The Sun.
London, England, 1848-02-19 00:00:00

referred to the military force of France ; but the
fact is, that my Noble Friend expressly declared
that ho would not allude to the French army. My
Noble Friend confined his observations to the French
navy, and in that inference he is justified by the general
course of precedent, for the estimates have seldom been
brought forward in this House without some direct
reference being made to the marine of France. I re-
member that when I represented the navy department in
this House, the Government was annually censured for
not making that branch of the service more efficient,
and the naval force of France was constantly referred b
in justification of those remonstrances. The Hon.
Member must have wonderfully misunderstood what fell
from my Noble Friend when he could represent him to
have said that our naval estimates were twice as great
as those of France. My Noble Friend said no such
thing. On the contrary, he referred to the number of
seamen voted for the French navy as being as great
as those required for our navel service, and he
argued, from that circumstance, that our naval
establishment—taking into consideration the great
extent of our trade and colonial possessions beyond
those of France—could not be deemed extravagant. The
number of seamen voted for the French navy was
20,000 ; about the number required in our estimates of
the present year. As regards men, therefore, the ser-
vices of the two countries are on a par. An Hon.
Member opposite read us a lecture upon the disregard
of economy during the last few years; but I believe that
my predecessors in office will concur with me in stating
that the increase of expenditure was not forced on the
House by the Government, but on the Government by
the House.—(Hear, hear.) Whatever increase of ex-
penditure has occurred has taken place with the almost
unanimous assent of the representatives of the people of
this country.—(Hear, hear.) No doubt the events of the
last year, and the prospect of increased taxation, may
work a change in the tone of feeling in this House ;
but I hope that Hon. Members will not rush from one
extreme to the other, and in their anxiety for
economy bo induced to f, forget what is due
to the honour and interests of the country.
I am disposed to deal as fairly and frankly with the
House as Hon. Gentlemen can wish ; and I will hold
out no expectation which I think there is no prospect of
realising. With regard to the deficiency of 2,500,0001.,
to which the Hon. Member for Portsmouth has alluded,
and for which it will be necessary to provide, it includes
the expense of the Kafir war, which was caused by
events that took place within the colony itself ; the cost
of that war for the past two years was, in fact, money
already gone from the military chest ; to the extent of
2,500,0001, there was a deficiency over which the Go-
vernment had no control whatever. I have a strong
objection to providing for a peace expenditure by a
loan. It is true that, to meet the expenses caused by the
famine, and under the peculiar circumstances of last
year, the emergency was met by a loan ; but,
except under such extraordinary circumstanees,
should not be disposed to resort to one. With regard to
the income-tax, as it at present stands, it is quite true
I have indirectly expressed an liopinion that there
was no prospect of its being taken off; I did consider the
three per cent, as a permanent part of the taxation of the
country.—(Hear, hear.) I know it was not imposed as a
permanent tax; but when it was voted in 1845, Ido not
believe any man really thought there was any prospect
of its being taken off.—(" Oh," and laughter.) I for one
voted for it, with a perfect conviction it would never be
taken off—(Hear, hear)—and I do not think any one
was sanguine enough to hope it. I think it right to de-
clare that I do not see any chance of that part of our
taxation, amounting to 5,000,0001., being taken off. This
applies to the three per cent.; with respect to the addi-
tion of two per cent. now proposed, for a period of two
years only, I will make no promise, as Ido not wish to
be taunted with it hereafter. The power is left to the
House of Commons of deciding on the question of its
continuance; but when my Hon. Friend (Mr. F. Baring)
says there is no chance or probability of this addition
being taken off, I think he rather underrates the pos-
sible amount of our future revenue, and miscalculates
our probable expenditure. Taking the revenue
at the end of last April it was 53,789,0001.; the ordinary
expenditure to be voted for this year, omitting only the
provision for past expenditure, would be 53,101,000/.
