The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-30 00:00:00

THE BUDGET.

Mr. MOORE resumed the adjourned debate with an ex-
pression of surprise at the various and altogether contra-
dictory grounds on which gentlemen in favour of the
budget had based their arguments for supporting it, and at
the remarkable unanimity with which they had agreed in
one thing—in an utter dissent from the views of the Chan-
*eller of the Exchequer, in proposing that budget, which,
nevertheless, for reasons of their own, they supported. The
legacy duty, he imagined, was what had attracted the ma-
jority of them. As to the income tax being only for seven
years, seven years was a little eternity in finance ; and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer who confessed the faults, the
inequalities, and the inquisitorial character of the tax, yet
asked them to submit to it so long, not as a great necessity
but only to enable them to repeal other taxes to which the
right hon. gentleman could not, in principle, see any such
objections. In England the question was simple, a com-
parison and a balancing of the advantages and disadvan-
tages of the income tax and of those taxes which its imposi-
tion would allow the right hon. gentleman to remit. In Ire-
land there was no such gratifying embarrassment, the question
there being, whether they should be taxed more in order
that we might be taxed less ; and because they ventured
to demur to the operation, they had been assailed by the
press in language which he regretted should have been
pressed into the service. He recollected hearing of the stu-
dents of Dublin hissing a patient because he declined a very
severebut curious operation they proposed, and that seemed
to be the position of those who now found fault with Ireland.
They were called factious and dishonest ; and as to " fac-
tious, ' that was a phrase used by every party that was in
to every party that was out. But as to dishonesty," that
was a serious charge, which Englishmen would not make
unless they were very selfish or very much in a passion.
He thought writers who used this language might have
" supplementary" reasons for so doing—(laughter) ; and
whatever came of the budget, he was sure it would be
the general opinion that it ought to bo pruned of
one excrescense ; that Caesar's wife ought to be above sus-
picion. As regarded the subject of the Irish income tax,
it bad been obscured by two questions being jumbled
together, which should have been kept distinct, whether
Ireland was now sufficiently taxed, and whether she would
or would not have her taxation increased by the adoption
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's proposal ? It appeared
to him that the proposition of the late Government was,
n respect to pound, shillings, and pence, precisely the
same as that propounded by the present Government, so
far as realated to the imposition of the income tax. The
late Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to extend it to
Ireland partially. The present Chancellor of the Exche-
quer, in extending it, gave what he called compensation.
But if he proposed the extension of the income tax
matter of justice, the remission of the Consolidated Annu-
ities had nothing to do with the matter. (Hear, hear.)
He would endeavour to show that Ireland would be taxed
more by the present budget that it was at sent. The
hon. member for Carlow admitted that Irelandper would be
called upon to pay some paltry 350,0001., which multiplied