The Sun.
London, England, 1853-05-03 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, MAY 3, 1853.

the rich. I believe the benefit would be much more ex-
tended ; for by the heavy tax on servants, by the heavy
tax on carriages and the like, you do restrict very much
the employment of those who labour and are in some trades.
This is a brief summary of some of the advantages. On
the other hand an objection in the eyes of many is, that
there is no difference in the rates proposed for the income
tax. An objection in the eyes of many is, that a tax is
proposed to be imposed on legacies. Various duties have
been proposed, and different persons have raised various
objections. It is with those objections that I wish imme-
diately to deal ; but, first, I must say that the spirit in
which the proposition of the Government has been made
and the terms of the amendment do seem to me singularly
irreconcilable. The language of the honourable and learned
member for Suffolk is that new and enlarged burdens are
placed on land ; the right hon. gentleman who has just sat
down complains of new taxes on land, and states that the
budget is framed in a spirit hostile to the land. What is
this proposition before the house ? What is the engine by
which it is proposed to throw down this vast edifice which
my right hon. friend proposes to raise ? Is it proposed to
tax land less ? Is it proposed to take off burdens on land,
or impose new taxes on trade? Quite the contrary.
(Hear, hear.) The proposition made by the hon. member
for Hertfordshire is this, that whereas land is now taxed
7d. and trade 7d., land shall continue to be taxed at the
same rate, and trade and manufactures shall be taxed at a
lower rate. (Hear, hear.) Has there ever been anything
so contradictory ? And yet some hon. member—l believe
the right hon. gentleman the (member for Oxfordshire—
stated that he was gratified on hearing my right hon.
friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer state that the in-
come tax of 7d. was in fact 9d., owing to the expense of
repairs. One would have thought that he would have
voted in favour of some proposition to reduce the tax on
land ; instead of which the proposition was really that 9d.
should be the tax on land, and sd. on other sources of
income. (Hear, hear.) That those who for seven years
have been declaring that land was illtreated by the com-
mercial legislation of those seven years—that they should
come, at the end of those years, with a proposition to assist
trade and manufactures, of whose predominance and unfair
influence they have been complaining all this time, is cer-
tainly one of the most wonderful anomalies which this
house has ever presented. Ever since Marshal Marmont
conducted his division of the army, which expected to be
led into the ranks of Napoleon, into the hostile army of
Austrians and Prussians, there has been no such military
move ; and, therefore, I did wonder that the right hon.
gentleman the member for Oxfordshire, who is generally
so clear in his views, who fixes so shrewdly his aim, should,
instead of being pointed, be obscure in his argument. But
what is the case ? The right hon. gentleman hardly
touched and hardly represented fairly what was the case
with respect to this equal, rate in all the schedules. Tho
real difficulty is making any alteration which would not
expose you to further alteration ; and that further altera-
tion would expose you at least to break down and finally
abandon the tax. Nothing was more plausible than to say
that, at least, let the profession of those who by the energy
of their minds and the difficulty of their toils which depend
on their physical wellbeing be rated accordingly. There
are other persons who are engaged in trade, and say, let
us be placed in the same position. Then follows the
question of salaries of public officers, likewise gained
by mental exertion and a continuance of the capacity for
working. Then comes the question of land, which has a
claim of its own, of an allowance for repairs. You
arrive at this, that every schedule is altered except that
which relates to the public funds ; and that question is
one which I hope never will be dealt with in this house
in the manner in which it has been treated by
the hon. and learned member for East Suffolk. (Hear,
hear.) One principle was to leave the income tax derived
from the funds ; but, if you did not take that course, there
was no limit to which separately you might not tax in-
come arising from the funds. That is a principle which
would put an end at once to public faith—(hear, hear.)—
to all confidence on the part of the holders of the funds ;
because here are two principles—one theoretical, and the
other is a practical principle--contained in the present
rating of the public funds. The theoretical principle is
that laid down by Mr. Pitt, and it is just ; but I must say
it goes as far as justice will permit in the taxation of a
country. It is this principle --we tax income, and not
any particular income. We takel all incomes, from what-
ever source they are derived. In that case the funds seem
to form soma security ; but when you say to them, " We
tax you 7d, and others Nd., because the source of your
income is more permanent than theirs," the fundholder
will say, " If you come to the sources of income you have
no right to place any tax at all upon us—you must abandon
your tax on funded property altogether." (Hear.) But
there is besides this a practical principle, and it is this—
the fundholder's security is, that if you lay a !.ax upon
income equally, his tax will not be excessive, because he i§
guarded by the taxation of the rest of the community ;
but if you say he shall be taxed at 10 per e:,:nt. you are
are not very likely to go to 20 or 30 or 40 per cent.—but if
you tax the funds alone and separate then. from other
classes, there is no reason why you should not have 5 per
cent. on all other classes and 50 per cent. on the funds.
His practical security is in equal taxation, and therefore
it is that I viewed with alarm and apprehension the pro-
posal made by the right hon. gentleman opposite, when he
stood in his place as Chancellor of the Exchequer, that in
Ireland funds and salaries alone should be taxed—(hear,
hear) ;—because that was the beginning and a very serious
beginning—the commencement of a plan by which funds
should be taxed alone—by which the interest of the fund-
holder should be separated from the whole of the rest of
the community, and which would have afforded a prece-
dent, by which that large sum which we have to
.pay to
the public creditors of this country should be diminished
to any extent that Parliament, in its want of discretion and
honesty, should think proper. (Hear.) These appear to me
to be the general principles by which my right hon. friend
and the Government have been guided with respect to the
income tax. We have studied the question, and although
the right hon. gentleman opposite now denies that he ever
said he had not time to look into the schedules, he has
almost confirmed that remark by what he has said to-
night ; because he has said that he did not go into the
question of the way in which the variation of the tax was
to be effected, and reserved to himself the power of going
into those particulars during the recess that was to follow
Christmas. (Hear, hear.) The right hon. gentleman did
not tell us then—and he has not told us now—how ho was
to make that just distinction which he proposed as to the
income tax ; therefore I must believe—l am sorry to believe
—that having the authority of Mr. Pitt, of Lord Lansdowne
in 1806, and of Sir Robert Peel in 1842, all opposed
to his own he did not think it incumbent upon him in er-
gard to his duty as Chanceller of the Exchequer, or worth
his while, to go into every particular of every change he
should propose in the rating of the income tax before he
came down to the house and proclaimed a mode of levying
the tax from which, as I think, evil results would come.
(Cheers.) There are other questions affecting the income
tax as now proposed. One is the extension of the tax to
incomes of 1001., upon which the right hon. gentleman
himself made a proposal, that with regard even to trade it
should be levied to that amount. But here I must remark
that an observation made by my right hon. friend the
member for Portsmouth that seemed to have a great deal
of force in it is really not applicable to the proposal of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. My right honourable friend
said, if you propose a termination to this income tax, and
see the end of it before you, it is not a fitting occasion to
extend it to classes by whom it is not paid now. It is
like a man owing 151., and borrowing Si. more in order
that he may have 201. to pay. But my right honourable
friend omitted from his calculation the proposition of the
Chancellor of tke Exchequer—that although there is an
increased amount to be derived from the income tax at

