The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-20 00:00:00

The CHANCELLOR of :he EXCHEQUER said,
with respect to the prt.position of the Government, two
of the Irish Members who had addressed the House had
spoken in its favour, two had opposed it, aLd two had
done neither the one nor the other, but had protested
against any additional burden being thrown upon Ireland
in its present condition.—(Hear.) He could assure the
Hon. Member who brought forward the amendment,
that he was not disposed to taunt the Irish Gentlemen
with any desire to shrink from the performance of their
duties. During the last three years it had been his duty
to listen from week to week to the powerful tales of dis-
tress which abounded in that country, and the difficul
ties by which the gentry were surrounded. He had no
no hesitation in saying, although he made the statement
without the least inttntion of conveying offence,
that the conduct pursued by the Irish Mem-
bers had considerably aggravated the difficulties
which presented themselves to the Government
in legislating for Ireland. The discussion of the
great question of adapting an ameliorative policy for
Ireland had been reduced by them to a discussion of the
details of the poor-law, and they contended that the
destitution which afflict•d that country was not owing to
the three years' famine, but to the maladministration of
that law and the legislation of that House. Could any
person who knew the deplorable state of many of the
western districts, the wide-pervading distress, the ruin
that befel many proprietors of land from receiving no
rent, and the desolating of the land—could any man who
had knowledge of those things state in truth or sincerity
that this melancholy condition of affairs was to be attri-
buted to the largeness of the area of taxation and the
mode of assessment, and not to the dispensations of Pro-
vidence. The poor-law, he admitted, might have aggra-
vated the pressure on property, but no man, surely,
could doubt that life to a considerable extent was saved
by its operation, and by the assistance which Parliament
rendered in the shape of grants and Wins, and other
legislative measures. He could not agree with the
Hon. Member for Roscommon that, because an additional
amount of poor-rate to the extent of 1,300 0004
had been raised off Ireland during the year ending De-
cember last, there was any breach of faith with the
landed proprietors. The sum so levied, it was true,
doubled that raised in the previous year, and that which
might have been expected in the ordinary course of
events; but circumstances which could not hare been
guarded against, and which it was not in human power
to control, rendered the great increase altogether matter
of necessity. But for the poor-law, much as it had been
cavilled at, distress and destitution and death in many
of the unions must have been far greater than they tin.
happily had been. He maintained that no considerable
diminution of the area of taxation would have righted
those unions, and that no matter what alteration they
made, extraneous assistance would still have been
necessary. Having alluded to the opinions put for-
ward by various Members with reference to the
question of meeting the difficulty, and to the justice
and expediency of rendering Irish property liable
to the support of Irish poverty, and having
drawn attention to the opposition manifested, not
unnaturally, he admitted, by English Members, to the
system of grants and loans, the Right Hon. Gentleman
said it was conceded that in the present state of Ireland
extensive aid should be given to the distressed unions.
In one of these unions, Kilrush, eviction to a greater
extent had been carried on than in others, and in
the space of twelve months 13,000 human beings were
sent houseless on the world. All parties admitted the
necessity for assistance, and the question was, in what
manner could Ireland be most fairly and lightly sub-
jected to the impost required for the sustainment of her
destitute population? The House of Commons had
already decided by a large majority that Ireland should
contribute the sum considered necessary. Several
of those examined before the Poor-law Com-
mittees, he admitted, thought otherwise, but the
House of Commons had settled the point. The argu-
ments against the rate in aid no doubt were very
strong—(Hear, hear)—had he ever denied that they
were so?—(Hear, hear.) He was not ashamed to admit
that they were strong, but so were the arguments against
the income-tax.—(Hear, hear.) There was a precedent

for the rate in aid to be fuund is the system of taxation
for relief purposes, adopted some years ago in the
northern counties of Scotland, and the delegates from
the Irish boards of guardians who assembled in Dublin
last year, put forward a proposition as an amendment of
the poor-law, which was essentially the Government pro-
position. Beyond the necessity of the case, there were
other arguments in favour of the measure. The rate was
to be limited to sixpence in the pound, and it was in
tended to continue in operation for two years only. Hay.
ing defended the course taken by Lord John Russell
in convening the Irish Members, and making to them
the proposition he had done, he proceeded to state
that the motion of the Honourable Member for Kerry
did not appear to meet with much favour from the repre-
sentatives of Ireland. He believed that further assistance
was necessary for the relief of Ireland. He bad asked
from the House many grants and loans for the benefit of
Ireland, and he would not then enter into the discussion
as to the judiciousness of the manner these have been
appropriated; but as to the necessity for the sum now
claimed there could be no doubt; and he, therefore, would
feel justified in putting into the bands of the Chairman
the vote of. 100,0004 to be granted on the security of the
Rate in Aid Bill.

