been heavily *emend. Another grievance was, that the
act did not define what was to be reckoned a window. (Ileac)
It appeared that in some places any hole that let in light was
charged. Having mentioned some instances of oppressive
assessment of that kind, the noble lord proceeded to say
that he would next call the attention of the house to the
peculiar sort of sliding scale which had been established in
rating for the window tax. The tax Dee been framed with
the ostensible intention of-exempting the dwellings of the
poor, but how had that been done ? A house with eight
windows was rated at 2s. 3d. per window, from which it
TON to 4s. in twelve-windowed houses, and 53. in fifteen-
windowed houses, and so on until it came to forty windows,
when the scale began to descend, and continued doing so
until it came to 180 window!. A house with that
number of windows paid only ls. 6i. per window
while • house with eight windows paid 2s. 31. Thu
was the operation 01 a tax which they had been told was
framed so an to exempt the poor. (Hear, hear.) He now
tame to that part of his plan which went to provide a sub-
stitute for this obnoxious tax. It appeared that in 182.5 the
army, navy, and ordnance estimates amounted to 15,310,000/.
In 1836 they had fallen to 11,600,0001 , but in ISO they had
risen to 16,661,0001. In 1846 they were 16,957,0001., and it
appear( d that for the current year they would be 18,917,0001. '
NOW, first, his sight hon. friend might fall back on the
budget of 1846, which would save two millions. and so settle
the matter at once, but that was not his (Lord Duncan's) I
plan. He proposed, in the first place, to keep the estimates
the same aa last year, and 60 save 600,0001. Nest, he would
withdraw the squadron from the coast of Africa,
whereby a further saving of 300,0001. would be effected.
He would next dispense with the 6,000 soldiers who were
returning from India, and save 100,0001. By arming each of
the metropolitan police with a musket, an ample substitute
would be provided. Then, without trenching on any of the
royal palaces, there was much of the property which came
under the jurisdiction' of the Woods and Forests, which
might be made to fill the place of an abolished tax. There
was the New Forest, 66,00 u acres ; and: for the last seven
years the returns Of timber from it had been nit. This, with
all the other royal forests, he would have sold or let, so as to
become profitable, seeing that they now did nothing but
support a host of verilerers and other useless officers. He
appealed to the noble lord at the head of the Woods and
Forests to vote for their disposal even on sanitary grounds.
Why, the miasma rising from the New Forest was
so great as to constitute it the cloaca notrima of England.
If the item• he had enumerated were taken, they would
realise 1,600,0001. or 1,700,000/. per annum, or exactly the
amount of the window tax. He had been told that lie could
not find in the ri port of the sanitary commission anything
confirmatory of Ma views, But in turning over that report
he found that in Ski Ids, Sunderland, and several other pc,-
putout towns, serious ifiejury to health had arisen from block.
ing up windows in evasion of the tax. He trusted that no
idle fears of invasion would prevent the abolition of this ob-
noxious tax. If cur enemies were to be resisted, the battle-
ground would be where his ancestor had met them, and not
at Flamborough or Spithead. He appealed to the noble lord
at the head of the Treasury, exhorting him to remember that
reform and htrenchment had ever been the cries that had
kept him in power. He appealed to the Irish members,who
ought to remember that when their country was in want the
English working-classes refused no taxes that were ne-1
weary tie their relief. Lastly, he appealed to that provi-
dence which knee how necessary were light and air to the
health and well-being of its human creatures ;
Oh, Lord of light and air;
Oh, king! ota, father boar my humble prayer;
Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore,
Grant us to see, Old Englaad asks no more.
If we must perish we'll thy will obey,
But let us perish in the face of day.
(Cheers.)—The noble lord concluded by moving for a com-
mittee of the whole house, in which to move a resolution for
the total repeal of the window-duties.
Mr. HUME, in seconding the motion, said that there was
no use in agitating questions of sanitary reform so long as
they kept up a heavy taxation on light and air.
Col. SIBTHOUP was understood to support the motion ;
but the noise prevailing in the house prevented his obkrvu-
Rens being distinctly heard in the gallery.
Sir D. L. EVANS said that the advantages which would
accrue from the repeal of the window tax were so great,
that it was hardly necessary for him to do more than support
the motion of the noble lord. It was a tax which premed
most unequally, and was most felt where its absence was
most to be desired, namely, in the large and densely popu-
lated towns. If they compared the wealthy regions of
Grosvenor and Belgrave squares with the poorer portions of
Westminster, they would find that while one was taxed at
the rate of 2 or 3 per cent., the other groaned
under a burden of from 20 to 30 per cent. He
approved of the budget which hod "been put forward
by the noble lord the member for Bath. especially that por-
tion of it which related to the royal forests.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said that
the office which he had the honour unworthily to till was
anything but all agreeable one, more especially, when,
during a period of national distress, it was his painful duty
to propose increased taxation. On the present occasion
there was, however, another painful duty involved, the
duty of refusing to remit a tax which on all sides was com-
plamed of as odious and vexatious. He confessed he should
have thought that the statement made by his noble friend
the First Lord of the Treasury, on a previous evening,
would have been a sufficient answer to the present motion.
(Hear, hear.) At a time when h fries
called upon to impose fresh taxis noble
es to the amo nd was
of three millions be thought it would be moat unwise to
, repeal any of those already existing. There was an old fable,
the moral of which waa,that we could bear more easily those
burdens to which we had been accustomed than those
which were newly imposed. Surely a time when it was
found necessary to imilbso fresh taxes was not a time in
which to relinquish a tax which produced a million and a
half. He bad looked oser the notice paper of that day, and
he was afrC4 that max.,- 041emen were struggling for a