present, there is a dimunition from it before it comes to a
termination ; and at the end of six years, instead of
6,000,0001. or 5,500,0001., the sum with which the house of
Commons will have to deal will be only 4,500,000/. ; so that
the Chancellor of the Exchequer has, in fact, taken the
precaution that the sum with which the house will have to
deal will be smaller than would be the case if it were now
proposed at once to abrogate this tax. There is another
question on which my right hon. friend likewise touched,
and which was commented on with great force by the hon.
gentleman opposite, the hon. member for Belfast. The
hon. gentleman said you ought not to extend this tax to
Ireland, and he gave this reason for it. He said, " You
propose to give up the consolidated anuuities, which is due
in justice to those who now pay it, and then you propose to
lay an income tax upon the whole community in Ireland
in order to make up the deficiency." I should have
stated the case in precisely the opposite way. (Hear,
hear.) I should have said, in the first place there was no
injustice whatever in the proposition of taking off the
Consolidated Annuities and laying on the income tax. But
he should state the case thus :—You have a tax upon this
country which you propose to continue in order to obtain
a remission of other duties, many of which have been
already taken off, and several of which are going to be
taken off, pressing upon the whole of the community.
What is the reason Ireland should not bear such tax ? If
Inland is, with the rest of the United Kingdom, to receive
a great benefit, although not in the same proportion, why
is she not to bear her burden? The answer was—and it
was a sufficient answer in 1848, and might have been a
sufficient answer now—" why, there are great burdens
imposed on Ireland in consequence of the calamity of
the famine and the debts contracted to feed the
people ;" but we say we will take away that reason by re-
lieving you from the burden of those debts ; and then Bel-
fast, which has had no claim whatever to be exempt from
the income tax, immediately you strike out that reason—
Belfast, a place like Liverpool and Glasgow, comes into
the category of those towns upon which this tax should
be imposed, and imposed, as I think, in the same degree
and according to the same amount of means. (Hear,
hear.) I think the objection to the extension of the tax
to Ireland was very much the distress of the Southern and
Western parts of Ireland ; but in 1848, when the country
was far more distressed than it is now—when the remains

