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

this House could ever give its consent. And then, after
we have had this plan two whole days as I thought under
consideration, the Hon. Gentleman the Member for So-
mersetshire gets up this evening and says, for his part,
he did not hear his Hon. r,iend mention a word of the
income-tax, and as far as he knows no such plan is in
contemplation.—(Hear, hear.) But although he gives
us this information, he studiously keeps secret what
the plan is to be by which this large amount of revenue
is to be supplied. No wonder, if the authors end pro-
pounders of the plan, if those who are in the confidence of
he 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
lion. Member for Lincolnshire said he thought a mode•
tate duty on corn might supply the deficiency—a defi-
ciency of 6,000,000/. 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
r hat I do not wonder the old habits of the Right lion.
Member opposite should have been shocked by its no-
velty and boldness—(Hear, and laughter)—to see the
Customs and Excise abolish( d, and then to have
40,000,000/. raised by a tax on every article of produce
or consumption to be found in the country—(Hear)—
is replacing that which is rot a very pleasant burden,
but a burden we can bear, by one so intole ruble 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 findsahat 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? Wo 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. Tbat tax, not having been
altered, has become, not 2,600,0001. out of 40,000,0001.,
which was supposed to be the income of the country at
that time, but 2,000,000/. out of 200,000,0001., the pre-
sent income of the country, and therefore it is a tax upon
land not anything like vt hat it was in former times.
Then, with regard to the poor-rates, I think the objec-
tion stated by the Right Hon. 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 6,000,0001, and it was perfectly
easy to find 6,000,0001. 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-
trolled by the will, the care, and the discretion of
local bodies, should hereafter be a public tax, and that
the Chancellor 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 one parish should be
burdened with only 2s. in the pouud, another with 10s.
in the pound, and you aro 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 (Ace, and proposing his own plan, did propose a
diminution of those borders, and several others, which
pressed on real property to the amount of 535,0004 a year.
I du not know win tiler I /mown have proposed exactly
that amount or something more; but it would have been
a change in that direction 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 Rsght lion. Gentle nv.‘n put
some of those charges on the Excite quer, 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
corn-laws, 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 me 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 extensive 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 Somersetshire, 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
called 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 not in-
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, I hope the landed inte-
rest will not follow the Hon. Gentleman in
his proposition of to-night. I am quite sure if he were
to succeed in that proposition, he would be imposing
most unjustifiably, as I think, upon personal pro-
perty, a new burden of the sum of 6,000,000/., 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
irlthir
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
ob-
serve that thatn the
remark Legislature
weight which they possess, and I think justly
possess,
s s
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
sla
of
fre mine raises
rtahiesescou some country.
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 10,000,000/.
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 hive 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 wit.
ling to remain under some of the imputations which had
been directed against him, lie would not weary the
House by any reference to the speech of the lion. Mem-
ber for Buckinghamshire, because, after the speech of
the Chanceller of the Exchequer, that would only be " to
slay the slain."—(Hear, hear.) Nor would be say any-
thing respecting the motion of his lion. Friend the
Member for Montrose, although to-morrow night on the
CI tial4tea he ohould refer to the riais3 ppm... hOll6_9U Which

prevailed in the speech of the Chancellor of the Ex.
chequer respecting the amount of expenditure on
the army and navy. The question proposed by
the Honourable Gentleman had been resolved by
the Chancellor of the Exchequer iota this, that it
alas a proposal to lay on beta een 400,0001. and 500,000/.
upon the tenant-terriers on the plea of being a
benefit to them.—(llear,hear.) That proceeded, too,
upon the assumption that it was proved to demonstra-
tion, and beyond cavil cr contradiction, that the local
burdens laid upon property were borne by real property,
and not by the floating capital of the country. If the
House agreed to that proposition, they might feel in-
clined to reduce the burdens upon real 'property; but
was there one human being who would deny this propo-
sition, that if they reduced the burden upon real pro-
perty, the relief would go into the pockets of the owners
of that property?—(Cheers, and dissent from the Pro-
tectionist benches.) But there would be farmers who
would read what he was saying, and farm labourers too,
and he would put the case of two farms to be let of pre-
cisE ly equal intrinsic value as regarded the quality of
the soil and the situation, but upon one of them the
poor-rates should be 2s. i❑ the pound, and on the other
Bs. in the pound. Now, would any Hon. Member
tell him that he would let the two farms for the same
rent ?—(Hear, hear.) lie asked for even a nod of assent
from Hon. Gentlemen opposite.—(Laughter.) Why,
there was not a farm agent or valuer in the kingdom who
would not scout the proposition that those two farms
would be let at the same rent.—(Hear, hear.) Those
persons would tell them that, after deducting the rates
from the value of the land, the difference was always
taken as the amount of the rent. Did not such a propo-
ition, therefore, as that of the Hon. Gentleman, come
before them under false pretences, or even very much
like a hoax? First, the farmers were paraded befo're
them. Hon. Members came in hot haste from Willis's
Rooms, where resolutions were passed by tenant-far-
Eters, and where they were told no one but tenant-
farmers were allowed to speak. Now he (Mr. Cobden)
knew that most of those persons whom they called
" tenant-farmers " were land agents, for he had met
Them all.—(A laugh and cries of " Hear, hear,") But "
Hon. Gentlemen proposed to serve the tenant-farmers,
and in doing so they raised up quarrels between the
tenant-farmers and the manufacturers.—(oh, oh.) The
peroration of the speech of the Honourable Gen-
tleman (Mr. Disraeli) was nothing but an attempt to
array the farmers against the manufacturers, under the
insidious title of the landed interest.—(Hear, hear.)
