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

rendered a perfect measure. He objected to the income-
till( on account of its inquisitoria'_ neture—but otherwise
he should prefer it to the Govtrn►nent plan. To meet
the difficulty he would recommend that the poorer
holders might be exempted from the tax, and that it
might be imposed exclusively on the richer ones. The
Government would find it absolutely necessary, sooner
or later, to render the operation of the Irish poor-law
as perfect as possible, and the sooner they applied them-
selves to that t;sk, whether in this way or in some other,
the better it would be for the interests of the community
at large. It was impossible to carry out the system of
the Hon. Member for Northamptonshire, and his Hon.
Friends who agreed in his opinions, without establish-
ing the settlement ,ystem, which would infallibly prove
the destruction of the Irish poor-law. Though he was
opposed to the area-of-taxation scheme, he very much
approved of an alteration of the poor• law that would
develop the industrial resources of the country. Some
system of that kind must be devised, to afford the Irish
landlords the encouragement which they stood in need
of. For those reasons, and under the peculiar difficulties
of the case, he would support the proposition for a na-
tional rate in aid.

Mr. BANKES said that The Noble Lord at the head
of the Government had placed the House in a situation
of considerable embarrassment. The Irish representa-
tives said the whole scheme was an illusion, some of
them saying that they could not pay it, others that they
would not. In this perplexity they found themselves
pledged by the Noble Lord to an advance of money,
for the security of which they were to stand their
chance, and which, if the Noble Lord had explained it
to the House in the first instance, would certainly have
proved a considerable impediment in the way of his ob-
taining his Committee. The Noble Lord's invitatien
tacitly was to " make common cause with them, and they
would put things right;" in fact, " pillage was the way
to banish pauperism." He understood that the advance
of 60,0004 was to be applied to the emergency or
this particular time when they were discussing the ques•
lion; if that sum were not large enough, why had
they not asked fur more? Above all, why had they not
called Parliament together at a much earlier period,
when they had warning of the impending distress?—
(Hear, hear.) Last year he thought it his duty to pro-
pose a measure of relief for Ireland. Had it been carried
Ireland would now be bound in fiscal as well as in troll
tical union with England. He knew the difficulty of the
Noble Lord the First Minister of the Crown. The
Noble Lord had carried a coercion Bill, and he had
carried the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act; but it
remained to him to carry a pit:teeny-tax Bill to Ireland
before he fulfilled the measure of his destiny. He should
oppose the proposition for a rate in aid for these rea-
sons, his opinion at present leaning in favour of a pro-
perty tax; but be should reserve himself until he could
ascertain whether the Opposition had not a better
measure to propose than that of the Government.
He felt that the people of England ought not to be
called upon to come forward in this manner, unless
upon better guarantees of security than were yet given
to them, and without which he believed the scheme of
her Majesty's Government would become altogether a
failure.—(Hear.)
Mr. MONSELL said that the Hon. Gentleman who
had just sat down had, by means of very opposite rea-
sons to those which he (Mr. Monsell) would take the
liberty of addressing to the House, arrived at a conclu-
sion not altogether different from his. It was possible
that, on the part of many Hon. Gentlemen who would
address the House on this question, there would be
strong objections expressed to the imposition of addi-
tional taxation on Ireland ; but there was not the least
doubt, that with respect to a large portion of Ireland,
money must be found to support the people.—(Hear,
hear.) He believed that there was as little doubt
that that House would not consent to any grant out of
the Imperial resources for the relief of that country
unless there was some additional contribution made to
the Imperial Treasury by Irolance—(Hear, hear.) He
thought it better, therefore, in these circumstances, to
meet the case faitly as it existed, without going into
theoretical arguments, or making calculations as to how
the baleece stood between England and Ireland.—(Hear,
hear.) He trusted, however, that Hon. Gentlemen
would pause before they consented to the proposition
which hid been submitted to them by the Gov« mimeo! ;
for ho thought he 6i,ould be able to show that it was
most unjust. In the first place ho believed, irorn the
papers which had been laid before the House, that the
sum proposed by Government for the aid of the dis-
tressed unions would be found utterly insufficient. It was
hopeless to think of relieving those unions by mere grants
of money. In the evidence taken before the Committee,
Mr. Power, as assistant Commissioner, distinctly stated
that it was idle to imagine that the destitution of the
western counties could be supported without extraneous
resources. But it had been argued that Ireland was
not entitled to relief from the Imperial Treasury be-
cause she did not pay an income-tax, which was an
admission that, if she had the tax, Down should no
more pay the rate in aid than Middlesex. Who paid
the income-tax in England ? Certainly not the small
farmers. The whole of the argument resolved itself
into this, that the Irish small farmer should pay a tax
which was not levied off the small farmer in England.
The next argument for the rate was the necessity of the
case. It was, however, scarcely to be supposed that'the
House would sanction the principle " Rem, si poseis,
rect4 ; si non, quocumque modo rem." Much stress hed
been laid on this point of unequal taxation. If the as-
sessed taxes were imposed on Ireland, the cost of coll,c-
don would be more than they were worth, and any rise
in the spirit duties would be impolitic, as such a course
had been invariably found to produce illicit distillation.
Similar objections existed with respect to the soap
duties. What source of revenue remained ? As an
Irishman representing an Irish constituency, he wished
at once to state that he would be content to accept an
income-tax.—(Hear, hear.) If he consented to the
tax, therefore, he should not be considered unjust if he
demanded that the proceeds should be applied exclu-
sively to Irish purposes.—(Hear, hear.) The proposition
would have the great advantage of enabling Govern-
ment to adopt some other means besides those which
had been hitherto attended with such bad success. They
could not say that they had been left without advice or
without example of what might be done by energy in a
right course. One of the Noble Lord's colleagues
(Viscount Palmerston) had a property in a western
county, which was worse off at the commencement of
the famine even than Clifden; but the Noble Lord had
applied all his energy and ability to raise the condition
of the people by the natural, and judicious course of
enabling them to go to another country, where these
poor creatures were now doing well, and whence they
were tending home money to their friends.—(Hear,
hear.) Another of the Noble Lord's colleagues (Lord
Carlisle) had acted in a si-nilar way with a like success
There was a portion of Crown property in Ireland which
had not paid rent for eleven years, which was a nest
of robbers and marauders, and the plague of the county;
but the Noble Lord, by assisting the people to emigrate,
had altogether renovated and restored it.—(Hear, hear.)
If the Government had but listened to the advice of the
Irish Members on this subject, they would not have been
placed in their present position. Even yet he hoped the
Noble Lord would pause before he forced that measure
upon them. He little knew the feelings it would excite '
—the alienation and discontent it would create, and, ad-
dressing the Noble Lord in words with which he was
not unfamiliar, he (Mr. Monsell) might say,
" Turno tempos erit, magno cum optaverit *rapt=
Intactum Pallanta."

