The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-29 00:00:00

age of twenty-one; had raised himself to a position equal to
that of the hon. member, or had shown so little sympathy
for the people of Ireland as had the honourable member.
• He adinitted that when the cry of intolerance was raised
in this country two years ago that hon. member had
breasted it like a man—had stood boldly forward and defied
• the clarodur of those who might possibly have deprived
him of his seat, though they could not deprive him of the
well-earned estimation of the people of his own country.
He admitted this ; but when the honourable member said
he was entitled, on account of what he did then' to lecture
the representatives of Ireland, the answer was that what
he did he did for his own honour, for his own fame,
that he might not go down to posterity, notwithstanding
what he had done in finance, as a mere bigot after all.
The honourable member, who had bee-i many years in the
house, must know well what grievances Ireland had to
complain of, grievances which would keep him (Sergeant
Shee), though he mainly agreed with the principles of the
Government, on the Opposition side till they had the man-
liness and the courage to redress them. Never did the
hon. member stand forward to .save Ireland from her
ecclesiastical establishmert ; yet he found fault that the
Irish members took no part in the house relative to im-
perial questions. What part did the hon. rneinber take in
Irish questions save to scoff and spura the Irish represen-
tatives? The hon. member was not only wrong, but ex-
ceedingly'ungrateful thus to lecture them. Could he have
wrested his victory from the landed aristocracy without
their aid? Could he have carried free trade without the
Irish members had always been voting on his side ? The
hon. member said the Irish people were always endeavour-
ing to get bargains from the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The Irish people, whatever the ultimate result, had so far
supported his free trade at a great pecuniary loss to them-
selves. The farmers and gentry who supported free trade
had lost a considerable amount of annual income by mak-
ing trade in corn and cattle free. The hon. gentleman
must have a wonderfully short memory, or must ho mar-
vellously deficient in gratitude, if already he could say of
those to whom he owed his present position that they had
been always making paltry bargains with the Minister of
the day ; but he would pass from the hon. gentleman, and
proceed to give other reasons against the imposition of
additional taxation on Ireland. Ireland had suffered con-
siderably by the opening of the ports of this country—she
was a sacrifice to our policy. That was better than being
a sacrifice to our whims. Did she not, for the whim of
the members of the United Kingdom, maintain the whole
of the expense of a Church, with a hierarchy of 27 bishops,
and 3,0001 priests, and of the fabric for divine worship in
every parish ? (Hear.) Was it not to carry out their
whims that two large standing armies, the one in red the
otherin green, were required for the repression of the people
in Ireland? Was not this because we choose—with respect
to laws for them as to religion, and to laws for them as to
the relation between landlord and tenant—to govern Ire-
land on principles which the people of England would
rebel rather than submit to. He told honourable and
right honourable gentlemen opposite that though the Irish
representatives were willing to give them credit for being
well disposed towards the principle of civil and religious
liberty, they could not be satisfied with an inclination,
and would shortly be found banded against the Govern-
ment, unless the Government pursued a bold and generous
policy towards their country. Would to God the time had
arrived when there would be no party in that house but
the party of the United Kingdom. (Hear, hear.) He for
one would rejoice if there was no section of the house
ktown as the Irish party, with respect to which calcula-
tions should be made as to the side on which they would
vote on every vestion. (Hear, hear.) But he would say
that there never could be an end to the Irish party until
they (the English members) got rid of their whims and
prejudices, and were content to economise the expenditure
of the two countries by doing justice to Ireland. In his
humble opinion it would be impossible for any independent
Irish member of that house to vote for the budget of the
right honourable gentleman as it now stood, although he
might vote for it if it were modified. (Hear, hear.) There
certainly would be great inconvenience in rejecting two
budgets in the space of one year ; but so long as the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer showed an unwillingness to face
the real difficulties connected with this subject, and to re-
dress the injustice inflicted on the Irish people, no Irish
member who had sense of what was due to himself, and to
his country would do otherwise than pause before lending
his support to the proposition of the right honourable
gentleman. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. J. L. RICARDO had heard with some surprise the
elaborate attack which the honourable and learned gentle-
man who had just sat down had directed against the hon.
