The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-21 00:00:00

question, that the time had come when some addi-
tional taxation should be levied on Ireland. But he
felt that that taxation should not be in the shape of
a rate in aid, but in a mode by which the burden might
be fairly allotted. He might be in error as to the
terms of his resolution, or the mode in which ho had
placed it before the House, but, at all events, his object
was to apportion burdens fairly in Ireland, and to place
that country on a level with this as regarded the income-
tax. Upon that ground he gave the motion of his Hon.
Friend his support, as he believed other Irish Members did.
They were prepared to bear their fair share of the
burdens ; they only objected to bearing an unfair pro-
portion. With respect to the statement of the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer as to the origin of this rate,
there were very few guardians who returned replies to
the queries addressed to them, and their decisions should
not be 11,11 binding upon parties who had not given their
assent to the proposition.
Mr. MARTIN said he had been acquainted with the
farmers of Ulster from an early age, and knowing, as
he did, that of all classes of her Majesty's subjects
they were most opposed to the rate in aid, he was
anxious to state publicly the reasons why he intended
to vote in favour of that rite. The distress in the west
of Ireland was such that it must be relieved from some
quarter or other. Now he knew of no quarter from
which such relief could be more justly relieved than the
immediate locality in which it existed. He objected
altogether to taking away the estates of the landlords,
as proposed by the Right lion. Baronet the Member for
Tamworth. It might be very proper to take lands for
debts voluntarily contracted by the proprietor, but it was
altogether different to take it for debts created by an Act
of Parliament, to which the proprietor might have been
opposed. Ho supported the rate in aid, because he
thought it was just that Ireland should exert itself to
support its own poor, before coming to either Eugland
or Scotland, and asking them to do so, and because
having listened with attention to all the objections that
had been urged against it, and especially the three which
had been urged by the Hon. Member for Buckingham-
shire, he was convinced that it was less objectionable,
either immediately or prospectively, than an income-tax.
Mr. STAFFORD said that the Hon. Member who
had just sat down was one of the only two English
Members who spoke in support of the proposition of the
Government, and if be looked at the support which the
Hon. Member for Pontefract and the flon. Member for
Dover gave to the vote then before them, he must be al-
lowed to say that scanty as that support was it might
well have been spared. The Hon. Member for Dover
gave to his friends only a sort of half-support, for he
wished the rate to be continued merely for one year.
Again, the Hon. Member for Pontefract contended that
the Irish ought to provide for their own poor, and then,
after praising his friends the Presbyterians, he declared
his willingness to lay a heavy burden on them for the
benefit of the people of Connaught and Munster; but, at
the end of two years he would suspend his bounty, and
leave the inhabitants of those provinces to perish. The
Noble Lord stated, that if it were the wish of the Irish
Members to take the income-tax instead of the rate in
aid, he would be prepared to favour their inclination.
The attendance of English Members on this occasion
was therefore a superfluous luxury; for, to morrow,
when the division lists were scrutinized in Downing-
street, all the attention of the Government would be
turned to the majority or minority of Irish Members who
had voted en the question; and he believed the supposi-
tion that this would be the case had led to so thin an at-
tendance of English Members. The Noble Lord having
failed, by his courteous invitation to Downing-street, to
elicit the opinions of the Irish Members, proposed by
this division to give them the choice of two alterna-
tives, and it was for them to decide whether they would
take the income-tax or the rate in aid. The position of
those Hon. Gentlemen reminded him of the words of
Prior, addressed to a lady placed in somewhat similar
circumstances:—
" Now, Emma, now, thy last reflection make,
Which, thou wilt follow, which thou must forsake;
For, by ill-omened stars and adverse heaven,
No midile object to thy choice is given."
Whatever the decision of the Irish Members might be,
the House would still have the unpleasing but inevitable
duty of voting 100,0001. on account, or as a loan; and it
behoved them, as men of business, to see which alterna-
tive offered the best security. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer bad stated last night that the sum he ex-
pected to raise from the rate in aid was 259,000/. Now
the value of property in Ireland was officially stated, in a
calculation made some time since, at 13,000,0001, annually,
and the produce of a rate of 6d. in the pound on that
amount would be about 329,0001.; but, as the Chancellor
calculated that a sixpenny, rate would produce only
250,0001., the value of the property could be only
about 10,000,0001., so that, in the opinion of the
Right Hon. Gentleman, the value of property in Ireland
had sunk to the amount of 3,000,0001. since the value