Now, he would maintain that there Ras no difference
whatever between the farmer and the manufacturer in
relation to the question before the House. The farmer
was a manufacturer; he held a farm for the purpose of
manufacture, and the interests of farmer and manufac-
turer were to that extent identical. Bat he would tell
them that the interests of farmer and landlord, as such,
were antagonistic, in spite of anything that could be said
to the contrary.—(Loud cries of " Oh! oh I") And let
him-be understood. He did not want to set one class
against others.—(Laughter and interruption.) As
members of one and the same community, he did not say
that their interests were necessarily antagonistic; but if
they came to the House for measures for the benefit of
the landlord and tenant-farmer jointly, then he said
that those interests as such were antagonistic, for it was
the interest of the tenant-farmer to get the land as
cheap, and the interest of the landlord to let the land as
dear as he could.—(Hear.) It was just as impossible
for the House to legislate for one and the other, so that
they could be equally benefited by the same measure, as
it would be impossible for the cotton broker of Liverpool

and the cotton-spinner of Manchester to come with
common case, and ask the House to do something
that would benefit both those interests exclusively.—
(Cheers.) He thought they had got beyond the discus-
sion of such questions as those—(Hear)—and that the
time was coming when they might put plainly before the
farmer the real state of the case. It had been said that
he had admitted that the farmer had a claim for compen-
sation, and that he (Mr. Cobden) had been a party to in-
juring him. Shat he had said was that farming was in
future to be carried on like any other operation of com-
merce, and that he was prepared to relieve the farmer
from every impediment to the free exercise of his in-
dustry—(Oh, oh)—among which impediments he had
enumerated the malt-tax. The present discussion had
very much taken the character of a free-trade debate,
and he (Mr. Cobden) had said that he would not enter
upon a discussion of that question until there was a mo-
tion on the table of the House to restore protection in
corn. It was now alleged that free trade had produced
all kinds of disasters to agricultural labourers, as well as
farmers ; and he would accept these challenges. The
House were called upon to believe that the agricultural
labourer was suffering from the low price of pro-
visions.—(Cheers and laughter.) The Nob!e Lord
the Member for West Sussex (the Earl of March) spoke
of seven years of those Halcyon days of protection,
and declared how well the agricultural laboarer was off
in those years. Now, he (Mr. Cobden) had taken some
pains to inform himself upon this:part of the question,
and he denied that the labourer was better off in dear
years than when corn was cheap. Take the year 1847,
adverted to by the Noble Earl, and let them compare
the situation of an agricultural labourer having a family
of five persons in that year and the present. If he
consumed as much bread as the union allowed him he
would eat 10 41b. loaves per week, which in the year
1847 cost him 9d. per loaf, or 7s. 6d. in all. The price
of these loaves is 6d. at present, so that the same quan-
tity of bread now would cost him 5a., or less by 2s. 6d.
than in 1847. The reduction of wages might be Is. per
week, or, taking the reduction at the Noble Earl's
own showing, at 2e per seek, it left the labourer be •
licked to the amount of 6d. per week in bread, in ad-
dition to the reduction in the price of sugar and other
articles.—(Cheers.) But take the case ot the manufac-
turing and other labourers in the north of England and
in London, and compare their situation at present with
what it was in the bygone and cherished years of pro-
tection—years which had gone by for ever. The me-
chanics, porters, and labourers, in the morth of England
were saving from 2s. to 3s. per week in the diminished
price of bread and other articles, which was tantamount
to an advance of 15 per cent. in their weekly income.—
(Hear, hear.) The House had heard from the Hon.
