The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-26 00:00:00

membered one instance which he had been reminded of in
the course of that day by a noble lord who entertained a
very strong objection to the principle of this bill, but who
was absent on account of a domestic calamity. That noble
lord, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, had introduced a
bill, as a measure in his budget, for the purpose of varying
and altering the stamp duties. An amendment was made
in their lordships' house, materially affecting the character
of that bill with regard to the budget; it was sent down
to the Commons, and the other house did not assent to it,
or accept their lordships' alterations ; but, though techni-
cally they did not do so, they moved that the bill, as
amended, should be laid aside. They then suspended the
standing orders, and reintroduced a bill toticlern, verbis, the
same as the amended bill which had been sent down to
them ; and, having passed it through all its stages, sent it
up as a new bill to their lordships. He was ready to ad-
mit the House of Commons was quite right in vindicating
its technical privileges as well as guarding its bond fide
control over the money of the country ; but he said this,
that if measures were to be introduced altering the whole
financial arrangements of the empire—measures making
new and unheard-of taxes on new and extraordinary prin-
ciples of taxation—and it was asserted that their lordships
were to have no power of altering a single word, of cor-
recting even a mistake, or of rectifying errors into which
the House of Commons might have fallen—that was
in effect to say, their lordships' house was a useless por-
tion of the Legislature, and that, so far as financial mea-
sures were concerned, they had only to record the bills
framed by the other House of Parliament. He hoped that.
whatever course they might take with respect to bills of
minor importance, they would not consent to abrogate all
legislative functions so far as to say that the magic words
"This is a money bill' would be enough to preclude them
from exercising any consideration on a subject of so much
importance. Me regretted very much that when the noble
earl on a former occasion attempted to persuade them to
appoint a committee of inquiry into the working of the
bill, they had not acceded to it, for much useful explana-
tion might have been given, and the bill rendered less ob-
jectionable in consequence during its progress through the
other house. He would not enter upon the consideration
of the circumstances under which that proposition was
rejected. Their lordships were now called on to deal with
the bill as it came from the House of Commons, with all
the inconvenience of being called on to alter it where it
was found objectionable. Before he went to the particu-
lar amendment he was about to propose, he must be per-
mitted to comment on the extraordinary tone and language
which had been adopted by the noble and learned lord,
and the strange inconsistency between his assumptions
and his arguments. The noble and learned lord told them
first, that no tax of the kind could ever be popular. The
noble earl opposite said this particular bill had been re-
ceived with universal approval and acclamation. He could
not see how the silence which prevailed in the country
could be taken to signify any feeling of the kind. The
noble and learned lord at the commencement of his obser-
vations said the bill was popular in the, country, because it
was thoroughly well understood, and was understood to be
aimed at the large landed proprietors of the country alone
—that it was subjecting them to a tax which they were
ofcall peudttoinn
gbyleeevdeeryd
on
nlatihme
soefmjeusfteiecteintgo3epapythfoerr
deeri
purposethciep
tiof property, and that being an assault on the large landed
os
proprietors, and so understood, the bill was received with
universal popularity. Now, assuming the fact to be as the
noble and learned lord had stated, he must say he had too
good an opinion of the sense and justice of his countrymen
at large to believe that if the bill was an attack on the
landed proprietors it would be a recommendation of its
principle to their feelings of justice. (Hear.) But having
told them that, the noble and learned lord proceeded to
say he did not propose to deal with taxation on incomes
of 20,000/. or 40,000.—such sums he knew nothing of, but
that he would consider the measure as it affected, not those
large landed properties, which he had just said it almost
exclusively affected, but small properties from 1001. to
1,0001. a-year. Now, he thought the noble and learned
lord exceedingly mistaken with reapect to the tax, and
when he told them that small properties acquired by
tradesmen or persons in the middle classes were not fre-
quently the subject of settlements, he believed he had fallen
into a serious error, and his belief was that among those
middle classes and the owners of settled property the pres-
sure and hardship of the bill would be felt more severely
than it would be among those whom the noble and learned
lord wished to lean upon heavily. The annoyance, vexa-
tion, and pressure, indeed, might be felt with regard to
both, but let their lordships recollect that, with respect to
the small properties, of which very little had been said as
yet, but of which much would be said hereafter, the pro-
portion of the legal charges, and the burdens on the tax-
payer, without coming into the finance of the country,
would be felt much more severely than among the larger
proprietors, and his conviction was that the amount of the
tax would not be so oppressive as the lawyers' bills, which
would exceed the amount of the whole tax among the
middle classes. The noble and learned lord said there were
two principles involved in the bill—first, that of placing
real and personal property on the same footing ; next,
placing devised and settled property on the same footing.