Deducting the ordinary expenditure of this year from
the ordinary revenue of the last, there will be a surplus
of 688,0001. ; if we deduct from this last amount the
expense of the militia and the loss by the remission of
the duty on copper ore, there will be still a surplus of
497,0001. What I have said shows that the discontinu-
ance of the added duty is not beyond the region of pro-
bability ; but, as I said before, I will make no promise
on the subject. With regard to the prospects of an im-
provement in the revenue, it ought to be borne in mind
that the effect of such a calamity as a famine on the
resources of the country does not end with the cessa-
tion of the calamity itself. In the first half of 1846
there was an increasing revenue ; that improvement con-
tinued up to the end of July ; it was not till after that
month the revenue began to fall of Even assuming
the state of things to be returning to the prosperity of
that year, still we cannot expect that the revenue
will improve till some time shall have elapsed after
the calamity; even if trade does improve, it will not
produce a favourable effect on the revenue at so early a
period as could be wished. The Hon. Member for
Poole (Mr. Robinson) hes expatiated largely on the
extraordinary falling off in our exportts during the past
year. I think the Hon. Gentleman cannot have seen a
paper that has been laid on the table of the House this
morning. It gives a comparative statement of the ex-
ports of the past year compared with the year preceding,
and, with the single exception of cotton goods, for
which the high price of cotton is sufficient to account,
there is not an item of our export trade on which there
ilea not been an increase. On our linen and woollen
goods, in hardware, on our silk manufactures, there has
been an increase during last year compared with the
year before. lam quite at a loss to understand how
the Honourable Gentleman could have spoken of an
extraordinary falling off in our manufactures. lam
not aware of any other observation to which it is
necessary that I should refer. With regard to all these
questions of income and expenditure, they will be much
more properly discussed when the estimates come before
the House. The army and navy estimates will be sub-
mitted to the House in the course of next week, and a
fitter occasion will then be afforded for the discussion of
those matters. I can only remind the House now that
over the greater part of the expenditure we have no con-
troul whatever, and I thiuk that the House will agree
with me that we ought not to get over the difficulty in
which we find ourselves placed by borrowing. We
have no other alternative, therefore, than to propose ad-
ditional taxation. With regard to the mode in which we
propose to raise the taxation, I think it will be better to
defer the debate upon it till Monday weelc,lwhen I think we
shall be able to show that the plan which we have pro-
posed will occasion less disturbance and inconvenience
to commerce and to agriculture than any other mode of
taxation that can be suggested.

Sir R. INGLIS had tried on several occasions to catch
the Chairman's eye, as he wished to introduce something
like novelty into the debate. There was not, with the
exception of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, any
Member who had addressed the Committee who had
given even a qualified assent to the proposition of the
Noble Lord—(Hear, and laughter)—and upon that
ground he wished, as an independent Member, to state
in a very few words the view which ho took of the sub-
ject under consideration. Passing by the able and effec-
tive speech of the Hon. Member for Buckinghamshire,
he would advert to the speech delivered by the Right
Hon. Member for Portsmouth, who was willing to con-
tinue an income-tax of three per cent., though a war
tax, but whose prejudices rose strong against it, and
compelled him to vote against his friends and succces-
sors, when, under pressing necessities, they were obliged
to raise it two per cent. But surely, if it was objec-
tionable in point of principle to impose an income-tax
in a time of profound peace, an income-tax of five per
cent. was not more objectionable, as far as principle was
concerned, than an income tax of three per cent. Ile
did not understand, therefore, the distinction made by
the Right Honourable Gentleman the former Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer. Now came the great ques-
tion of all—Did we want the money? No man had a
morbid love for paying taxes, or anything else, though,
perhaps, an honest man might like to pay his butcher's
bill—(Laughter)—and not even the ingenuity of the
Hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, or of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, or of any former Chancellor of the
Exchequer, could produce money without corresponding
taxation. That must be either in the shape of an in-
creased property-tax, or of a tax that had never ap-
peared before. Did any of the Liberals propose to
revise old taxes—such as the house tax? It should be
borne in mind, that we had been spared for a longer
period in the history of Europe than had ever before
occurred, from any approach to war between any of the
great European powers. What right had we to expect
that another interval of half that duration would pass
without war? We believed that, through the mercy of
God, this country had been saved for centuries from a
personal knowledge of the horrors of war. How long it
might please Providence so to direct the elements as to
baffle the attempts of our enemies at invasion he of course
could not foresee. Three centuries ago a storm scattered
the invading fleet of the most powerful Sovereign in
Europe, and it was on that occasion that our Queen
struck the medal bearing this inscription, "Deus a fiiarit,
et dissipontur." On a subsequent occasion a storm alsoprevented an invasion of this country. Now, it was clear
that the army of France was not only immensely larger
than that
through than our own, but it was continually going 1:
kind of discipline taught by actual war, which would
render it more formidable for the purpose aggression.
Algiers was a school of discipline for the French army;
and could oar English Minister know that and not feel it
his duty to be prepared to meet the danger ? 1:1°
remembered reading in the Morning
.Chroxicls a very
able article on the subject, in which it was shown how
small the increased amount of taxation would be
compared with the increased premiums for insurance
upon property. Believing that there was an utter
fallacy in all those principles which assume
that commerce would unite that which Christianity
had failed to keep together—believing that as long as
human passions continued, as long as rapacity en
the one hand might be provoked by possession on the
other, so long it was the part of civil wisdom to be
prepared to resist a possible, though, perhaps, scarcely
a probable enemy—he believed that in public, as in
private life, the best security that a nation, as an in-
dividual, could possess against attack was to be pre-
pared for it, even from a professed friend. Under
such circumstances, he desired to express his ge-
neral concurrence in the proposition of her Majesty's
Government, though he should take another opportu-
nity of calling their attention to a subject which he
had already endeavoured to impress upon their prede-
cessors—to the principle upon which a property-tax
ought to be levied, or rather to the point at which it ought
to commence. He believed that a largo portion of the
population were utterly unable to pay the increased
tax; and he considered it to be the duty of the Gag
vernment ao to apportion the impost as to /take if