When every union in Ireland was administered by
vice-guardians, and when every bench was filled by sti-
pendiary magistrates, the Noble Lord would be sorry he
had not listened to the recommendations of those whe
asked him to withdraw a proposition which had received
so little favour in the country to which it was to be ap-
plied.—(Hear, hear.)
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said the
question which was put by some Hon. Gentleman on the
proposed plan was, how was this money to be raised in
Ireland? That the necessity for aid was great the Hon.
Gentleman admitted. It was but a sixpenny rate, he
would answer, taken upon the poor-law valuation of the
land, and without it, he believed starvation in the suffer-
ing districts must be the consequence.—(Hear, hear.)
Some Hon. Gentlemen who were opposed to the propo-
sition now before the House, seemed to forget that the
food of the people in the suffering districts had almost
totally failed. One thing was certain, that if relief was
not given, the consequences would be most deplorable.
The Hon. Member for Dorchester (Mr. Bankes) had
complained that Government had not at the meeting
of Parliament made some statement to the House of
the necessities of the people of Ireland; but the
House would recollect that he (the Chancellor of the
Exchequer) had, within four days after the meeting
of Parliament, made a statement to the House
on the subject. For the last three or four months a na-
tional rate was suggested as the best that could be pro-
posed, and Hon. Gentlemen advocated a national rate in
aid of emigration. Now, if that was so, how could they
rationally object to the proposed rate in aid ? With
respect to the encouragement of emigration, he could as
sure the House that it formed a part of the plan of her
Majesty's Government; and on this subject he would
say that that sort of emigration, which was carried on
with foreign assistance, was the most healthy system of
emigration, and from no country did it meet with more
encouragement than from Ireland. He held in hand a
statement of the number of emigrants who had pro-
ceeded from the United Kingdom in the months of
January for the last three years, which would show
the House how emigration was going on, namely,
in January, 1847, 4,700 ; in January, 1848, 4,560 ;
and in January of the present year, 10,140. This
emigration, let him say, took place with foreign
assistance, those who went before assisting those who
remained to follow them to America, or elsewhere, when
they were prepared to receive and further assist them
on 'their arrival.—(Hear.) He might state that in aid
of this description of emigration a sum of 46,0001. had
been received in the course of last year, from those who
had previously emigrated, and that being so, it was bet
little necessary to give any great stimulus to emigration
from Ireland. He would repeat that, connected though
he was with the Government, he for one would not pro-
poee a national rate if he believed it would be of a perma-
nent nature. The whole machinery for the collection
was in operation, and it was but a 6d. rate. It would,
he assured the House, be collected without the appoint-
ment of one additional person, or without adding
one farthing's expense to the present system of collection.
Mr. OSBORNE moved that the Chairman revert pro-
gress, anda,k leave to sit again.

Lord JOHN RUSSELL said he should not object to
the motion of the Hon. Membur. The debate would,
therefore, stand adjourned till Monday. He hoped on
that day to be able to make such an arrangement as
would enable the House to proceed with the second read-
ing of the navigation-laws on Tuesday.
The CHAIRMAN then reported pros as, tni oh-
tsined leave to tit again on Monday next.
The Out-door Pauperi Bill was read a third time and
ra:sed.

The second reading of the Qualification and Registra-
tion of Voters (Ireland) Bill, and the Election and Poll-