The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-01 00:00:00

_MORNING

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is now in exis!cnce. I come before the House
to state to them the state of tag" -"revenrtrs
and of the income which will accrue in the present year;
and I ask the House, for what I feel assured they will not
refuse, I call upon them to make proper provision to preserve
the good faith that is certainly the interest of this. country.
It becomes a question iii whet mode the deficiency is to be
made up ; and before I propose to them any direct taxa-
tion, whether it be one tax or another, I ask them whether
they will be prepared entirely to refuse to consider the in-
terests of their own population ?—( Hear, and e;seera.) Or
whether they will, by reducing these protecting duties/ ob-
tain what is required for the rever.us without adding to the
burdens of the people ?—( Hear, hear.) This Revenue
question you will have to answer by the vote which I
shall hereafter have to submit to the House. But I cannot
forbear from cAling the attention of the House some-
what to the position of trade, and to the advisability of
attending to the subject which her Maje,sy 'a Government
suggest to their notice. It is not now a question of mere
abstract principle. You have at present a heavy deb'.
Even if there were no deficiency to he made up, I should
venture to recommend to the House to adapt a more libe-
ral p.licy with regard to this subject. Ido not ask them
to adopt all the opinions which they may hear from different
quarters, but I ash them to look to the present state
of affairs.—( !Amu cheers from both sides of the House.)
You have the Gerrnai League extenCing its ramifica-
tions, and etery year, if I mis'ake not, growing
more inclined to protect its own manufactures,
You have the American tariff—you have a treaty with
Brazil, which must be the subject of negotiation. I can-
not but feel you are come to a most important crisis in
affairs, and that upon the decision which this House may
make upon these propositions must depend the success of
your commercial policy. You may negotiate as you will, but
what will be the answer which you will receive from abroad?
They will tell you that certainly you press that their mar-
kets may be opened to you, but it has so happened
that lately you have had the 'question brought be-
fore yourseltei—that it was a question not making
an abstract claim upon you, but a question of whether
you will raise one million and a half and mere by
taxation, or by admitting foreign gods into the market,
and they will tell sou that they hear what you say, and
they see what you do. That you have wraten your own,
condemnation—that is the answer that must be returned
to you, although you may press upon them the expediency
of adopting a high line of policy they will tell you that you
yourselves are adopting a very different one. Sir, I admit
that I have wandered from fee subject more immedia.ely
before :tee to ore a h:caa does riot atrie.ty belting ,
to it, but it is one in which I feel the grectest
interest, arid which is of the greatest importance to this
country, and one upon which I sincerely tort :list if there
was any intention even to admit the produce of foreign
markets, and proceed in a course of liberal policy, that
this country may net delay and postpone the measure
till they had passed the mark, and have nothing
left them in the end, but to give way with regret and des-
pair. The Right lion. Gent eman resumed his seat emidat
loud and general cheering.
Mr. GOULBURN said it was impossible to have
heard the statement of the Right Hon. Gentleman Lt 1:i
out concurring with him in the opinion that we had ar-
rived at an important crisis of our affairs.—(Loud
cries of " Hear, boas.") By the course of conduct which
had bent pursued for the last five years with the
revenue and expenditure of the country. we had arrived
at a critical moment, when it was at last necessary to
come to a determination whether that course was still to
be pursued, or the revenue was to be placed it, a
safe condition.—[Great interruption from Members
leaving the House, and talking between the bar.—
The Speakee ordered the Sergeant to remove Mem-
bers from the bar.—Mr. Goulburn at length proceeCed.l
He had not had the slightest intimation that the measure
of the Right Hon. Gentleman would be brought under
discussion this evening, and he was net prepared to give
an opinion upon it. Indeed the Right Hon. Gentleman
himself had not given an opinion.--( Hear, hca-. ) Indeed
be had not told the House bow he expected to raise the
amount of revenue of which he spoke. He had said that
he intended to reduce the duty on foreign sugar, and that
he expected thereby to raise 700 000/ ; but hr did not say
in what manner that sum was to be produced.—( Hear,
hear.) The Right Hon. Gentleman had also said that
the duty on corn was to produce 400,000/. But he had
not informed the House whether or not that was to he in
addition to the amount (1,200,0001. ) of last year.—( Hear.)
He (Mr. G.) would decline for the present to go into the ,
several questions involved in the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer's propositions; but at the same time he begged to
be considered as perfectly free from any opinion one way
or the other, until he had an opportunity of looking into
documents and making inquiries as to the ground
of the Right Hon. Gentleman's anticipations.—( Hear.)
The accounts laid before them were even worse than be
had anticipated. They had not received the accounts of
the revenue until that morning, and what did they pre-
, sent ? a deficiency up to the end of the quarter upon the
whole year of 1,850 000/. ; and they acre told that in the
year which was to come there would be a deficiency to a
similar amount. Let me call the retention of the House to
the time when these gentlemi n came into office. They began
with a revenue of 46,000,000/., while the expenditure was
somewhat under 45,000,0001., leaving a surplus of above
1,000,0001. available for national purposes. What was
the state of things at the end of the fifth year of their ad-
ministration ? The result was, that with a revenue in.
created toforty.seven and a half millions, the rapid progress
of expenditure had been so great, that they had not only got
rid of the whole of the accumulation left in their hands, and
