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

the Noble Lord come to ? Why, ho tells us that we are
' not arming against a probability, but that it is necessary
to arm against an improbability—" that it is sometimes
necessary to take precautions against an improbability."
—(A laugh.) Now, I ask, is not that treating the
country with some degree of levity and with
some degree of disrespect ?—(Hear, hear.) Im-
poverished ae the people are, not only by the burdens
of the State, but also by local burders pressing
heavily upon them, is it not too bad to propose to in-
crease our army against the expressed wish of the people
of our large towns, and to have no better argument t'cr
it than that it is desirable to take precautions against
an improbability ?—(Hear, hear.) Let me ask the gentle-
men connected with the war service a question. Is it
not possible to make the present amount do?—(Hear,
end a laugh.) I ask the lion. Member for Sheffield
(Mr. Ward), the Secretary to the Admiralty, just to
consider the point. He is going, we will say, to get the
same amount as ho did last year; has he ever thought
whether the same amount will not go a great deal
further now than it did twelve or eighteen months since?
—(hear, hear.) I ask any gentleman connected with
railroads, any gentleman connected with Birmingham
or with any of the iron districts, will not 17,000,000/.
go a great deal further in the purchase of commodities
now than they would last year?—(Hear.) But I will
not say 17,000,0001., because my Hon. Friend will tell
me that a vast deal of that sum goes in fixed payments,
but I will say 2,000,0001. or 3,000,0001., and I state that
commodities arc 25 per cent. cheaper than they were
last year; and if he can get the same amount now
as he did then, let him make himself comfortable.—
(A laugh.) There are very few of his constituents
in Sheffield that will get the same amount as they did
last year.— (Hear, hear.) I see no reason at all why we
should augment our forces, and 'when the time cones I
will oppose its being done ; and by not one shilling will
I consent to augment the army, navy, or ordnance this
year.—(Hear, hear.) Now, as to this income-tax that
is proposed to be put on. I have no objection to such a
tax. The Hon. Member for Bucks (Mr. Disraeli) has
been attacking me for that tax. I want to know what
taxes are fairer than property and income-tax.—(flear.)
We raise 3400,000/o and a large proportion of it comes
from tea, coffee, and sugar ; I ask the Hon. Member
for Bucks, does not ho think that the poor wretches of
peasants that have to go and buy threepennyworth of
tea or twopenny worth of sugar on a Saturday night,
and pay a large per tentage upon that little outlay for
taxation, find it quite as grievous to them as the pro-
perty-tax is to the landowners ?—(Hear, hear.) Ido
not think an income-tax quite so fair—(Hear, hear)--any
great objection is its inquisitorial character, from which
men of property escape. But when you propose an in-
come and property-tax to spare the Government effecting
some little economy in your excise department and your
dockyards and your Government offices, then I object
to it.—(Hear, hear.) But the Hon. Member for Bucks
(Mr. Disraeli) will excuse me if I tell him that what he
has said is rather calculated, unintentionally I am sure,
to create a misapprehension in Bucks as Ito what we
have been doing in the progress of our commercial re-
form. He talks of the great deficit. Yes; it is easy to
have a great deficit if you are always voting increased
expenses.—(Hear, hear.) But who votes those increased
expenses? lies the lion. Member for Bucks ever been
found voting for economy? Will he now join in re-
sisting this profligate expenditure of the public money?
—(Hear, hear.) Now, let the Hon. Member look well
to it. I will engage for it that though he rails at the
expenditure, though he denounces the income-tax and
abuses the free-traders for it, he will vote for
the expenditure.—(Hear, hear.) But don't let him charge
the free-traders with it. It is not free trade that does
it ; it is the constant expenditure. Sine 1835 you
have increased the expenditure by 7,000,0001, and
that upon the small item which is variable, and which
comprised the charge ,for the army and navy and ord-
nance; but;who has done that ? Why, the non. Mem-
ber for Bucks and those who have acted with him.—
(Hear, hear.) There would have been no necessity for
an income-tax if the expenses had not been augmented ;
it is your extravagance that causes it.—(Hear, hear.)
Why, if you had kept the armaments at what they were
in 1835, you might now have stood in the same relation
to France—for France, as I will prove to you, only
armed'in self-defence and because you did ; and you
might-have taken off the duty on tea, or the window-
tax, or both together.—(Hear, hear.) You might have
had relief equal to the whole amount of your poor-rates.
You are actually paying in this increased expenditure a
sum as large as your poor-rates ; it is tantamount to
doubling the pauperism of the country —(Hear.) Then
I say, cut down your expenditure. Help us. Now, I
will give you a reason why you should help us. I will
talk to the Hon. Protectionists now as men of sense.—(A
laugh.) Give up the idea of forming a party upon pro-
tection.—(Hear.) You see your leaders drop away ;
and why do leaders drop assay ? Because you have really
no party, and you have no principle.—(Laughter.) It
is a sham and a fudge.—(Renewed laughter and cheers.)
