The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-16 00:00:00

this Muse could ever give its consent. And then, after
we have had this plan two whole days as I thought tualer
_ _

ecnsitieration, ti Hon. Gentleman the Member for So

mersetshire gets up this evening and says, for his part,
he did not hear his lion. Friend mention a word of the

income-tax, and as far as he knows no such plan is in

contemplation.—(Hear, hear.) But although he giv,s
us this information, he studiously keeps secret wha:t
the plan is to be by which this large amount of revenue
is to be supplied. No wonder, if the authors and pro.

pounders of the plan, if those who are in the confidence of
ihe Hon. Gentleman, refuse to give any light to the
House, that other Hon. Gentlemen should come forward
and propose their various plans to supply this want. The
Hon. Member for Lincolnshire said he thought a mode
rate duty on corn might supply the deficiency—a defi-
ciency of 6,000,0001. to be supplied by a moderate
duty on corn !—(Laughter.) That would hardly
do either. No doubt he intended to come to the

rescue of the Hon. Gentleman, who seemed to have a
plan, but to have abandoned it; but the Hon. Member
for the North Riding made certainly a much bolder at-
tempt, and, being obliged at the instant to volunteer an
extempore plan of finance, propounds one so astounding
that I do not wonder the old habits of the Right Hon.
Member opposite should have been shocked by its no
velty and boldness—(Hear, and laughter)—to see the
Customs and Excise abolished, and then to have
40,000,0001. raised by a tax on every article of produce
or consumption to be found in the country—(Hear)—
is replacing that which is not a very pleasant burden,
but a burden we can bear, by one so intolerable that it
would be impossible for the country to submit to it for
a month. Therefore, giving my Honourable Friend
great credit for his intention and promptitude in coming
to the relief of the Hon. Gentleman, I must say he has
not produced any plan that can satisfy the House to go
into Committee. Then what is this great secret? It is
a great temptation to go into Committee to find it out.
6,000,000/. of taxation is no small portion to be replaced.
What can it be the Hon. Gentleman proposes?—
(Laughter.) The Noble Lord the Member for Stamford
says there is to be a tax which will not bear upon
the occupiers of land at all. It will all be placed on per-
sonal property which is not now taxed for local purposes.
Is that the Hon. Gentleman's plan? Does he mean
there should be a general tax upon personal property
and upon personal property only, from which all real
property should be relieved? It is necessary to consider
a little, and I will do so very shortly, what is the gene.
ral nature of the proposition the Hon. Gentleman made.

He finds that local taxation, the greater part of which is
the poor-rates, has subsisted from the time of Queen
Elizabeth—for more than 250.. years—and which has

been assessed according to the decisions of the courts of
law. What reason has the Honourable Gentleman to
say that this is by any means a new tax upon land?
What ground has he to say that land is
more taxed at the present moment than in former
times? We know that four years after the
Revolution—in 1692, a tax was imposed of 4s. in
the pound on land; that for many years land did not
alter in value, and that Sir R. Walpole, in 1730, in pro-
posing a reduction of that tax, said, the tax had borne
so hard upon the landed interests that many gentlemen
were obliged to sell their estates, being utterly ruined
by that burden upon them. That tax, not having been
altered, has become, not 2,G00,000/. out of 40,000,0001.,
which was supposed to be the income of the country at
that time, but 2,000,0001. out of 200,000,0001., the pre-
sent income of the country, and therefore it is a tax upon
land not anything like what it was in former times.
Then, with regard to the poor-rates, I think the objec-
tion stated by the Right Bon. Gentleman opposite, even
supposing you are to take off this tax from realproperty,
would be conclusive against such an application of the
tax. Suppose you had 6,000,000/., and it was perfectly
easy to find 6,000,000/. in the Exchequer, and that you
were to apply it to this purpose, it would not be wise to say
that that which has hitherto been a local burden, admi-
nistered for local purposes, and governed and con-
front d by the will, the care, and the discretion of
local bodies, should hereafter be a public tax, and that
the Charcellor of the Exchequer should be obliged to
meddle with its application and control its direction and
amount, because you could not otherwise submit to it.
In certain cases the poor-rates may be light, in other
cases they may be heavy, and both light and heavy
taxes may be proportioned to the necessities of the
parish in which they are imposed; but it may be other-
wise; and are you to admit that oeparish shou e
ld b
burdened with only 2s. in the pound,n another with 10s.
in the pound, and you are to give ss. in the pound with-
out inquiring whether they are very lavish in their ex-
penditure, and whether that enormous amount of taxa-
tion is justified? Therefore there must be a constant
interference with the local rating, and that breaks down
the principal of local government, which it is so desir
able to maintain. I should say, therefore, even sup-
posing this tax could be changed, it would not be wise
to alter your parochial government in a degree that
might break down the allele of the local go-
vernment hitherto administered by local and repre-
sentative bodies. But the Honourable Gentleman in the
course of his speech made some reference to me, and
to what I had said and proposed on this subject.
It is quite true that in 1846, following the Right :Hon.
Gentleman the Member for Tamworth, I said that if the
corn-laws were to be repealed I thought considerable re-
lief ought to be given to the landed interests from the
burdens to which they were subject.— (Cheers from the
Opposition.) What I had in contemplation was more
particularly those charges which referred to the adminis-
tration of justice, and the Right Hon. Gentleman, coming
back to office, and proposing his own plan, did propose a
diminution of those burdens, and several others, which
pressed on real property to the amount of 535,0001. a year.
I do not know whether I should have,proposed exactly
that amount or something more; but it would have been
a change in that direetion and applied to those purposes,
and not a change applying to the general administration
of the poor-law. I certainly thought that part of that
charge might have been charged on the public revenue;
but, on the other hand, the Right Hon. Gentleman put
some of those charges on the Exchequer, which, perhaps,
I should not. I believe that the sum of 585,0001. would
have been the amount had I proposed to deal with the
cprnrlaws,_ and that would have been a_relief to

