The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-14 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PIRLIAMEN T.

HOUSE OF COiI.IIONS, June 13.
COUNTY RATES AND EXPENDITURE BILL.
( Continued from our Afternoon Edition of yesterday.)
Mr. H. DRUMMOND said the Hon. Member for
Montrose (Mr. Hume) contended that a board should be
appointed to revise and audit the the county taxation of
the country. Now he decidedly objected to the
introduction of such a pri ciole, as he believed
tho counties of England perfectly capable of
managing their own expenditure. He wished it to be
understood that great misapprehension existed as to the
powers of the maaistrates with reap' ct to the expendi-
ture of the committees with which they were connected.
The object of the Bill, the Honourable Mem-
ber said, was to reduce the expenditure to
the utmost. Now, with respect to the county with which
' he was connected (Surrey), he must he permitted to say
that he had carefully looked over the accounts of the
treasurer, and he was convinced that there was not an
hem charged in it that could be saved. The Poor-
lays-, Commissioners, had, it was true, reduced the
expenditure in many cases where it appeared
to him they should not have done so
—he meant the fees of medical
and the expenses incidental to their attendance, the con•
sevence of wh ch was the poor were not properly
attended. He quite agreed with the Hon. Gentleman
that the county expenditure had increased, and in the
cow: ty in which he had so long resided gaols had been
erected in opposition to the wishes of the magistrates
by those whom the Honourable Gentleman supported in
that House. Three gaols had been erected within his
memory, and they were about to be put to the expense
of erecting a new one. They could not help it, for the
magistrates had no option in the matter. Then, not long
ago, after the gaols had been fitted up in accordance with
a certain plan, an order come down from the Home-office
directing that they should give the prisoners chocolate
for breakfast—(Laughter)—and great expense was
entailed upon them in the erection of new. kitchens.
(Hear, hear.) This was not the fault of the magistrates;
they had nothing to do v.ith it. He held two petitions
in his hand, which had been presented from intelligent
persons, setting forth that the magistrates in their re-
spective localities had put them to great expense by the
erection of new goals. Now, it happened that the ma
gistrates had nothing to do with the matter. He thought
the present system wrong altogether.
Sir J. PAKINGTON said he gathered from the
speeches of the two Hon. Gentlemen who had spoken
iket, that in their opinion those who contributed to the
coueity rates should have the full control of
the • expenditure. Now he took no excep-
tion to that principle, and was willing to
adopt it ; but he was prepared to show that though
the Bill might be in accordance with the theories of the
Gentleman's supporters, that it would be shop-
7Rer impracticab!is and most objectienable, and he trusted
that neither her Majesty's Government. nor any consi-
aid.c.2hle portion of the Members of that House. would
support it. Indeed, there never was a time when the
county expenditure was watched with more care and
rigid economy than at the present moment.
Mr. HUN! E —By whom?