member for the West Riding, for having ventured to sug-
gest to Irish members that they should devote more of their
attention to matters of Imperial concern, seeing that the
honourable and learned gentleman had himself separated
the interests of Ireland from those of England in the re-
marks which had fallen from him on this occasion. (Hear.)
hear, and " No.") The honourable and learned member
had spoken of two budgets, but, according to him, it
seemed that there ought to be a third budget for Ireland
besides the two which had been brought forward for Eng-
land, and he had declared that he would not be satisfied
until such were the case. (No, no.) The honourable and
learned member had told them that the income tax was a
fair tax for England, and an unfair tax for Ireland ; but
he (Mr. Ricardo) could not understand how there could be
any fairness in this taxation of the country when they
were called to deliberate upon different principles for the
taxation of Ireland. (Hear, hear.) He wished briefly to
state the reasons for the vote which he intended to give
that night. He bad come down to the house on Monday last
and found on the votes an amendment to this effect, that
in respect to any profession, trade, or vocation, whether
the same were exercised in the United Kingdom or else-
where, for every 20s. there should be levied for two years
5d., for the next two years 4d., and for the next three
years 2d. That was a plain tangible proposition, and one
they cork' understand. But by some extraordinary ma-
nceuvre—a manoeuvre which closelyshaved the regulations
of that house with regard to motions which might be
brought forward in committee—another and a general re-
solution had been put upon the books stating—as far as
he could understand it, for it was not very comprehensible
—that no tax ought to be imposed without some adjust-
ment and arrangement. He believed that there was no
man in the house who did not wish that this tax should be
adjusted and arranged as far as was possible ; but he cer-
tainly expected that the house would have been told how
and in what manner it was proposed to adjust and equa-
lise the tax. (Hear, hear.) He was free to confess, that
although he had taken a great part, and had made a great
outcry in favour of the adjustment of this tax, and al-
though he had moved an amendment on the subject when
Sir R. Peel first brought it forward, and although he had
gone into committee with a strong bias in favour of the
and equalisation of the tax, yet, after hearing the evidence
which was given before the committee, he must own that
any adequate adjustment now appeared to him to be tan-
tamount to an abrogation of the tax altogether. (Hear,
hear, hear.) If honourable members would look in the
Journal of the Statistical Soddy, they would see there an
article by Mr. Farr, one of the most able and intelligent
of the witnesses who had appeared before the committee.
and they would observe that that gentleman was of opinion
that the man who bought Consols at 80 ought to be taxed
differently from the man who bought at 85, and he even
split hairs to such a degree as to speak of every piece of
land varying in value for purposes of taxation, according
to the value of money in every year. When hon. members
had read these things, he (Mr. Ricardo) believed that they
would lay down the book in despair, and say that if you
were to have an income tax you could not adjust it. (Hear,
hear.) He would conclude by offering to the right hon.
gentleman what he might consider the equivocal compli-
ment of 'saying that he forgave the eccentricity displayed
by the right honourable gentleman with respect to the
commutation of annuities for the sake of his Budget.
(Hear, hear.)

Mr. F. FRENCH was somewhat surprised at the course
taken by the hon. member for the West Riding and his
friends, remembering their repeated denunciations of the
inequalities and injustice of the income tax. He trusted
the country would understand that if this attempt to
equalise the tax failed, it would be owing to the abandon-
ment by those hon. gentlemen of the principles they had
professed. He contended that Ireland was unfairly dealt
with in the budget, and urged that there was abundant
reason why Ireland should not be taxed in the same pro-
portion as England in the financial positions of the two
countries, in reference to their respective public debts at
the time of the union, and in the undue expenditure which
had been incurred by Ireland, by English Government.
