The Sun.
London, England, 1852-12-14 00:00:00

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come tax, I think that this part of the subject reflect
great credit on the right hon. gentleman the Chancellor
of the Exchequer. lam bound to say `that it is remark-
able that a Government, representing territorial interests,
should deal fairly with the income tax, at least in prin-
ciple, when applied to trades and professions. Most
assuredly that proposition ought to have come from this
side of the house. (Hear, hear.) I say, in spite of all
that mathematicians or philosophers may say to the con-
trary, that you must either vary the tax on income, and
make it less than the tax levied on property, or you
must capitalise income and treat it as capital. You
must make a difference between the income derived from
the midnight labours of the physician or the lawyer, and
an income drawn from the funds. I give the Govern-
ment, therefore, full credit for this alteration, and, whe-
ther they are destined to carry it out or not, it must be
carried out by some Government. But, see how strange
it is, that in dealing with this question the old curse of
the party has clung to them. (Hear, hear.) What a
paltry thing it is to make such an alteration as this
budget presents to conciliate the tenant farmers. You
propose to assess the tenant farmer on one-third of his
rental, instead of one-half as heretofore. In the time of
Mr. Pitt he was assessed at three-fourths of his rental.
Sir Robert Peel reduced the assessment to one-half, and
now you propose to reduce it to one-third. Now, I will
put it to the right hon. gentleman, does he think that
farming would be worth following as a trade if the
tenant farmer made an income equal only to one-third of
his rent, that income being derived from the application
of his capital, directed by his own skill and industry
Would it not be more fair to say that one rent goes to
the tenant ? Then, again, with regard to the extension
of the income tax. How does this act in the case of the
tenant farmer ? You propose to extend the area of the
income tax, so as to include income derived from real
property from 501. upwards, and from 1001. upwards in
trades and professions. As a principle, I have no ob-
jection to the extension of the area of direct taxation.
If you carry out that principle as you do in local taxa-
tion, you must levy on every description of property, and
on every amount, and the only thing that embarrasses
us in carrying out direct taxation for general purposes is,
that we have such an amount of indirect taxation pressing
on the labouring classes that it gives them a claim to ex-
emption from direct taxation. There is no other objection
to th 4 system of taxation being universal. Well, you pro-
poseto extend the operation of the income tax to incomes
of 501. a year derived from real property, and to incomes
of 1001. a year arising out of trades and professions.
But see how the system works with regard to the tenant
farmers. Here is a farmer with 250 acres of moderate
land, for which he pays a rent of 2801. a year. 'By your
act all rentals under 3001. a year are exempt from taxa-
tion altogether. If that man farms as he ought to do,
and as he must do, in free-trade times, he must have from
2,0001. to 3,0001. of capital ; in fact, 101. an acre is not
as much as he ought to have ; he would do better with
121. or 151. an acre. Here, however, is a man with
2,8001. of capital, and you assume that he is not worth
1001. a year. (Hear, hear.) Well, this farmer rides
into the market town on a good horse, in good health
and spirits, and as he is going to market he passes a law-
yer's clerk who has an income of 1001. a year. You tax
the lawyer's clerk sd. in the pound on every penny of
his salary, while the farmer, who has 2,8001. capital,
with a good farm house and steading, and who employs
a great number of labourers, escapes the income tax al-
together. Do you think that that will last ? If the
farmers are like the rest of their countrymen they will
not thank you for putting them in such an invidious po-
sition. By your law you are widening the operation of
the income tax, so as to embrace a great number of per-
sons who were not included in it before, but with respect
to the tenant farmers you have taken care that you will
not include any of that class whom the income tax did
not affect formerly. You embrace a great number of
small tradesmen who have hitherto been exempted from
the operation of the tax, but not one tenant farmer who
was not affected by it. Now, where can be the advantage
of this ? Is it worthy of the territorial party, and do
they seek to secure the tenant farmers in their interests
by holding out such a boon. I would ask the farmers
whether they have not had enough of this sort of thing,
and what they have got for it ? What is the use of their
being a different party from the rest of their countrymen,
and being made political capital of? Have they not
been bamboozled enough already ? Sir, Ido hope that
this part of the Budget will be modified, and that the
tenant farmers will be placed on an equal footing with
the rest of their fellow-subjects. You say that the far-
mers do not keep books, and that they do not know
what they make in the course of the year. Then here
is a very good occasion for compelling them to keep
books. (Hear, hear.) You cannot do the farmers a
greater service than by compelling them to keep books,
and thus ascertain how much profit they get from their
farms every year. I must say that I did not expect on
this occasion to hear this old grievance revived. I thought
that as the Chancellor of the Exchequerhad thrown over
local burdens, we were going to get rid of this controversy
altogether ; but it seems as if hon. gentlemen opposite
do not even yet understand their own position or what
free trade means. They have confounded two questions
which are essentially distinct—namely, the question of
protective duties and of direct taxation. Will they ex-
cuse me if, as an old professor, I show them a little of
their ABC in this matter ? I see the hon. member for
Cambridgeshire there, who has not been accustomed to
free trade speeches. The advocates of free trade have
not necessarily been the advocates of direct taxation.