As to placing those two descriptions of property on the
same footing, all he could say was, that the bill imposed a
new tax on a description of property which was already
most heavily charged, and Which had burdens no one at-
tempted to deny. As to the second remark, he admitted the
principle was intended to Place settled property, whether
real or personal, on the same footing as devised property, but
he could not admit that it was founded in justice, because,
apart and distinct from either, the bill must have a retro-
spective operation when imposed on property which was
held by settlement. That was a new principle in the law
of England. The amendment he was about to propose
went on this principle :—Place, if you would, settled pro-
perty and devised property on an equal footing—place, if
you would, real and personal property on an equal footing—
subject them to the same posthumous charges, but, at all
events, don't make the imposition on one or other retro-
spective, when it was impossible for persons who settled or
devised property to make any alteration in their disposition
of it. (Hear.) Take the case of devised property. The
present claims would come into operation—not after the
passing of the act—not after notice, so that persons might
make such a distribution of their property as would enable
them to meet the changes introduced, so that each member
of their family might be enabled to pay the tax in propor-
tion, but they were about to apply a new legacy duty to
real property, and to all wills which had been made previ-
ous to the 19th of May in the present year. Consequently,
if they passed the bill now, and a man knew it, he could
make a new will, and make such a disposition of his pro-
perty as he pleased, leaving so much in proportion to his
younger children, and so much to the eldest son, but in the
other case the Government came in, and made a new will
for him. They stepped in, and, not permitting him to
alter his testamentary disposition—for he was dead—they
imposed a new tax which would have the effect of altering
the proportion in which he left his property under the san-
tion of a former law. Ho could quote a case in confirma-
tion of the view ho took of this point. In the year 1838 a
bill was introduced to prohibit and check a plurality of
church benefices, and thus to get rid of a great abuse and
an evil which every ono admitted, but so cautions was the
Legislature of that day not to interfere with the vested
rights of persons even in that which was in itself a gross
abuse that provision was made in the bill to the effect that
any person having had left to him the reversion of the next
presentation to a living, though it was a plurality, should
not be barred from the advantages of the will of his prede-
cessor by that act, and in the course of the last year there
had been a case in which, after the lapse of 15 years from
the passing of the act, a person had succeeded to the rever-
sion of a living secured to him under a will dated in 1837.
But there was no gross abuse to be got rid of in this case,
no great object to be gained. The sole motive for passing
this bill was to put up a certain portion of money into the
hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in order to sup-
ply the deficiency caused by his own act. Her Majesty's
Government had thought fit to take off other taxes quite
equal in amount to the tax which they expected to raise
under this bill ; and they proposed to patch up the defi-
ciency so caused by bringing in this bill, which, contrary to
all precedent, and contrary to all justice,
as he contended,
they meant to apply to the will of a man who had did six
months ago. But how much stronger was the case with
respect to settled property. They were about to apply the
bill retrospectively to all family settlements made years
ago, in which there had been many subsequent transac-
tions—estates mortgaged, money borrowed, subsequent
settlements made, and arrangements effected between dif-
ferent parties in the course perhaps of the last 100 or 200
years, all of which would be unsettled and disturbed by
the operation of the-bill, which, so far as its principle was
concerned, might have been simply prospective, but which
for the sake merely of obtaining an immediate revenue,
they proposed to make retrospective as well. The clauses
in which this principle was more particularly to be found
were the Ist, 2d, 3d, sth, 15th, and 24th. The first clause
provided for the interpretation of the different terms con-
tained in the act, but the second clause provided that
"every past or future disposition of property, by reason
whereof any person has or shall become beneficially en-
titled to any property, or the income thereof, upon the
death of any person dying after the time appointed for the
commencement of this act, either immediately, or after
any interval, either certainly or contingently, and either
originally or by way of substitutive limitation, and every
devolution by law of any beneficial interest in property, or
the income thereof, upon the death of any person dying after
the time appointed for the commencement of this act to
any other person, in possession or expectancy, shall be
deemed to have conferred or to confer on the person en-
titled by reason of any such disposition or devolution a
anythe previousbeefita and
dfexisting t
osurvivorshipo
m agree-
ment
iinto
o
succession." The third clause, went furtherfor it provided
that if he, for instance, and any other person were now in
their own right in joint possession of any property, and if
the other possessor were to die, and he, the survivor, were
theno thefwihr
tax-gatherer would come
iocter he had before had only
aim
a
byraeoarnsl
eogfeloar vtierteubeteiofh
inth
divided
ihfve
llei
dr remainder
enjoymenta
pi on
sds eerss
ioofen histthat
e ownt
down and enforce the payment of the tax on that benefit of
survivorship, just as if it had been a new and absolute suc-
cession. - With regard to the sth clause, its vexations, as
applied to future legacies, would be interminable, but he
would not go into them, as he was now contending against
the application of the principle to bygone transactions,
and to an already existing state of things. Every one of
their lordships who had succeeded to property subject to
any annuities or jointures whenever that property should
be increased by the death of any one of the persons now re-
ceiving jointures or annuities, would be called on then to pay
the tax, though they did not succeed to property in the
slightest degree, but simply because a charge upon the pro-
perty which was theirs before had fallen in. It was a mon-
strous case of hardship, and one not at all necessarily de-
ducible from the principle of the bill itself, that any one
should be taxed on the removal of a charge which had been
imposed on him by a bygone instrument. (Hear, hear.)
The 15th clause, too, was grossly unjust, for it said that if
should have disposed of his reversionary Jerson
rest person
rest in any property, whether at the death of the person
holding it, or afterwards when the reversion fell in, the
alienee, who had bought it and paid the full market value
for it, was to be placed in the same position as the person
from whom he had bought it, and was to have an equal
deduction made from his income as. would have been made
from that of the original holder of the reversion. If the
person from whom he had bought the reversion happened
to inherit it from his father, then he would only be,plun-
but if, on the contrary, the seller
dared of one per cent.,
inherited from a distant relation, the purchaser would have
to pay the tax of 10 per cent. Thus, two transactions
might take place of this • • nature, at the time of the purchase
exactly alike but when the reversions fell in they would be
materially altered,—a great injustice would be committed
on both, but on ono it would be tenfold greater than on the
' lases.been the slihtest difference in
other, without there havi
very much like
the terms of the two purc He should
her Ma esty 's Government by
to hear any suggestion froms e,
"ustice. The 34th clause
which they could palliate t
t that while it made allow-
committed this great inj us ice,
ances for all encumbrances on a property not created by
tever extent ho might have en-
the successor, yet, to wha
cumbered his reversionary interest. himself —whether for
no matter for what
his own benefit or thatof his relations,
bad--no allowance was to be made for such
motive, good or ba at
as he himself had created, and which the
encumbrances