Member (Mr. Cayley) that the free-traders had failed
in all their predictions, and he had made it appear as if
they had expected from free trade what he (Mr. Cob-
den) had never expected from it. Among other things
it had been said that free trade would reduce wages.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite were the authorities for that
assertion, and he denied that wages were reduced
either in manufacturing towns or in the neighbours
hood of manufacturing districts.—(Hear, hear.) On the
contrary, there had been a tendency to raise wages during
the six weeks which had elapsed since the corn-laws
were abolished.--(Hear, hear.) The Noble Lord the
Member for Stamford (the Marquis of Granby) knew
something of the " stockingers," as they were called,
who made stockings and gloves in the midland coun-
ties. It appeared from what he had seen in the
Nottingham Review that four successive strikes had
taken place on the part of the stockingers, and that they
had succeeded in gaining an advance of wages—a thing
that had not been know for the last seventy years,
during the whole of which time their wages had been in
the course of gradual reduction.—(Hear, hear.) Let
them next take the district of the West Riding of
Yorkshire or Lancashire, and compare the present state
of the labouring population with their state in those
years to which Hon. Members wished to go back. He
did not hesitate to say that their state was now one of
comparative comfort and happiness to what it was when
about twelve months ago, he and other persons formed
part of a deputation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
to represent the state of the town of Bradford. Take
the condition of the farmers themselves. He admitted
that there was suffering in certain districts of the
country, but he was not going to let Hon. Gentlemen
off as to the cause of that suffering. Had not the farmers
complained of suffering before?—(Hear, hear.) If they
looked to " Hansard" they would find that in the years
1819, 1820, 1821, 1822, there were speeches and motions
made every night in that House on the subject of agri-
cultural distress, and on the suffering among farmers and
agricultural labourers. The farmers met, and they took
a sensible course, for they demanded a reduction of tax-
ation and expenditure, and they were not bamboozled
into a repeal of the malt-tax, and yet saying not a word
about Government expenditure.—(A laugh and hear,
hear.) A Committee was appointed in 1822, and at that
time the agricultural interest had a monopoly of the
supply of corn, and the Act gave them a protection up
to 80s. What said the report of that Committee ? It
admitted that protection could go no further than an en •
tire monopoly, and that the agricultural interest had
enjoyed a complete monopoly since 1819.—(Hear, hear.)
In 1835 the agricultural interests were in the same con-
dition of distress, and a Committee was appointed to in-
quire into the agricultural distress. That Committee
did not make any report, because they had no case.—
(Hear, hear.) That was under the sliding scale, which
was such a favourite with Hon. Gentlemen. When the
Marquis of Chandos, in 1836, carried a motion for a re-
peal of the malt-tax, and when, as the Hon. Gentleman
had stated, the agricultural interest were threatened
with a good comfortable property-tax if they did not
rescind that vote, a Member of that House (Mr. Benett)
said that that threat had no force as far as the landed
gentry were concerned, and that they would not be
affected by such a measure. They said that free trade
caused the distress of the farmers : how could they say
so with any show of reason ? 'rho distress was owing,
not to free trade, but to the fact that the corn-laws had
not been at once and promptly repealed. It was the
three years' delay and uncertainty that had proved most
injurious. But, without dwelling upon that point, he
would go into a little computation with the Hon. Gentle-
men opposite, and he would begin by asking them
when was it that the farmers were most prosperous ?
Every one knew that their best time was between the
close of our disastrous contest with America and the
commencement of the French revolutionary war ; that
was to say, about the year 1790, or rather from 1785 to
1793. That was a period at which the farmers felt them-
selves perfectly safe and at ease, and how was it that they
found themselves in that condition when the prices of
their produce were as nearly as possible the same then
as now—what was it that occasioned the difference? The
price of wheat in 1790 was not much different from its
present price. But how was it then with the articles
which the farmers consumed? Iron and all the imple-
ments made of iron were then double their present
prices. Clothing—all clothing was at least double its
present price, and cotton clothing was four or five times
the price that it bore at present. Salt was double_ its
present price, having then been about 4s. 6J. a bushel,
and now not exceeding 2i. 3d. Tea, sugar, coffee, soap,
fuel, candles, spices, preserved fruits—(A laugh)--they
were all vastly dearer than at present. But, on the other
hand, butchers' meat, bacon, butter, cheese, poultry,
eggs, were all and every one of them cheaper than in
these days—all those articles were dearer now than then.
With the exception of beer, it might be said that every-
thing that the farmer was interested in selling went
cheaply, and all that ho wanted to consume bore high
prices, not an article necessary for the use of himself or his
family which was not then dearer than now. Wherein,
Jae wettld Ask, lay the secret of his prosperity? Re put