We have opposed protective duties because we wished
to have freedom of exchange with other countries, but
we did not inquire what would be the effect on prices.
We want as great a quantity of things as we can get,
but I am sure that the hon. member for Cambridgeshire
has shed tears—(a laugh)—on the supposition that we
free traders want low prices. But what we really want
is an abundance of everything. We do not say that
free trade will decrease prices. It is possible that both
the quantity and the price may be increased. The con-
dition of a country may be so prosperous, that, with an
augmented quantity of articles produced, an increased
price is obtained for them. That has been the case with
some articles, such as wool and meat, and we do not
know what will be the effect on corn itself. The Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer framed his budget, as it would
seem, to compensate the industrious classes for the ef-
fects of unrestricted competition ; but what necessity
was there for this step I have always understood that
the industrious classes have been prosperous since free
trade was established. We say that it has already done
them much good, and that it will confer upon them still
greater benefits. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer
comes and tells us that he is going to introduce great
measures, and that he will cheapen the necessaries of
life. He says, " I will reduce the price of beer, and I
will do so by raising the price of lodging." (A laugh.)
But is not lodging as great a necessary of life as beer ?
If you are to compete with foreigners, I say that you
are going the wrong way if you lower the price of beer
and raise the price of lodgings. The people of this
country are not coming to sue in forma pauperis for such
a boon. Why, then, do you make such a proposal ? It
is a thing of your own creating ; you have made pro-
mise that you never ought to have made, and that has
placed you in a false position. But I want to prevent
you from putting free trade in a false position. (Hear,
hear.) We say that we have done everything with free
trade, that we have greatly increased the comforts of
the labouring population, and diminished pauperism,
and then you come and give a new name to our princi-
ple, and call it "unrestricted competition." Lord Byron
used to say that a man had a right to pronounce his
own name as he pleased ; and in the same way, I pre-
sume, that a political party has a right to give their
own name to their own principle. I never insulted you
by calling you monopolists when you called yourselves
protectionists—(laughter)—and why should you come
now and change our good Saxon words "free trade"
into " unrestricted competition ?" How can we pos-
sibly call ourselvesunrestricted competition "
in-
party 2 (Renewed laughter.) If you adopt our prin-
pa •
ciples, adopt our name and all. With regard to the tea
duties, I think I should have done the same thing which
the Chancellor of the Exchequer now proposes to do
(with the trifling difference between us of a penny a
pound) at least four or five years ago, and I do not be-
lieve that the revenue would have suffered at all by it.