htieonmtuostwahliscohrheem(inMdr.thSetatiffooruds)e,retfheartredit waapspmenardede.
frßoumt
and that more than 7,000 armed
Ireland was 800,0001.,
tpapers laid r laid before P 1
amounti am e notf,
ut
uh
ea
jt
10l
ene
ttehde 2rsa tthe odf S ep-
u due
in
men were last year engaged in the collection of rates in
that country; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had
dr
sad tr
esstsfietde muennitosnws hi ch
was s
eoese
,vomd i
at hga twtohres
ec, o na dn idt i otnh
thatthe
f the
circle of de&itution was spreading. He (Mr. Stafford)
thought, looking at these circumstances, that it became
the House to consider whether the security upon which
it was proposed to advance the 100,000/. now a-ked
for was good.—(Hear, hear.) The Honourab:e Mem-
ber for Kerry (Mr. 11. Herbert) proposed to offer as
security for this grant the whole of the property in
Ireland which was not at present subject to the
income-tax. The Right lloti. Member for Tamworth
(Sir R. Peel), when he brought forward his income•
tax scheme on the 11th of March, 1842, estimated that
the produce of a property-tax in Ireland might amount
to about 410,000/. a year. The Chancellor of the Ex,
chequer had said that un income-tax would not yield so
much as a rate in aid in Ireland, and that therefore if an
income-tax were adopted some supplementary tax would
be necessary; but the Right Hon. Gentleman did not
tell them on what calculations his statement was founded,
or what supplementary tax he would propose. He (Mr.
Stafford) considered, therefore, that the Government had
not put the two alternatives fairly before the Irish Mem-
bers. He had suggested to the Noble Lord two months
ago that it would have been fairer to the Irish Members
to give them the option now afforded them. That sug-
gestion was then received with no favour; but however
unconstitutional and unprecedented ho might consider
the morning party—the Irish Parliament—held the
other morning in Downing-street, he could not complaia
that the Noble Lord had now adopted his suggestion.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated last night
that there was hardly any amount of deference he was
not ready to pay the Irish Members. Why, then, did he
not pay some regard to their opinions, and abandon the
rate in aid altogether? The Chancellor of the Exchequer
had stated that this tax was no novelty. He (Mr. Stafford)
entirely acquitted the Government of the slightest ori-
ginality of idea; but he thought they deserved to be
called the Rate-in-aid Government, for they seemed to
spend their official time in seeking suggestions from
others as to what they should do, especially with regard
to Ireland. The Hon. Member for the %Vest Riding
(Mr. Cobden) had stated at one of the large assemblies
he had graced with his presence during the Easter recess
that wheat, which, according to the last averages, was
445. a quarter, would, if the last sliding scale had been
in operation, have now realised 70s. a quarter; and the
Hon. Gentlt man attributed the difference of 265. a
quarter to the effect of the free importation of corn.
This reduction of price Hon. Gentlemen opposite
would say would benefit the consumer, while it
might be likely to injure the pro Weer. The Right
Honourable Member for Tamworth (Sir R. Peel) brought
forward the Bill which, according to the statement of the
Member for the West Riding, would now have made
wheat 70s. a quarter, and the same Right Hon. Baronet
brought in the Bill under the operation of which foreigns
ed
wheat was now admitted at a nominal duty.
the agri-
culturalinly imposed upontt oh
the
ask
Westthe
Riding,i ht Hon.
whether
wouldnd t he
vote Hon. Mn lefiamevbwocu. furuf
this rate, which would be ma
he had just referred—thus
the mea
taxation those who were likely to suffer from
had sufF-red
whieh
broughtmthuecyhhfardomthe
proefsendtimmitolimsheendt
aurns
classes—those who he (Mr. Staeffilidwil)ltboheewhaehvviieeehdr
chias
IftgoinregwinawrdlT: Surelyt they
ptmorui
cs
ett
safxemelua thestol;
vote against the
81m. He hoped that the Right Hun. Mem-
berproposition of the Hen. Member fur Derry, would for Tamworth,Po°llliifeYwhehofi
fa-
vour the House and the people of Ireland by explaining
were
selecting
thego i
negtffteteeot
the reasons which actuated him. The Right Hon. Ba-
ronet's speeches in reference to Irelend had attracted a
great deal of ,attention there, and no subjett was so
eagerly debated as the scheme which he had put forth,
to effect, us he (Mr. Stafford) in a great measure be-
the amelioration of Ireland and the re-
Conuaught. But if the Right Hon.
gßlteeauvreeodrnaetttitowwnaosouarldbOut to give a vote against the agricultu
ral interest in that country, how could he expect
capitalists to invest money in land there, when
he lent his assistance to a proposition decidedly
againstnon.
Gentlementha speciest
connected with land, who were prepared
of property? It might be well for
to vote against the proposition of the Hon. Member
for Kerry, to consider that in doing so they would
vote in company with those who loved not the land and
the just influence connected with it. He believed that if
the rate in aid was carried in that House, but a few
weeks would elapse before Honourable Gentlemen
would learn from the bitter experience of what might
occur in another place the wisdom of the course now
proposed by the Honourable Member for Kerry, whose
Proposition would not only exempt from taxation the
small farmers, but also the small shopkeepers in the
lesser towns in Ireland. There might be a difficulty in
arranging the machinery with respect to the income-tax,
but that would be as nothing compared with the diffi-
culty which would arise in respect to the working of the
poor-law from the adoption of the rate in aid; which tax,
like the last leather that broke the camel's thick, would
just complete the difficulty and render the confusion in-
termiiittb'e.

Mr. GROGAN, amidst loud cries for a division, said
he found-himself with the opportunity, on the one hand,
of voting for the Government proposition; that course
he could not take, because he was opposed to the rate in
aid. On the other hand, he had the opportunity of sup-
porting the proposal of an income•tax in Ireland, an offer
which he thought uncalhd for and unnecessary.—
(Laughter.) The alternative presented was the choice
between two bad courses.—(A laugh.) Let the English
Members bear in mind that by their votes they had en-
abled the Government to carry the second reading of the
Rate in Aid Bill, upon which was based the present
proposal of the Government; let them carry it if it was
their pleasure, but as he concurred with the head poor-
law officials in Ireland, who all held that the rate in
aid would give the worst of securities, he could be no
party to that vote of 100,0001. ; it it was the pleasure
of the House to vote it. let them do it.—(Laughter.)
The distress in Ireland bad been recognised as an Impe-
rial citltuuity, and in 1846 the Noble Lord (Lord J.