The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-02 00:00:00

of Parliament that the attorneys' certificate duty ought to
be abolished. Then you had a general election ; and did
the case lose ground by it? No; for on the 10th of March
the house resolved, by 219 to 167, a much larger majority
than before, that the duty ought to be abolished. I say,
then, if it was obligatory upon the Government to consent
to repeal the duty in consequence of the votes of this house,
the case in favour of the last is six times as good as the

other. But by this means yon take away 156,0001. from
the estimated surplus of this year. I say this further—before
the financial statement is made it may be very well tnat
there should be votes upon particular questions of finance,
or upon particular points in connection with the general
state of the country; but after the financial statement has
been made, and the resources and requirements of the state
have been placed in juxtaposition, then I say that a very
different kind of responsibility is incurred by such motions
as this. I will remind the committee how we stand in
this respect. In the financial statement I stated that we
anticipated a surplus amounting to 807,0001. I stated at
the same time that of the items of which that surplus
was composed there were 200,0001. which must be re-
garded as at present uncertain. I shall not go into
details on this subject, but it is my duty to inform the
committee that we shall lose the whole of that 200,0001.
I made a proposal as to licence, from which I expected to
derive 110,0001., but I must say I think the opinion of the
house and the country is adverse to that proposal. (Hear.)
On the whole, I think from the feeling of the house that
that proposal could not be maintained, and, as a conse-
quence, the whole of that 110,0001. is gone. There is
310,0001. of the surplus gone at once. I must state further
that 215,0001. of the surplus consists of occasional pay-
ments, which would be available for this year but would
not return. These amount to 525,0001. out of the surplus
of 807,0001., reducing it to 282,000/. Then the right hon.
gentleman proposes to take away the 6d. advertisement
duty, to which I look for 80,0001. at least ; and, if the rea-
son ho has assigned is to prevail, namely, the vote of the
House of Commons, we shall have to give up 70,0001. for
the attorneys' certificate duty. Now, I put it to the com-
mittee whether it is a justifiable or a prudent course, when
circumstances have already reduced your surplus to
282,0001., to give up the further sum of 150,0001., and thus
leave nothing that can be called a, surplus—a mere nominal
balance, and this at a time when you are undertaking to
carry into effect great and extensive financial operations?
(Hear, hear.) These are my views. But I must say this
further to the committee—l hope they will think upon
what we are doing with regard to direct and indirect
taxation. It is very well to make fine speeches about
direct taxation, and the excellence of the substitution
of direct for indirect taxation ; but I believe it is a
delusion. I do not believe you can with security ma-
terially alter the balance of direct and indirect taxation.
Any step on this subject must be taken with caution
and circumspection. lam convinced that this vote will
operate in the nature of a trap, though not so intended.
What are we doing this year ? Is what we are doing this
year enough, or not? We are going to repeal 5i millions
of taxation ; and of those 5L5 millions of taxation, if not the
whole, nearly the whole is indirect taxation. We are
going to impose 3 millions of new taxation, and of those
3 millions of new taxation, 2A millions are direct taxation.
(Hear, hear.) I put it, then, to the committee that, under
these circumstances, they ought not to give a vote which
virtually will lead them on to the surrender of a large
further sum of money available from indirect taxation,
until they have well considered whether it is desirable to
make a further great addition to direct taxation. Ido
not wish to be responsible in any degree for bringing about
a state of circumstances which shall compel the house to
do what would otherwise be unpalatable. I wish the house
to exercise a free and independent judgment; and I wish
to
make no circumstances out of which the necessity shall
arise to act in a certainmanner, but before the necessity has
arisen, to point out its probability, in order that while
there is yet time the committee may hesitate before being
entrapped into the consequences of any vote they may be
induced to give. These are the general grounds on which
I feel it my duty to leave to the right hon. gentleman the
responsibility of the proposal which he thinks it his duty to
make. The right hon. gentleman has made that proposal
with perfect fairness. He states that he is undoubtedly pre-
pared to give up all the revenue from the advertisement
duty, that he looks upon it as a bad revenue. I, on the
contrary, venture to put it respectfully to the committee
that it is not a bad revenue, but that, restrained with-
in moderate limits, it is a fair, reasonable, and just as most
other portions of our financial system. (Cheers.) At all
events I say do not give a precipitate vote (because men
may act with precipitancy after even a lapse of time), if
that vote may lead to consequences which you have not
fairly anticpated and dispassionately weighed; do not al-
low yourselves to be brought into a position in which you
must alter eventually the balance of taxation of the coun-
try, before you have well considered what will be the con-
sequences of that change, and whether the result will be a
fairer distribution of public burdens than the present divi-
sion of direct and indirect taxation appears to give. It is
upon that account I oppose the amendment of the right
hon. gentleman. (Cheers.)