Looking, however, at the budget as a whole, I cannot
persuade myself that this budget is the production of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. I believe that at the last
moment it was so pared down, and snipped, and cobbled,
and squabbled about, that almost every
.good thing, and
every hnkl +l,ing was mkt otit of it. It is not worthy !31:
a five hours' speech, and 1 numbly conceive that could
have done it in an hour and twenty-five minutes. (A.
laugh.) Before I sit down I wish to add a few words
on a matter which must soon engage the serious atten-
tionve of every thinking man. Ido think that weeen—
begun a controversy which will not e end
hveenry.
member
namely, who is to pay the taxes ? Th
for West Surrey said the other day dthtahtatlohuardedsteachlalirsehd
that the taxes would not be paid, an.
ments would not be maintained. Wtli regardogard . too.
theour
establishments, I think so still ;
but i
as
the peoplei ofl Eses
paying
taxes, I have always thoughtthat
also been that with direct taxation t
ey would scrutinize
land would pay their just debts, though myopinion has
expenditure more closely than they have done, Now,
however, that we are beginning to have a controversy
about who is to pay the taxes, we shall find that our
imperial expenditure, including the cost of collection, is
nearly 60,000,000 k This sum is very nearly as large as
the amount of real property which is assessed to the
income tax. You may well imagine, therefore, that
people will be crying out when they find themselves
galled by some particular tax. Since I have been in
this house I have seen a sheet of paper, used for an
American newspaper, made out of straw, and printed
dry. Now, the raw material of this kind' of paper costs
two guineas, but the duty upon it would be fourteen
guineas. He says that but for this excise we could have
w
manufactured
this straw
.paper Then ci ttuhree ds quiteaptax. a
If any
here as ll in
agitation
should arise against it could it not be put in argument,
and would it not shame any man of property into willing-
ness to pay a little extra, that he lived in a country
where dirt was made a premium by act of Parliament?
(Hear.) Take also the insurance tax. As these be-
come discussed you will find more and more the neces-
sity of resorting to some other mode of taxation. It is
not merely that the competition is great with foreign
countries, but the changed habits of business render a
continuance of the present system impossible ;the greater
velocity and the greater magnitude of business render it
impossible. Now, as regard the Customs' duties, you
have two great blue-books or more on the inconveni-
ences of the present Custom-house regulations ; but any
man that gets to the bottom of the question must know
that you cannot get to the end of the difficulty except
by abolishing custom-houses altogether. (Hear, hear.)
Take Sir R. Peel's reductions. Sir R. Peel abolished
the duties on hundreds of articles, and thought probably
that in so doing he should lessen the Custom-house ex-
es• But, no • it is necessary to examine articles
pens •
that come in free. Suppose you allowed your own cotton
bales to come in from America without examination,
how 000 u would they be tobicoo bales I Nor, look at

[PRICE SD.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT

HOUSE OF COMMONS—(YESTERDAY.)
(Continued from our Third Edition of last evening.)
Mr. COBDEN (in continuation of what appeared in
our third edition) said—lf you pass such a law it will
be the worst thing that can happen to you, because it
will revive this controversy between town and country,
not in the old form, that you can say it is a contest be-
tween cotton lords and landlords, but as a contest in
which every little market town will be taking sides
against you. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) Look also at
the way in which your taxation will operate to the pre-
judice of house property as distinguished from property
in land. I think it most likely that this, as well as every
other tax, will ultimately be felt, more or less, by every-
body ; but you must bear in mind that, with respect to
a great portion of house property, you are taxing the
owners as well as the occupiers, because a large propor-
tion of the houses which are occupied, are dwelt in by
their owners. See how this will work. You have spring-
ing up in all directions benefit building societies, which
are especially formed by industrious artisans, who seek
to have a house of their own, and who are likely to build
101. houses, because there exists among that class a
laudable desire of improving their dwellings. What kind
of justice is it that you will mete out to these men by
your taxation, when you demand from them 21 per
cent., and force them to compare their situation with
that of the owners of large landed estates ? Take
another case. There is in London a large amount
of landed property owned by noblemen who let
out their vast landed estates on building leases. There
is the Belgrave-square property, for instance. This
property is let on a building lease for ninety-nine years,
at a ground rent for each house of about 501. a year. A
person puts bricks and mortar upon the land, or buys
the lease, and you come to the owner of this property,
