The Sun.
London, England, 1853-05-24 00:00:00

Etoud. A committee had sat upon this subject at an early
• date,• and when they reported that the debts and the
finances of th.D two countries should be consolidated, with
what view did they make that report? Did they make
that reportiu the sense of imposing a burden upon Ireland
for the relief of England, or of imposing a burden upon
England for the relief of Ireland ? They imposed a
heavy burden upon England for the relief of Ireland,
and that statement rested upon figures which were upon
the table of that house. They had been told it was
a great hardship that Ireland, paying 4,900,000% or
5,000,0031. a-year, should pay anything more into then.a-
tional Exchequer. Why, in 1815, just before this subject
was examined, and before the debt of Ireland was consoli-
dated
with the debt of this country, the annual charger of
i,es
debt upon Ireland, irrespective of one farthing of charges
for military or civil government,—the mere charge
debt was 5,900,0001. (Hear, hear.) This, he repeated,
of Irish
atel,a
sum
`vas
the simple charge of her debt ; and, having paid this_
of 5,900,0001., expenses of a civil and military character
had still to be met. Such was the state of things which
was put an end to by the Act of Union, auclafterct,hHeraetit,
was that this motion was made for a committee.
hear," from the Opposition benches.) Hon. gentlemen did
not seem to think this demonstrative enough. They
reap-
peared-
to believe that the payment by the Irish nati
nearly 6,000,0001., besides all charges of government, before
the Act of Union, was an ample proof that to expect them
to pay more than 4,000,0001- or 5,000,0001. now was a
gross injustice ;--that was to say, Ireland was called upon
now to contribute to the annual payment upon her debt
and to the expenses of her government together a great deal
less than she had been before paying—or rather than she
had been bound to pay for debt alone ; and that, They
thought, was no demonstration at all ! Well, then, there
was another return upon the table of this house. It was
moved for by the hon. member for Glasgow in 1849, and iu
this return they would see the revenue and the expenditure
of Ireland in every year from 1817 to 1848. The expenditure
on account of Ireland in 1817, including civil and military
charges, was 10,241,000/. ; and the total payments into the
Irish Exchequer, as against that expenditure, were
4,381,000/. ; so that the amount provided from the British
Exchequer to make good the deficiency was 5,856,0001. in
that single year. This was one of the proofs which the hon.
and gallant colonel wanted a committee to show. He would
not weary the house by giving all the figures of this
return, but there was a column showing the payments
made by the Exchequer from 1817 to 1848, and the very
lowest payment made in any one year for Irish expendi-
turd and Irish debt out of the British Exchequer,—that
was to say, to make up the deficiency of Irish debt and
expenditure, was 1,977,0001., but, generally speaking, it
was from 5,000,000/. to 6,00,000/. during the early part
of the period, and from 2,000,0001. to 3,000,0001. during
the latter part. If this was the case no committee was
wanted to inquire whether Ireland was paying more than
her fair proportion of taxation. (Hear, hear.) The figures
he had quoted showed that she had-not been paying at any
period the charges immediately applicable to her in re-
spect to her debt and government, and that was, he ap-
prehended, without charging Ireland with any portion of
our colonial expenditure. The hon. and gallant gentle-
man (Colonel Dunne) had not, he believed, adverted to the'
terms of the Act of Union, nor to the fact that it contem-
plated or provided for the principle of consolidated finances
and equal taxation ; and that that principle was to become
applicable when the debt of Ireland had reached a certain
proportion of the debt of England ; it reached a much
higher proportion than the debt of England at the end of
the war, and was precisely the case which was provided for
by the act. The debt of Ireland reached an annual charge
of nearly 6,000,000/. a-year, when the annual charge of the
English debt was by no means in that proportion ; and
then committees of this house sat, and recommended the
abolition of the separate system. On the 19th of June,
1815 a committee of this house reported that, on: the
whole, with a view to the equal advantage of all parts of
the empire, and of relieving Ireland from a burden which
experience had proved to be too great, and at the same
'time with the hope of rendering her resources more pro-
ductive, it was expedient to consider the propriety
of declaring that all future national expenditure
should be defrayed indiscriminately by taxes raised
from the same articles in each country ; and so on. Whe-
ther these facts appeared material to the hon. and gallant
colonel he did not know, but he thought his noble friend
(Lord C. Hamilton) must be, convinced that the Act of
Union had been strictly and punctually carried into execu-
tion, and not for the oppression, but for the relief, of Ire-
land from burdens too great for her to bear, and to make the
comparative power and resources of England available in
order to meet those burdens. In this way from 2,000,000/.