He admitted that the remission of the consolidated annui-
ties would be an advantage to Ireland, but he protested
against mixing that question up with the income tax.
'The total amount to which Ireland could be justly liable
was 2,400,000/. ; which would give an annual payment of
140,000/. a-year, while the income tax to be imposed, ac-
'cording to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's own estimate,
,would amount to 460,0001., or, as he believed, to, at least,
500,0001. a-year ; and including the legacy duty on land,
and the additional spirit and license duties, the total ad-
ditional taxation to be imposed on Ireland, in return for
.the remission of the annuities, was 1,050,0001. Ireland
was in no better position to bear the income tax now
than she was in 1842, when Sir Robert Peel stated that
it would be absurd to attempt to impose it upon her.
The hon. gentleman next adverted to the proposition of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer for an increased duty on
spirits in Ireland. Sir IL. Peel had proposed an additional
duty of a shilling a gallon, from which ho expected to get
250,0301. a year ; but it was found to be unprofitable and
was abandoned ; owing no doubt to the influence of the
late Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey in the Cabinet, and his
thorough knowledge of Irish affairs. It was to be re-
gretted, that there was no Irishman in the Cabinet now
who could give similar information. [Sir J. Graham—
There is Lord Palmerston.] It was true Lord Palmerston
had Irish estates ; but he was not resident, and could
hardly be claimed as an Irishman. A duty of Bd. a gallon
now was equal to ls. when it was imposed by Sir R. Peel,
and it was to doubted whether the tax would be as pro-
ductive as the Chancellor of the Exchequer expected. The
right hon. gentleman proposed, for the purposes of this
tax, to put the constabulary under the revenue officers.
The position of those two forces was very different, the
one being civil officers,:acting under the magistrates, while
the other was entirely independent of them, and it was
not desirable to let loose on Ireland 13,000 additional ex-
cisemen. It would not be necessary for him to go into thn
question of the relative taxation of England and Ireland-
He
could declare that Ireland now paid to the utmost
farthing what she could, and extending the income tax to
her was uncalled for by necessity and
asfor the first
most unjust.
He objected to the introduction into Ireland,
time, of an inquisitorial tax, when there was no machinery
for its collection, which would add to the
expense
executive • and also to the proposition with regard of the
to the
additional duty on spirits, which w
police and increase smuggling;
and on
its present form,
well intended it might be if continued
:uld deteriorate the
the whole, however
he believed the budget would be mostunjui,s,te
and
dhisinjdue:
rious to Ireland, and therefore ho should g
cided opposition.
Mr. T. BELLEW said that as the hon. member for Ros-
common. had asserted that no independent Irish member
could conscientiously support; the proposition of the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer; and as he (Mr. Bellew) believed
that he could conscientiously support it, he thought he
should not be doing his duty to his constituents if he did
not shortly state the reasons which influenced him.
(Cheers.) He had come down to the house on Monday
night without having made up his mind as to what way he
should beforee
should vote ; but having considered the
the house, and the manner in which it would affect his
constituents, he had heard nothing which in his mind
would contradict the assertion he now made that it would
be a great boon to the tenant farmers of Ireland. On the
whole he should give his support
Chancellor of the Exchequer. the proposition of the
Mr. SANDARS was anxious to give his reasons for the
vote he was about to give, Particularly as he believed he
should differ with many hon, gentlemen around. him.
(Cheers.) He differed from the •hon member for Roscom-
mon, when he said that the incom• e tax and the legacy
duty were independent of each
other.He (Mr. Sandars)
would say that but for the imposition of the legacy duty
on real property he did not know that he should have voted
for the income tax. Thiri:bwtas no new light let in on him,
for in 1848, when the
for Halifax brought for: hon.
gentleman the member
strongly recommended
his budget, he (Mr. Sandars)
- recommended the imposition of this legacy duty.