and call upon him to contribute to your house tax, but
you do not touch the ground landlord, though he clears
20,0001. or 30,0001. a year from the estate. The owners
of bricks and mortar you consider subjects for direct
taxation, but not the owners of land. It must be borne
in mind, besides, that the inhabitants of towns are sub-
jected to very heavy local charges, not only for the sup-
port of the poor, but for the police rate, the lighting
rate, and other ocal liabilities, yet although house pro-
perty is of smaller value than property in land, you
press upon the owner of house property with equal
severity for local rates, so that he is rated much higher
than the owner of landed property for local as well as
general purposes. You must not expect, therefore, that
such an unequal system of taxation as this can ever be
earried out. And what is this unequal tax laid on for l
Why, to enable the Government to take off half the
malt tax. The right hon. gentleman the Chancellor of
the Duchy of Lancaster has stated, with his usual frank-
ness, what the object of the . Government is in reducing
that tax. He says that it is to be taken off for the bene-
fit of the land. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told
us, however, that the moiety of the tax was to be taken
of for the interest of the consumer. I think the Go-
vernment would do well to come to an understanding
upon the principles of their budget, or, if they cannot
agree, it would be well if one party or the other could
be silent. (A laugh.) Now, my idea of the malt tax
is very much that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
It is a tax laid on the consumer, but there is no doubt
that the producer is subjected to inconvenience and to
loss by it. The case of printed cottons, which was re-
ferred to by the right hon. gentleman, is precisely ana-
logous. The duty fell upon the consumer, but it hamp-
ered the manufacturer in his business. I agree, there-
fore, that the producer of barley, though to a very small
extent comparatively, is affected by the malt tax. I
have always 'understood that the great grievance of an
excise tax is its interference with the necessary opera-
tions of trade. The malt tax does not interfere much
with the farmers, yet still in a certain way it does. The
only interest I ever took in the malt tax was owing to
what I learned from a practical farmer and free trader,
Mr. Lattimore, of Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire,
who is looked upon as a model farmer by his neighbours,
and he persuaded me that the malt tax ought to be re-
pealed whenever it was practicable, because the repeal
would enable the farmers to feed their cattle with malt.
How far that may be the case I do not know myself,
but I have confidence in Mr. Lattimore's judgment, and
I have always felt that since the corn laws were abolished,
the claim of the farmers to a repeal of the malt tax
rested upon their right to malt their barley for the
purpose of feeding their cattle. A case is made out,
therefore, for the repeal of the malt tax whenever you
have a sufficient surplus. But I have always said that
I would not be a party to imposing any substitute for
that tax. I have always been opposed, on principle, to
the taking off of half the malt tax, because I object to
the taking off of half of any excise tax, and I further
object to the way in which you are going to make up
I the deficiency. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has
said that beer, like bread, is a necessary of life—that it
must be drunk in order to keep up health and strength.
There is, however, a very wide difference of opinion on
this subject. I have always considered that one of the
difficulties which you would have to deal with in repeal-
ing the malt tax was, that there is a large growing body
of people in this country, and some of them very fana-
tical, too, who say that not only is beer not a necessary
of life, but that it is highly pernicious. (Hear, hear.) T
can cite the authority of a very large and influential and
very useful class of persons who are of the same opinion,
and I will read a declaration to this effect ; but I must
request that hon. members opposite will suppress any
manifestation of feeling until I have read to the end of
the document : "An opinion handed down from rude
and ignorant times, and imbibed by Englishmen from
their youth, has become very general, that the habitual
use of some portion of alcoholic drink, as of wine, beer,
lor spirit, is beneficial to health, and even necessary to
those subjected to habitual labou7. Anatomy, physi-
ology, and the experience of all ages and countries, when
properly examined, must satisfy every mind well in-
formed in medical science that the above opinion is alto-
gether erroneous. Man, in ordinary health, like other
animals, requires not any such stimulant, and cannot be
benefited by the habitual employment of any quantity of
them, large or small ; nor will their use during his life-
time increase the aggregate amount of his labour. In
whatever quantity they are employed they will rather
tend to diminish it." This declaration is signed by 70 of
the most eminent medical men in this metropolis, in-
cluding Sir Benjamin Brodie, Dr. Chambers, Sir James.