Mr. DISRAELI said the first part of the speech of the
Right Hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was
founded on the assemption that gentlemen on his aide of
the House were opposed to all grants of public m meg to
Ireland under present circumstances. But the assump-
tion was erroneous; for no Gentleman on his side of
the House had at any time opposed these grants to Ire-
land from the publio funds.—(flear, hear.) All they
had done was to insist that grants of that kind should
be accompanied with measures of a permanent character,
which would prevent the repetition of such demands
upon the public funds for the benefit of that country.—
(Hear, hoar.) That was the ground of the opposition to
the first of those grants at the commencement of the
session; and although the Right Hon. Gentleman had
endeavoured to make it appe it that his Hon. Friend the
Member for Northamptonshire had shown somewhat
~f inconsistency in proposing certain reso'utions to the
House, which declared grants of public money to be
impolitic and unjust, he had neglected to read the
other portion of the resolutions, wherein it was stated
unless such grants were accompanied with remedial
measures. That, then, was the case with gentlemen on
his side of the House generally. They had never op-
sesed grants of public meney to Ireland; but, while
they were ready to meet the emergency of the case in
that way, they called upon the Government to constitute
a policy which would prevent those occurrences which
created such emergencies in future.—(Hear.) The Right
Hon. Gentleman had made a strict search in order to
find precedents for the rate in aid now proposed, and had
quoted the 23d.0f George HE. as one of those precedents.
that was the case where certain counties in Scotland
were authorised to be assessed to support the poor of
those districts; but how could there be a rate in aid
where there was no poor-law?—(Hear, hear.) There
as no poor-law in Scotland at the time, and although
the Act in question might be an argument for a poor-
law, it was not what could be established as a prece-
dent for a rate in aid. But he also quoted another
case. The resolutions of an assembly never before
heard of, the time of whose assembling was never
known, and of whose deliberations they had heard for
the first time that night. That was said to be a meet-
ing of the boards of guardians of the Irish unions. But
several gentlemen who sat near him were members of
those boards, and yet they never heard of such meeting.
As to the question before the House, he felt called on to
vote for the amendment of the Hon. Member for Kerry.
—(Hear, hear.) He would vote for that amendment
mainly, though not entirely, for the reason stated by
more than one Hon. Member, namely, that in the diffi-
cult position in which they were placed, the income-tax
would not press so heavily on the small farmer of Ire-
land as the rate in aid would do; and that was a consi-
deration which ought at all events to influence those on
his side of the House.—(Hear, hear.) He thought,
also, that it would be desirable that that portion of the
proceeds of the general income-tax paid into the Im-
perial Exchequer, and levied from Irish resources,
should be applied solely for Irish purposes.—(Hear.)l
He did not say that the adoption of such a system
would be any gain to the empire generally; but if Ire-
land did require extraneous aid, it would be the mode of
giving it agreeable to the feelings of the people. He was
also favourable to the income-tax, because it was an im-
post which touched all descriptions of property—(Hear,
hear)—and although io the present instance its exercise
was not proposed on any great scale, yet he thought it
was their policy to protest against that system of op-
pressing the land by peculiar taxation. Besides, he had
no confidence in the measure of the Government, and
for this reason, above all others, because it was evident
to him that Government had no confidence in them
selves.—(Hear, hear, and laughter.) The Hon. Mem-
ber here alluded to the tactics of the Government with
respect to their Irish measures, first proposing a grant
of 50,000 L, without a promise of any other measure;
then getting a Committee appointed, and, in the out-
set of its career, checking it in its coarse by the pro-
posal now before the House, presenting the singular
anomaly of Irish Members voting for such a
measure in the Committee, and then having the hardi-
hood to save their country by opposing it in that House.
That measure, he conceived, was not fitted to prevent
another emergency of the kind they had now to deal
with from occurring again. They discussed it up to
Easter, and then some days before Parliament reassem-
bled, a paragraph was seen in the journals recognised as
having received an official stamp, inviting the Irish
Members to assemble in Downing-street, on a certain
day, where they would be received by the First Minister
of the Crown. He ventured to observe, at an earlier
period of the evening, that the conduct of the Minister
in thus acting was unconstitutional. And
elA3nidaded, as h
although at
that time he was called to order, and
always did, to the opinion of the chair, he believed
ha was in order at the time. After what the Ch ate
cellos of the Exchequer
remitarkheed
repeated
subject, he might be p
na
(Hear.) The Chancellor of the
the
r dhoande dExchequer said that
Irish Members,
that the step thus take was unconstitutional.—
there could bo no harm in meeting
he would always be glad to meet them, and hear their
but he conceived the
views on subjects affecting Ireland,
defence set up was a toinewl,at Irish kind of a d efence.
for a Minister of the Crown to call together
—(Laughter.) He considered it was unconstitutional
confer with them as to the measures too discussedb in
privateutioha
place a large section of the House of Commons, and
that House.
liNioembdoeur of thatbtitssus rig
any leadingHouse,htf
fora
cMalilntliotgeer;hoerr
their supporters and ask them to support him; but
in the present case the Minister asked a large number
of the Members of that House, not for their support, but
for their counsel, and that was what he said was uncon-
stitutional. It was a shuffling off responsibility from the
shoulders of the Minister—(Hear)—and there was be-
sides
something ludicrous in a Minister of the Crown call-
ing together some hundred Members to his private offioial
residence, and asking them could they give Wm " idea?