The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-23 00:00:00

schedule D, appear to touch the principle involved. These
facts, if they be facts, are arguments for another assess-
ment of schedule A ; they are arguments for a net instead
of a gross assessment ; but they are no arguments why the
difference of percentage was so great as was once slated
by the right honourable gentleman. There are no details
which affect the principle whether there should be a dif-
ference between the assessment on temporary and perma-
nent incomes. " But," said the right honourable gentle-
man, "the schedules were not placed on the table, on the
income tax proposed by the late Government." The
right honourable gentleman might have learned from
those persons who are authorities on the subject, and to
whom he himself will be ready to bow, that there is no
precedent for the schedules of an income tax being
placed upon the table. It is against all precedent,
and against all rule. The house will recollect that
the question of an income tax was never proposed by
the late Government in the House of Commons. (Hear.)
I, as the organ of the Government, never had an opportu-
nity of stating the reasons which had induced us to come
to this result. It was clearly understood that until after
Christmas the question would not be brought before the
house; but there was a reason why we were obliged to pro-
pose the assessment on the schedules, because it was a com-
mittee of ways and means, and it was our duty to show the
means by which an adequate amount of ways and means
might be furnished. Therefore, the resolutions merely re-
mained on the table in their usual form ; and it was not
until the final debate that a right hon. gentleman opposite
entered at all into the schedules ; and that right hon. gen-
tleman having stated that 1 had omitted, in not producing
the schedules, an important part of my duty, what I said
was " that we did not ask you to vote for the schedules—
when the schedules are before the consideration of the
house it will be open to any hon. gentleman to propose any
alteration in the elements of the schedules ; all we contend
is this—we have considered this proposition, and no finan-
cial difference will be made, whatever changes you may
make in the schedules." Ido say—that expression having
been misrepresented by the right hon. gentleman—between
the speech that was made on the elements of the schedule
and my reply, that although it was not my duty to place the
elements of the schedules on the table I did not shrink from
it, and would willingly have done it, but I had no time—
meaning from the pressure of business—formally to pre-
pare those schedules, which it was absolutely against all
precedent to place upon the table. And then the right
hon. gentleman denounces the false principles of finance
which Mr. Pitt would never have recognised—(hear, hear)
—and upon which the project of income tax proposed by
the late Government was brought forward. It was, in
fact, a graduated scale, according to the right hon. gentle-
man ; and he denounced it a few months afterwards, when
bringing in his own plan of an income tax, in which there
was positively a graduated scale of the most flagrant and
the most perilous nature. (Opposition cheers.) We drew
a distinction between incomes of a different character ; but
the right honourable gentleman brings forward an in-
come tax in which he makes an assessment on different
amounts of property, thereby saying that the rich man
shall pay a higher rate than the poor man, the most dan-
gerous principle, to my mind, that can possibly be adopted.
(Renewed cheers from the Opposition.) I hope the coma
mittee will excuse me for entering into these details. I had
hoped the late Government were entombed in Hansard—
(a laugh)—but the right hon. gentleman revived the ques-
tion, and I cannot shrink from answering a charge
which has been repeated by the right hon. gentleman.
There is only one point more on which I must touch.
The right. hon. gentleman has often praised himself
on account of the efficient income tax which he
brought in. He said the income tax which I pro-
posed would have brought in much less to the revenue, in
consequence of my mode of assessment. He found it con-
venient to forget that while we admitted the principle,
which I believe to be a just principle, that there should be
a difference recognised between temporary and permanent
incomes, and the recognition of which would have saved
you from the succession duties—(hear, hear)—he found it
convenient, I say, to forget that we destroyed, or greatly
removed, that immense mass of exemptions which had
risen up in the course of years, and that by increasing the
area of direct taxation we raised exactly the same
sum as the income tax of Sir Robert Peel; and we
not only did that, but by increasing the area of direct
taxation we gave you the security that property assessed to
the income tax should only pay an income tax of 6 per
cent. instead of 10 per cent., for that increased confiscation
which would have been the inevitable consequence if you
had retained the old constructed scheme. I have now
touched upon three grievous errors in the financial cam-
paign of 1853, and which I touch upon because the right
hon. gentleman vindicated himself on these points, not in a
tone of humility which should make me silent—(cheers from
the Opposition)—and because, as I shall show, it is these
errors which are the cause of our present difficulties. But
these errors are not the only ones in the campaign of 1853.
What was the fourth error? It was that reduction in the rate
of interest which forced the right hon. gentleman to pay-
off 3,000,0001. of Exchequer-bills from the public ba-
lances. That I think to have been the fourth error. I
make the catalogue as brief as I can ; but still I will go on.
(Cheers.) There was a fifth error. (A laugh.) I think
it was a great error that the right hon. gentleman com-
mitted in tampering with the funds of the savings banks
as he did. lam perfectly aware that the right hon. gen-
tleman took no step which I believe was not legal in. that
respect; but it was an inconsiderate use of the privileges
of a Minister of Finance which led him to have recourse
to a subject of such great delicacy ; he treated it, however,
in a manner which must have damaged the credit of those
invaluable institutions, the savings banks, among those
classes for whose especial benefit they exist. It would
appear from papers on the table that there was a series of
stock jobbing operations, a catalogue of speculation in the
funds, many of which resulted in a loss to those who in-
vested their money in savings banks. It appeared from
those papers, if I am not greatly mistaken, that savings
bank money was in one day sold out of the public funds,
then invested in the Exchequer-bills, and then those
Exchequer-bills invested again in stock, and that upon
those transactions there was a positive pecuniary loss.
(Hear, hear.) I think that was the fifth blunder—the fifth
great error of the right hon. gentleman in the campaign of
1853. But