Talk of restoring protection! You might as well think
of enthroning the Stuarts again.—(Cheers.) You might
as well talk of restoring the year 1846 to the calendar as
of restoring protection.-- (Renewed cheers.) The thing
is dead and gone and disposed of.—(Cheers.) Then
what is the next question for you? You cannot in-
demnity yourselves against a moderate price of corn by
coming upon the public purse; that I guarantee—that
you shall never have a corn-law again, do or say what
you will.—(Cheers.) What then? Why, diminish the
expenditure.—(Hear, hear.) The Hon. Member for
Bucks usually favours the House with a groat deal
of historical knowledge, and perhaps ho will excuse me
far calling his attention to an historical fact which oc-
curred not more than 30 years ago. If the Honourable
Member will take the prices of corn in one hand and
the statements of the public expenditure in the other,
he will find that in the years in which the prices of
corn were lowest the Parliament always cut down the
expenditure. Let us begin with 1822. After the
conclusion of the war the Honourable Member
for Montrose was always endeavouring to persuade
the House to bring down the establishments to
a peace footing, but he could never get the county Mem-
bers to listen to him till 1822. In that year wheat fell
to 445. a price unheard of for fifty years previously, and
then the county Members came up en masse to support
the economical propositions of the Hon. Member for
Montrose; they struck off 20,000 men from the services,
and effected reductions in the expenditure to the extent
of 2,800,0001. The Hon. Member for Montrose, econo-
mist as he was, felt a little alarmed at the slashing re-
trenchments of the country gentlemen.—(A laugh.) In
1826 the price of corn was fifty per cent. higher, and at
once the establishments were augmented and the expen-
diture was carried to the point at which it stood in 1821.
Then came that terrible year 1835, when wheat went
down to 335. 4d. on the average, and, immediately the
army, navy, and ordnance estimates were out down to
11,500,0001. Now you are going to vote 19,000,0001.
for those estimates.—(Hear, hear.) I tell the Protec-
tionists that they are going to have moderate prices
for corn. During the last twelve months we have
had an exceptional state of things altogether. Every-
body knows that the future normal state of the corn
market will be one of moderate prices.—(Hear, hear.)
Bear in mind that when wheat comes to a moderate
price it cannot be got up again by any contrivance.
'Ffiere can now be no rebound—no reaction by means of
the sliding scale. Tho corn-laws are repealed. The
merchants, manufacturers, and traders are satisfied with
the result. Suffering as they were, the manufacturers
had not exhibited the slightest symptom of wavering on
that point. Do you suppose that the manufacturers of
the north and the workmen of the metropolis, when
corn comes down to 405., will listen to the syren notes
of the Hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, and consent
to have the corn-laws reimposed?—(" Hear," and
laughter.) I can tell the Protectionists that there is not
a chance of restoring the corn-laws. It is all moon-
shine to tell the electors of counties about protection.—
(" Question, question.") I think I am rather too close
to the question.—(" Hear," and laughter.) I say that
the only chance for you and your constituencies is to
help the free-traders in their endeavours to reduce the
expenditure of the country. It will not be possible much
longer to amuse the county constituencies with the cry of
protection. They begin to perceive that it is a phantom
and for their interest and your own you will be com-
pelled to advocate measures of peaceful economy.
I hope, too, that you will induce the Foreign Secretary
to hold out the olive branch to the French nation, in-
stead of seeking for the means of irritating it and keeping
it in a constant fever of excitement. If free trade can
effect that, it will have done something to carry out
the principle about which the Hon. Member for Buck-
inghamshire had so much declaimed. I never said that
free trade would bring the millennium. lam not one
of the enthusiasts whom the Hon. Member compared to
St. Pierre. I certainly have said that the interchange
of commodities would knit nations together in the bonds
of peace; but in that I was only echoing what I conceived
to be the best sentiments in the speeches of the Right
Hon. Members for Tamworth and the Noble Lord the
Member for the city of London. I never heard those
eminent persons speak on the subject of free trade with-
out their descanting on its tendency to uni:e nations by
the ties of mutual interest. Though lam no enthusiast,
and do not look for the millennium as a consequence of free
trade, I do believe that that system will be the means of
closely uniting France and England. We have repealed
the cora-laws more by accident than anything else ;
for the spirit of free trait) does not pervade this assem-
bly, nor the Goveinment.—(Hear, hear.) If it did,
Ministers would not have introduced into this House the
question of war to cation in a spirit which might have
been tolerated 50 years ago, but which was totally re-
pugnant to the temper of the present age. Since, how-
ever, the corn-laws are repealed, whether by accident or
otherwise, you will be obliged to economize by the re-
duction of the army and other warlike establishments.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER—I
think it would have been better to have postponed any
discussion on the topics introduced in the speech of my
Noble Friend until Monday week, for we have been led
into a debate upon this occasion which has been truly
described as being of a very desultory character. It
appears to me that the speech of the Hon. Member who
has just addressed the House, as well as that of the
Hon Member for Montrose, must have been prepared
under the idea that the Government intended to
propose this evening an enormous increase in the amount
of our establishments.—(Hear, hear.) The phrases
" war taxes" and " war budget" must have been con-
cocted in the belief that my Noble Friend was about to
propose an addition of 10,000 men to the army, 20,000
to the navy, and God knows what to the ordnance,_e—
(Hear, hear, and a laugh ) Yet whet is the feet? The
addition to the estimates is somewhere about 3,000 men,
and the increase of cost 300,0001. It surprises me that
the Honourable Member for Yorkshire should have
ted
re-
presented the speech of my Noble Friend as calculated
to el cul n
to excite au angry feeling in France. My Noble Friend
distinctly stated that, as fat as depended upon us, we
were determined to maintain peace with France, and
lie expressed his desire that we should continue
not only on friendly but very intimate terms with that
country.—(Hear, hear.) The Honourable Member
condemned my Noble Friend for having, ss he said,