of the famine still pressed on Ireland—my honourable
friend the member for Marylebone made a motion to im-
pose an income tax on Ireland ; he proposed no remission
of those debts which were then heavier than they are now,
and when the country was less able to bear them, and yet
the right hon. gentleman, and the right hon. gentleman
the member for Oxfordshire, and many others of their
political friends and followers voted for the imposition
of the tax on Ireland. (Cheers.) Well, the right hon.
gentleman has to-night treated us with a dissertation
on the inconsistency which he finds in some gen-
tlemen sitting on these benches ; but a more glaring
example of inconsistency could hardly be found. (Hear,
hear.) With regard to the effect of the relief given
to Ireland, and the burdens imposed on her by this budget,
I do not find from the figures that she has so great a bur-
den imposed upon her as some hon. gentlemen opposite
seem to think. I find that the increase of taxation from

the income tax, taking it for seven years, is 400,000/. a-year,
from the legacy duty, 60,0001., and from the stamp duty,
98,0001., in all 558,003/. ; whereas the relief is, the conso-
lidated annuities 245,0001., the tea duty 375,000/. and other
smaller items 50,000/., being a larger amount of relief
than the burdens, and in 1860, according to the figures,
Ireland will be relieved from 670,003/., and the only
duties imposed will be the legacy duty and spirit duty,
amounting together to 258,0001, leaving 412,003/. a year
at the balance of remission to Ireland. But I must say
I think that on this subject gentlemen have looked
rather too much to the value of these particular figures,
and not enough to the general interests of Ireland in rela-
tion to finance. (Hear, hear.) I have long considered
that the disadvantage of Ireland in matters of finance
has been the duties on consumption, which, hardly borne
in England, have, in Ireland, totally prevented con-
sumption. I remember a remarkable illustration of
this, that was stated by my late lamented friend Lord
Sydenham, in a speech of his own financial subjects • ho
stated that in the year 1807 the revenue of Ireland
amounted to 4,378,000/. Between that year and the con-
clusion of the war taxes were successively imposed which,
according to the calculations of Chancellors of the Ex-
chequer, were to produce 3,400,0001., or to augment the
revenue to the extent of 7,700,0001. What was theresult:.fr

In the year 1821, when that amount, less about 400,0001.

,
for taxes afterwards repealed, ought to have been paid into
the Exchequer, the whole revenue of Ireland amounted
only to 3,844,0001. being 533,0001. less than in 1807. (Hear,
from the Opposition.) Those additional taxes were not
an income tax, wore not direct taxes ' • they were taxes on
the great articloo of conauxeptio, and that is the ?ghat on