the landed interest. But the Honourable Gentleman
seems to suppose that I used expressions at some period
which he thought were applied injuriously to the owners
and occupiers of land. I can assure him the only ex-
pressions I used derogatory to any person were applied
to those who called me the enemy of the farmer. It so
happened that for several years I told those gentlemen
who were particularly interested in the defence of the
landed interest that it appeared to tee public opinion
tended to a great change in the corn-laws, and that I
thought it would be wise in them to consent to that
change in time, and that particularly when there was a
large surplus of revenue it would be wise in them to
consider whether any relief could be given to them out
of that landed interest, consistent at the same time with
a very great and exteasive change in the corn-laws. The
only answer to that proposition which they gave was
such an answer as I received in 1844 from the Honour-
able Gentleman the Member for Somersetahire, who
came forward to-night to deplore the loss of the corn
law. The Hon. Gentleman is reported to have said that
" he commiserated the position of the Noble Lord, which
obliged him to suggest a compromise; but he
Failed upon the Government, and the whole agricultural
interest in the country, to submit to no compromise."—
(Hear,
.hear.) That I think was a fatal error which the
landed interest made. It appeared to me both that the
protection then given was much greater than existed
previous
to the war of 1793, and likewise that that pro-
tection was in a shape that could not be long continued.
I warned them, and warned them in vain, year after
year, that a change was coming, and I advised them to
endeavour to make that change as easy and as useful to
the agricultural interests as by an offer on their part
they could make it. I was called an enemy of the
farmer, and I could not help resenting that expression,
knowing that all I had proposed in that way was notin-
tended as an injury, but for the benefit of the landed in-
terests, some of the members of which I was then ad-
dressing. I can only say, in the same spirit in which
I gave that advice, hope the landed inte-
rest will not follow the Hon. Gentleman in
his proposition of to-night. I am quite sure if he were
imposing
most succeed in that proposition, he would be
most unjustifiably, as I think, upon personal pro-
perty, a new burden of the sum of 6,000,0001., and that
if that House and the other House of Parliament were to
sanction such a proposition, it would be a signal for a
new contest, a signal for invectives against the landed
interest of this country. It would be a ground for the
charge that they were considering only their own power
and their own pecuniary advantage, regardless of the
great and national interests of the country; and, in the
course of that contest, not only would they be deprived
of the new tax they are now seeking to impose, but we
should probably find that other and harder conditions
would be imposed, in order to diminish the
weight which they possess, and I think justly
possess, in the Legislature of the country. I ob•
serve that that remark of mine raises some mirth in
Honourable Gentlemen opposite. It was the same thing,
I remember, when I said that protective laws could
not be continued. That was considered an absurd
and extravagant speculation of mine, and I am
not therefore, surprised that.
.what I at present
say, should be received with derision by them. With
regard to the proposition of the Honourable Member
for Montrose, I certainly think that this is not the pro-
per occasion when the Hon. Member should give effect
to a proposition of that kind. When the Hon. Member
for the West Riding proposed a reduction of 10,000,0001.
in the expenditure, he did it on a suitable occasion, and
when the subject of the expenditure was before the
House, and the House was called upon to say, and did
say, whether they thought that reduction was justified
or not. But to bring forward a proposition for a reduc-
tion of expenditure of 10,000,000/. without having the
means of saying whether that money may or may not
be required for the revenue of the country is, in my
opinion, an interference. with the motion of the Hon.
Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) which the House would not
be justified in entertaining. That Hon. Gentleman has
made his proposition, and I would vote against any
amendment being proposed to it, in order that it may
come fairly before the House. But when it is brought
before the House I will give my vote against it, believ-
ing that, if carried, it will be unjust, that it will be inexpe-
dient, and that it will be the signal for a new war of
classes, and produce evils of which that Hon. Gentleman
has no conception.—(Loud cheers.)
Mr. COBDEN would not have thought it necessary to
address the House, but he had been alluded to so fre-
quently in the course of this debate that he was not wil_
ling to remain under some of the imputations which bad
been directed against him. He would not weary the
House by any reference to the speech of the Hon. Mem-
ber for Buckinghamshire, because, after the speech of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that would only be " to
slay the slain."—(Hear, hear.) Nor would he say any-
thing respecting the motion of his Hon. Friend the
Member for Montrose, although to-morrow night on the
estimates he should refer to the misapprehension which