Mr. COBDEN—I wish to recal the attention of the com-
mittee to the subject matter under consideration. It is a
very simple, and, so far as the amount is concerned, a very
small question. The right hon. gentleman (the Chancellor
of the Exchequer) has led the committee into the conside-
ration of all sorts of subjects except the one before us.
(Cheers.) And he has endeavoured to evade the responsi-
bility which I think rested upon him of paying some at-
tention to a vote of this house by an ex post facto argument
created by himself, which is utterly indefensible. (Hear.)
I would remind the right hon. gentleman that 60,0001. is
the amount, and not 80,0001., which he estimated from
advertisements.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER—I beg
your pardon. You are quite wrong. I stated 80,0001.
Mr. COBDEN—WeII, whether it be 60,0001., or whether
it be 80,0001., which the right hon. gentleman stated in
his budget he expected to receive from the reduced adver-
tisement duty, is not material. But the right hon. gentle-
man now forgets in setting up the plea that he cannot
take off 80,0001. of taxation, that he himself has created
this 80,0001., after a vote of this house had sanctioned the
remission of taxation, and petitions had called for the re-
mission in this specific way. (Hear, hear.) The right
hon. gentleman has remitted three millions of taxation
according to his own statement. (Hear.) Since the votes
of the house on the advertisement duty, he has brought
forward his budget, in which he proposes to remit three
millions of taxation ; and he says he has not the means to
remit 80,0001. a-year, which the vote of this house said
should be abolished. (Cheers.) Another thing I must
call attention to is, that he has mixed this matter up with
the question of supplements, which is totally distinct from
the question of advertisements. The right hon. gentleman
says that it is necessary to repeal the supplement tax in
order to give full effect to his plan of a reduced advertise-
ment duty. But this is his plan ; it is not our plan.
(Cheers.) Again, he is mystifying the matter. He re-
tains the sixpence, and then says it is necessary to take
off the supplement duty, otherwise there will be no means
of expanding the space of newspapers, and therefore we
shall be defeated in the amount of revenue by the want of
space. But abolish the advertisement duty, instead of
reducing it to 6d., and no such argument applies, because
whether he keeps on the supplement tax, or whether he
repeals it, it will have no fiscal consequence whatever with
regard to this question. I beg to remind the right
honourable gentleman again that he has created this
difficulty. Who requested him to create the diffi-
culty ? Who petitioned him to repeal the supplement
tax ? (Cheers.) Were there any petitions presented to
this house ?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER—the sup-
plement duty is 30,0001. a year.
Mr. COBDEN—Just so, and I will give the right hon.
gentleman credit for the difference between 30,0001. and
80,000/., but it only increases the difficulty he has created.
The right hon. gentleman introduced a great variety of
other subjects into this debate. He talked of other taxes
being equally as onerous as the advertisement tax. I join
issue upon that with the right hon. gentleman, and I un-
dertake to prove to the satisfaction of the right hon. gen-
tleman himself that the house did right to make this ex-
ception to other indirect taxes, by totally abolishing it.