Clark, Mr. Bransby Cooper, Mr. Travers, and others.
Now I think that declaration may, at all events, have ,
sufficient weight with this house to justify me in saying ,
that it is at least an open question whether beer be a
necessary of life or not. You ask, however, the profes-
sors of temperance to tax themselves in order to relieve
the country from one-half of the malt tax. I have re-
ceived many letters from my constituents who are tee-
totallers on this subject. They say that they have
abolished the use of alcoholic liquors among themselves,
and that they believe the consumption of malt is perni-
cious to society ; and yet you ask them to submit to a
house tax, in order that beer may be cheaper, and that,
consequently, a greater consumption of beer may take
place. (Hear.) The right hon. gentleman has put the
matter in such a way as to make the reduction of the
malt tax a grievance to all these persons. He has not
put the restriction of the duty on scientific grounds, as
a skilful political economist would have done, on the
ground, namely, that the farmers had a right to malt
f
their barley for the purpose of fattening their cattle.
the right hon. gentleman had done so, the sympathies
which my constituents felt for free trade would have in-
duced them to acquiesce in the proposal at once, but the
Government said that the object of the reduction was to
cheapen beer to the consumer. My objection to the
house tax, therefore, is twofold ; first, that it is a partial
tag. ana next. that a urcv
ferent to a reduction of the malt tax, while thousands,
and I believe even hundreds of thousands, are opposed on
principle to the reduction of the duty on that article.
That being the case, although I do not know what a
majority of the house may do, I am sure that you will
not be able to maintain the house tax, even if you are
able to lay it on. You have seen how long-lived a con-
test may be when the object is to get rid of an unpopu-
lar tax. Look at the window tax, for instance : and
yet you are going to enter into a contest in which you
are sure to be beaten, and on a matter, too, which is
really not worth fighting for. I have now a word or
two to say about the proposed alteration in the hop
duty. I have had much talk with the hop-growers of
Sussex on this subject; and when they have told me that
they wanted a total repeal of the duty, but that the hop-
growers of Kent were for taking off half the duty only,
I have said, " After the great works of Sir Robert Peel,
we shall never have a peddling Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer who will make two bites of a cherry and take
off half the hop duty. (Laughter and cheers.) Hcherae
"
you have a tax which is perfectly exceptional in its
racter— a tax which is worthy of Turkey or Persia, but
which is ridiculous in Great Britain. In the spring of
the year there are a number of unfortlialeiampeenrst oannsii
of
needy men, who come to membersr
say—" Will you recommend me to the Gornment as a
whenve September
collector of the hop duties ?"
11,
comes, and the hops are dry and ready to be picked, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer disperses a little army of
these collectors over the country, and they
go an d
ttakef
stock, of the fields and gardens, and make an estimate o
the tax. Sometimes it comes to 200' 000/ , sometimes to
300,0001. or 400,0001. ; it hardlyo
Chancellor of the Ex-
ever comes. to 500,000/.
It is an uncertain tax, and n
chequer knows how to calculate the amount. It has all
the evils which a tax can have. It is cumbrous and
i
costly in collection, it is uncertain n
different amount, andp a r
tit
s
bears with most unequal pressure on
of the country. (Cheers.) There aro some districts
where the hops are hardly worth half the amount
of the tax, and, as the duty is levied by weight,
it falls with the greatest pressure on the poorest
soils. It is inconceivable, therefore, that any Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, after the repeal of the corn laws
and the abrogation of the navigation laws, should think
of taking off half the duty on hops. I hope the house
will never condescend to such paltry trifling as this. If
nobody else does so, I will myself move the total repeal
of the hop duty ; and if I should be defeated on that
motion, I will vote against the partial repeal, for an ex-
cise tax of this kind should be abolished altogether or
not at all, With respect to the modifications of the in-