with an aggregate deficiency of 5,000,000/., but even for
the year which was to come: they were obliged to estinnate
a deficiency of 2,000,000/. more. That was the state to
which the Hon. Gentlemen opposite- had reduced the
re-..enue, That result -had been affeoted rya eourse of 4.4 F-.-
proceedings akarrost which lie,- for me, liad'eonstiittly • ,
tested. lie had always contended for keeping the
revenue in some degree of assimilation to the
expenditure. In 1835 the Government had at their dis-
posal a nominal surplus of a million, a r,al ore of 600,000/.
With that surplus they repealed certain taxes to the
amount of 156,0001., and had added to the expenditure
to the amount of 340,000/., which, together c
sumed the surplus left to them by their predecessors.
To gentlemen who denied the advantage of a surplus to
our revenue he knew that would be no matter of complaint.
In the year 1836 they had a surplus of about 1,000,0001.,
and what was the consequence ? Tney repealed taxes to
more than that amount, and proceeding on tee principle that
increase of expenditure should keep pace with deer,. ase
of taxation, they added a million to their expenditure, so
having a surplus of a million, they disposed cf, and
plec rd the country a million in debt. In
1837, there was a deficiency of 650,000/. which
was made by increased expenditure to nearly an-
other million of money, making no corresponding
efforts to keep up the taxation. In 1838, naturally enougn,
there was another deficiency, and, as he had almost said,
naturally enough an increased expenditure of 400,000/.
;n 1839 the deficiency amounted to 1,500,000/.
and added to that was the deficiency of previous years,
amounting to more than a million, and leaving them in
debt more than two millions. They then thought that a
fit opportunity for repealing the duty on postage—( Opp- si.
tion eheers)—thereby reducing the revenue 1,500,000/ ,
and acting contrary to their ordinary principles,
they did thus reduce the expenditure about 150,0001:
What must the consequence of these proceedings have
been ? It could only he that at which the House had now
arrived. They were now called upon to take extensive
measures for putting the revenue of the country on a safe
basis.—( Hear.) Now he, (Mr. G.) did not propose to
quarrel with the estimate the Right Hon. Gentleman had
made for the year to come. He would only retna-k that
there was again considerable increase of expenditure.
With respect to the Post-office he now found a dis-
tinct admission that that measure had not answered
the expectations of those by whom it was adopted. The
Right Hon. Gentleman last year took the estimate of the
Post-office at 530,0001. ; it produced only 413,0004 ;
and what was the. estimate he took for the present
year? Why nearly 450,000/.—( Hear.) It should be
remembered too that a considerable revenue was now
derived by the Post-office from letters that formerly passed
under official franks. Looking to the financial accounts,
they would find that the net proceeds of the Post-office
had not exceeded 240,0001. He alluded to that, because
he was anxious to caution the House, at a moment when
they were called on as a financial operation to
make a partial reduction in the duty. They our, h
not to be led away too hastily by the stateatents
made by the Government, without a close and accurate
examination of the real case. As he was speaking of thin
Post-office, there was one subject to which he would csll
the attention of the House—the statement which wee made
with respect to the Irish Post-office. It wns said that the
net reveuue which the Irish Post-office brought into rho a-
venue was 6,0001. ; but on referring to the financial account
that was receetly made, it would be found that the Irish Post-
office never could have paid anything into the Exchequer,
because the expenditure of that post-office had exceeded
not only the whole of the receipts, but the whole of that
portion of the stamps that had been sent over from Eng-
land, and with which the Post-office should be fairly
ch age Y. tin the return made to the House the
Right Hon Gentleman said that 6,0001' had been paid
,
into the net revenue of the Irish Post-office; whereas the real
case was, that 27,000/. had been sent over the present year to
make up the deficiency which had taken place in that
inh,indepartment.g the estimateThelZisoght Ho
otn. Gentleman, when men-
.l ,000/., did not
say that that estimate *as made from art ap-
prehension of the number of letters being in-
creased, but that the number of
t
officers em-
ployed should be increased, to carry or, the
busieess. Now, when the proposition for the re-
duction of the postage to one penny was made
it struck him (Ur. Goulburn) that some of its
effects would be to g,t rid
of a great number of
elrrks, and so lessen the expenses usually incurred.
could not "QI offering these few observations with.
1-ie to the derails of the revenue as submit-
spect 'douse by the Right Honourable Gentleman..
teal to the ° had
Fer the reasons u, • already stated, he should forbear,.
until the measures Were distinctly submitted to
be consideration of the' House, from giving any
opinion as to their effect the country, but
when they were proposed he wou::.
! at once state
beans upon the subject.
Mr. HUME said acre was much in the speech of the
Chancellor cf the Exchequer which had given him satisfac-
tion, thouah there was much also %sher had caused Lim
great regret. With regard to the reductions wh:elr were
proposed to be made it was an instalment of that tvhick
the people of England had long expected, and which the-
welfare of the ss hole empire required. But there was
not one word of the Right lion. Gentleman's speech ck
that night with respect to what appeared to him
( Mr. Hume) to be the first point for the
House to consider, viz. whether there was to
he any reduction in the heavy expenditure which
created that excess. He could not help expressing his
deep regret that in the present state of things that point
had too been taken into consideration He would now
make a few observations upon what had fallen from the
Honourable Gentleman who had just sat down. lie
quite agreed with that Honourable Gentleman that
the great excess which had occurred in the re-
venue within the lan Six years R6B much to

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