He has adduced examples to show that all rated taxes, as
he calls them, must be unjust in their incidence, because
all rated taxes fall equally on articles of different value.
But in all indirect taxes you try to mitigate that inequality
by levying a different rate of duty upon a different class of
articles—as in the case of tobacco and cigars, and in that
of spirits, where you select certain proof of spirits for the
unit of taxation ; and the right hon. gentleman does not
pretend to say you do not try to mitigate inequality by
levying a different rate on different quantities. The paper
duty is a very indefensible duty • but you do not lay the
same duty on a sheet of paper and a quire of paper. I care
not where you go • in all cases you seek to mitigate unfair
pressure by making: distinctions between the qualities
which you tax, and in all things except one, in the quan-
tity which you tax. But when you come to the adver-
tisement duty you depart from the principle, and levy the
same tax on every advertisement, of whatever value they
may be. (Hear, hear.) Every one knows if Igo to insert
an advertisement in a newspaper having a circulation of
30,000 a day, I have to pay 10s. for the advertisement,
but if I go to a paper of small circulation they are glad to
insert it for half-a-crown. In both cases the right hon.
gentleman imposes a tax of ed. In both cases the tax is
the same, though the value of the article is 10s. in the one
case, and2s. 6d. in the other. (Hear, hear.) I have put
this in a very fair spirit. I may have taken a stronger case
still. Then as to quantity, if I insert an advertisement
covering a whole page, for which the charge is 1001., it pays
6d. If I insert an advertisement of two lines, wanted a
place for a house maid, it pays 6d. So I maintain there is
no tax whatever you can adduce so unfair in its incidence
as this tax on advertisements. (Cheers.) I say it is some-
thing more than the right hon. gentleman stated---a tax
on labour and industry-it
is a tax on the intercommu-
nication of wants and wishes, which in a commercial com-
munity, strikes at the foundation of all transactions.
(Hear, hear.) What would be said if it were sought to
lay a tax on every bargain made or attempted to be made,
on the Exchange between merchants who meet there at
four o'clock, if the asking the rate of exchange between
London and Hamburg were to render the broker seeking
the information liable to a tax ? Yet that is what you o
Under the advertisement duty. A man advertises an
Wide for sale, but does not sell it • he makes known his
wan* he offers to sell, and you tax him for it. That, in a
commercial country, where the revenue is benefitted at
every step in business transactions, is suicidal in character,
and strikes at the root of all commercial progress. (Cheers.)
The right
fire
insurances,
hon, gentleman talked of bills of exchange and
but do not bills of exchange and fire in-
surances pay
ment he t according to amount ? and the only argil-
a temPted was'
use. The
for o the most unfortunate he could
penny charge 'entrable gentleman said, " Look at the
50 or 500 miles?" yrs--do you not charge a penny for
an ounce, but you chaerBc: You charge a penny if penny
for
charge a penny for evei%';l2l(l,. if an ounce, increasing the
may be. (Cheers.) I th, ounce whatever the weight
commercial or fiscal matte, not look upon this wholly as a
gentleman
denies
leave to say, though
the right honourable
advertisements is a question affect. es that the question of
on knowledge, that it is a questing what is termed taxes
hac'vceo_f a tax upon know-
ledge ; because if you want to
this country, they can only be soppourZrapers at all in
niched by advertisements ; if you think it del:y funds t hfaurve" competition in newspapers as well as other thin,
Taller, or
ieng.'s, then it
a in
is desirable no obstacle should be offered
what the right honourable gentleman calls stro
papers. The effect of this tax is to prevent Competitionln" flaws-
newspapers. We all know that, whether in
paper
trade, in the spirit trade, in the tobacco trade,'
other trade, when fixed rates of duty are levied upon
article produced, the parties engaged in the production of
those articles always become few in number, and there is a
tendency to create a monopoly in the hands of great capi-
talists. I say every argunwnt used for emancipating trade
in corn ought to be applies: to alltaxes on newspapers; and