to 6,000,0001. had been annually paid out of the British
Exchequer for the purpose of meeting charges created by
expenditure on account of Ireland, which would have con-
tinued due, and which would have had to be borne by
Ireland if she had continued separate from England.
(Hear, hear.) Ho ventured to hope after this that the
house would consider there was no occasion for a commit-
tee of inquiry into a matter which was as clear as daylight
at this moment. (Hear, hear.) Free trade, forsooth, had
had to bear its part in this discussion, as if nobody in Ire-
land had gained by free trade ! (Hear, hear.) As if no-
body in England had lost by it ! Had the fall of prices
been confined to Ireland? Had there been no fall of the
prices of agricultural produce in this country ? Ireland,
speaking generally, was a country in which oats were the
principal cereal produce, while wheat was the principal
produce of England. On which, he should like to know,
did free trade and foreign competition bear meet ? (Hear,
hear.) Why, upon wheat. (Hear, hear.) Then they had
been told about the destruction of Irish manufactures.
Now, what was gained by the use of the language of
hyperbole in the debates in that house ? (Hear from
Colonel Dunne, and laughter.) The hon. and gallant
gentleman cheered that sentiment. He (the Chancellor
of the Exchequer) had thought that Belfast was in Ire-
land. (Hear.) Ho had been under the impression that
there were manufactures in Belfast, and that they were
not in a retrograde condition. lle had heard some
people so audacious as to say that the manufactures of
Belfast were advancing faster than the manufactures of
almost any other part of the United Kingdom. (Hear.)
And yet speeches in that house were to be pointed by dole-
- ful ditties upon the destruction of Irish manufactures !
(Hear, hear.) He agreed with hon. gentlemen that the
Government were bound to be not only just but conside-
rate towards Ireland. Tho injustice of this proposition
was shown in the first place by throwing overboard alto-
gether the consideration of the consolidated annuities.
(Hear, hear.) Of course, if in a matter of figures all the
items on one side were struck out, you might come to any
result you desired. But he objected to this plan of striking
out all the items on the other side of the account. This,
however, was not a mere matter of account, and the great
fallacy lay in so considering it. Ireland consisted of pro-
vinces and classes which must be separated in considering
the proposals of the Government, which gave relief to those
who wanted it and laid burdens on those who could bear
the burdens. (Hear, hear.) The fact was, that the rich
parts of Ireland had been hitherto exempted and excused
• from paying their debts from their conjunction with the
poor parts. (Hear, hear.) Leinster and Ulster had 'no
ground for objecting to the imposition of the income tax.
It was said that Ireland was a poor country, but what was
a poor country? It was a country in which money was
scarce. But if Ireland were a poor country, it followed
that a man with 1501. a year was richer in Ireland than a
man of the same income in England. (Hear, hear.) He
thought that the strictest justice demanded the extension
of the income tax to Ireland. The income tax in Munster
would yield from 85,0001. to 87,0001. from real property,
and it would relieve that province from the payment of
about 90,0001. from consolidated annuities. It might be
said that the two amounts were about equal, but that
would be a fallacious method of looking at the question.
Who paid the consolidated annuities? The landlord and
tenant. Who paid the income tax? The lamllord and
the mortgagee. The gross amount might be the same, but
while the landlord would still pay about half, the mort-
gagee would pay the other half, instead of the tenant.