men

Sir J. YAKINGTON—By the magistrates appointed
to superintend it. No mercantile establishment was
conducted with 7 greater care than the expen-
dture of the county with which he was con-
nee ted.—(Hear.) Indeed, he had no objection to the
appointment of a Committee to investigate the whole
matter. and he begged to intimate that he intended to
move the appointment of such a Committee. He believed
the Bill to be an affront to the gentry of the counties,
against whom no malpractices had been alleged;
indeed, no charge whatever had been preferred against
them. The Hon. Gentlemen rested his case on, and
in geed the Bill itself orignated solely out of, the expen-
diture of Lancashire, fie held the balance-sheet from
1834 to 1348 in his hands rind he was prepared on the
strength of it to contend that this Bill ought not to pass.
He thought he could prove to the House that a more
unfair case was never put forward in support of any
measure than this Lancashire statement. The Hon.
Member for Montrose had stated that the expenditure
of the county of Lancaster in 1824 was 80 0001.,
and th It in the year 1848 that expenditure
hid swollen up to 179,000/., so that in the course of
24 years the expenditure had increased by 100,000/. Now
to thought he could show the House that this was a
most unfair view of the case, though he admitted the
figures to be correct. But how was this accomplished?
He submitted to the Hon. Gentleman that in order to
make a fair comparison he must take the
same items in 1848 that were taken in 1824. Well,
Then, he found that in the year 1848 the expenditure
'was increased in this way. The county had to make
Additions to two gaols, and it had to build or make addi-
tions to three lunatic asOums, which had cost
92,000/. Now if they deducted that sum from the
179,0001., it would leave 87.0001. for 1848, for those
ite as which cost 80,000/. in 1824, showing an increase of
only 7,0001. during a period when the population had
increased from 1.052,000 to 1,667 000. But that was not
all; in 1848 the salitary eystem had been in operation
which was not the case in 1821, and if they deducted the
cost of that system from it, it would leave 60.0001
as the empenititure for 1848 for the items which
in 1324 involved an expenditure of 80,0001—(Loud
cries of " Hear.") He hop,d, theref..v., that he had
convinced the House that so fez- as this Lancashire case
was concerned it really formed no justification for this
most objectionable Bill, or any ground for bringing a
charge against the magistrates.—(hear, hear-) But ad-
mitting that there were some defects in Lancashire,
th.tt was no reason why the whale of England
s'loul.d l e closed by a Bill whi •11 he would pre-
set t'y show would be unjust and impracticable.
As -it: example of the manner in which this Bill was
likely to act, he might state that he had ascertained that
in the county of Lancashire alone there were no less
thin 450 macisTates, gentlemen all of them of property,
and some of them in the possession of large estates, and
a portion men of enormous property, all of whom con-
tributed very largely to the amount of the county rates.
—(lear, hear.) It seemed to him that it was the most
enormous absurdity in the world to say that these
gsn'lmen were not to have the regulation of the
-e -
expenditure of those rates.—(Cheers and counter
cheers.) For his own part, he must reiterate
his opinion, that, it was the landlord who paid the rates.
—(Cries of " No, no.") He thought that his Honour-
Wile Friend was not in the House at the time this sub-
ject was discussed. All these local burdens on land
were borne by the landlord, and not by the holder, of.
the farm.—(Hear, hear.) What, did not the Gentlemen
who-heard him, remember that when a tenant took a
fares ho trek it with a full knowlelley of all the Med
burdens to whi h it was liable, and that all these cir-
cumstances were considered in arr neernent of the rent?
—(Cheers and counter cheers.) It was then the land- ;
lord who, in fact, paid the rates. He woul 1, indeed, allow
that there were some circumstances in which the burden
fell upon the ten tnt; and that was the case whenever
from unf )reseen circernstances it was necessary to levy
an unusual rate. But del any one believe that these
sort of things were not invariably te msidered by every
ten ant when he took his farm ? —(Cheers ) He might
refer to his own c .unty, that of Wore stershire, for an apt
illustration of the evil which this Bill would work by
transferring the government of the expenditure from the
magistracy to the b ,ard of guardians of the county.
for it would be transferring the direction of
the rates from these who were, in fact, the greates;
rate payers, to those who contributed comparatively-
little to the ag!regate of ;h. county receipts. He did
hope that Hon. Members would look at this view of the
case. But they must allow him to show how the Bill
would work in the county with which he himsel- was
connected. That county was Worcestershire. In Wor-
cestershire there were two hundred magistrates, who all
had a large interest in the soil, comprising the gentry
and clergy. Now they all knew how heavily the clergy
were taxed. In the county he found there were twelve
poor-law unions, comprising eighteen guardians
and nine magistrates, se that the whole of
these two hundred gentlemen, who were themselves
the greatest rate-payers in the country have had their
power and their interest taken away for the sake of
placing them in the hands of a body which, collectively,
contributed but a small portion to the rates. He was
himself for many years chairman of the county, and he
could say that the most scrupulous attention was always
pail to the laying out of the money which was deposited
in their hands. In every case indeed of large expenditure,
as for instance the building of a lunatic asylum (and he
was glad to see those Hon. Friends of his had introduced
a Bill to throw the expenditure for such purposes upon the
county rates), not a farthing, was expended, or any propo-
sition considered without a most sifting inquiry,—(Hear,
hear.) The Honourable Member for Montrose had
stated that it was desirable to transfer those powers
from a fiactuating to a more stable body, but what body,
he should like to know, could be more fluctuating than
that of men who were re-elected to their several
offices every year. Whereas, on the contrary, al-
though he was aware that the magistracy, like
all other human beings, were liable to die,
yet, for the many years with which he had been con-
nected with them, he had seen but few changes of faces.
—(Hear, hear.l He did trust that before the
Right Honouragle Baronet gave his sanction to this
Bill he would pause and consider whether he would
pass such an insult on the gentry of England.
He would caution the House and the Government not un
necessarily to interfere with that which had long worked
so well, and which he maintained would continue to work
well if the gentry of England would only do their duty.—
(Laughter.) He adopted that maxim of which they
had heard so much ,lately—that property had its
duties as well as its rights, arid one of the first duties of
landed proprietors ws to attend to the administration of
their local affairs.—(Hear, hear.) If they did not shrink
from the duties involved upon them by the constitution,
the interests of the pour would never suff r, and
and as long as their functions ware properly discharged,
he held there could be no reason tor setting them aside,
and superseding them by another body. How could a'
board like that proposed by the Honourable Mem-
ber carry on the affairs of the country? how
could it deal with the reports of the visiting justices of
the county gaols?—(dear, hear.) If the 13:11 were
passed, the m tnagk-ment of county gaols must neces-
sarily b. e turned over to the Government, for it would be
imp,sslble for the magistrates to superintend; them
effectually if a small body bad power to say
must not effect i
that merovernent, adopt this s:ala)ry"
nor carry out those regulations which the Home-office
considered necessary for the management of the gaol.
He had no objection to a fair inquiry and to
some reform, if it would be really beneficial •
but he for one could not censent to a Bill
like that which he held would defeat the very object
which the Hon. Member 41(r. Hume) had in view' He
held that the present b ‘cly was, in effect, a true represen•
tetion of the ratepayers to this extent—that as they
themselves were, the largest rate-payers, it was to their
iwerest to effect every pcsstble,eeunowy,Rn4 hence they
would protect the interest of the small rate payers. It
was upon those grounds that he moved by way of amend.