• (Hear, hear.) Did Irish members really suppose that the
people of England would abandon the consolidated an-
nuities, and forego the income tax too ? If, as practical
men, they thought it possible to prevail upon Parliament
- to give up the consolidated annuities, and not to impose
- the income tax, he could understand their conclusions, but
he admired the sanguine temperament which enabled them
to come to such a conclusion. (A laugh.) The hon. gen-
tleman the member for Ennis had shown very clearly the
falsity and absurdity of the pretence that the poor parts of
Ireland were going, to shift their burdens upon the richer
parts. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) especially,
protested against the assumption that Ireland was ag-
grieved by the increase in the spirit duties. If Ireland
were aggrieved by an imposition of a duty of 190,0001.
upon spirits, had not Scotland a right to complain that a
duty of 270,0001. upon spirits was imposed upon her with-
out any gift of consolidated annuities ? (Hear, hear.) Yet,
not a single voice had been heard, either in that house or
out of it, from Scotland saying, " Can't you give us some-
thing by way of compensation for the additional spirit
duties you arc going to levy upon us ?" (Cheers.) The
principle was to levy as large a duty upon spirits as you
could collect. He had heard something about the rights
of man, but he denied that it was one of the rights of man
that Irishman should gut intoxicated upon whisky at
2.3. 4d. a-gallon. (A laugh.) He thought it would bo
gross wrong to levy three times as much duty upon spirits
in England as in Ireland, and he protested against putting
down this additional. spirit duty as a wrong and burden
inflicted upon Ireland. For these reasons he besought the
house not to accede to the motion of the hon. gentleman .
(Cheers.)
Sir J. PA KINGTON was not prepared to say whether
or not the hon. member for Portarlington had taken the
best course 'in moving for a select committee, but he would
vote for any form of proceeding by which he could express
. his opinion that the budget bore hardly and unfairly upon
Ireland. (Cheers.) At all events, no inconvenience could
be sustained from Ireland being exempt from income tax
until the select committee had reported. The right hon.
• gentleman had accused his noble friend of passing over
figures, but he had shown the same good judgment in pass-
ing over the speech of the right hon. member for Ports-
mouth (Sir F. Baring). Ho had not heard any attempt on
the part of hon. gentlemen opposite to answer that speech.
As an English member, unconnected with Ireland, he
thought the great defect of the budget was its want of im-
partiality. The right hon. gentleman said, as a reason for
imposing the income tax, that Ireland was relieved from
tho consolidated annuities, but he could not accept this
answer, and he thought it a great mistake on the part of
the Government to put the consolidated annuities in the
same category with regular taxation. What was the origin
and cause of the consolidated annuities ? They were the
result of that awful infliction with which it had pleased
Providence to visit Ireland. A part of this debt was
indeed,_. incurred by building workhouses for the unions.
-tl.-0 sat up-stairs upon a committee where the relative
distress of the Irish counties was exhibited by a shaded
snap. Tho consolidated annuities had pressed heavily
upon the black counties of the west and south, and the
Chancellore eof the Exchequer was going to give them re-
word to ,I3l,:iii)rnportant relief, against which he had not a
parliament
was to relief was no adequate reason why
north not only wa the white counties of the east and.
tional burden of taxation. the income tax, but with a great addi-
athe Lords' committee(Hear, hear.) From the Moment
annuities must beenhavernaae their report, the consolidated
considered as virtually gone, and
it became morally imporible for the Government to co' llect
portio
them. (Hear, hear.)
' connected with the workhrat wassee
, which he did not
not see
why the Government shouldeei3liaaint salt
.of.
tei annuities should not
why this portion of the eonsorin
facz
etinbers.) The Chan-
be paid. (Cheers from the Irish
f f tdueibtt-
cellor of the Exchequer had,
which he was
ously and unnecessarily, a considerabli.or°liva
which he might not only have recovered
bound to recover. (Cheers from the Irish inemw
right hon. gentleman (Sir C. Wood) last December strsil
not only that Ireland could not bear an
.income tax, but'
that she could not bear additional taxation. Th
remission of the
teller of the Exchequer stated that the e Chan_
consolidated annuities was an equivalent, but while he
abandoned 240,000/. a year from this source, he imposed
r • and, in the third
an income tax of 460,000/. ; ho imposed, secondly, spirit
in 198 0001. a year
duties, bringing
while
tiltoe get
place, he imposed a succession tax. It
at the amount to be raised rom tawx,agfdiorfficwu
hoa, member for D unga r an reckoned the amount at