The Sun.
London, England, 1851-04-08 00:00:00

amount of wages at the disposition of the working
classes; and it told also of the increased command which
they had acquired over the comforts, the conveniences,
and the necessaries of life.—(Hear, hear.) But there
was also another test—they were able to ascertain ac-
curately the increased and incressing amount of the in-
dustry and labour of the country that had been expended
in the production of articles intended for the foreign
consumer. What was the case with regard to their
foreign trade? From 1835 to 1842 it had remained
nearly stationary. The average amount of the declared
value of their exports was about 49,500,0001. starling.
In 1842 commenced the great change in their commer-
cial legislation, and from that perio down to the pre-
sent time there had been a rapid and progressive increase
in the declared value of the foreign trade. In 1843 it
was 52,250,0001.; in 1847, it was 58,750,0001.; in 1849,
it was 63,500,0001.; and in the year just concluded,
1850, it exceeded 71,000,0001. sterling.—(Hear, hear.)
But while he made all these concessions he was anxious
the House should bear in mind that they had
still an enormous revenue from indirect taxation,
and that which was indirect, to be productive, must
be laid upon the chief articles of the subsistence of the
people. Take, for instance, the Customs revenue. The
produce of that was 22,000,0001. sterling, and the House
should be aware that of that large sum no less an amount
than 20,000,0001., or 10.11ths, was the produce of the
duties levied upon seven articles, which were articles of
subsistence of the great mass of the people. If they
took tea, coffee, or spirits (he meant foreign and colonial
rum and brandy), wine, tobacco, and corn—for although
the duty on corn was only a nominal one of one shilling,
yet such was the demand and such the consumption, that
it produced an appreciable amount to the public revenue
—these seven articles yielded 20,000 000/. out of the
22,000,0001. of Customs revenue. He did not know how
many articles there were in the tariff—he dared to say
some hundreds, but all of them put together produced
hardly more than the cost of collection. So it would al-
ways be; and if they placed back those 450 articles that
had been struck out by the Act of 1845 they would
hardly pay the cost of collection. What was the infer-
ence he drew from that? If they were to raise five mil-
lions additional taxation, and not raise it by means of a
direct tax, but by an indirect one, they must impose that
indirect tax upon one or more of the prime articles of
subsistence of the people—they must reverse the prin-
ciple of their recent commercial legislation, and re-
vert to that system of protection which for so long
a time they had permitted to obstruct and retard the
growth, and progress, and development of the resources
of the country.—(Hear, hear.) Let the advantage of
the income-tax be what it might, the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman the Member for Stamford would prevent their
taking it into consideration et all; he would stop them
on the threshold, and why? Because, he said, the faith
of Parliament was pledged on the subject—that Parlia-
ment had given its good faith to discontinue the income-
tax after the expiration of a limited period. Granted.
True, the Right Hon. Gentleman was willing to allow
them just as much of the income-tax as would bring
the income level with the expenditure; but that he could
not do without doing violence to his principle, which
went to the extent that the duties levied under the in-
come-tax were granted and renewed for temporary pur-
poses and for a limited period, and that Parliament was
bound to abide by its declared intention to discontinue
the income-tax. Now he must enter a preliminary ob-
jection against the statement that Parliament could enter
into any compact with the people, fettering the discre-
tion of some future Parliament on the subject of finance,
and binding it not to entertain any proposition for rais-
ing any portion of the public revenue in a manner which
was most in harmony with the real interests of the
country, and, it necessary, by means of au income-
tax. A similar argument was urged in 1842 against
the imposition of the income-tax at all. It
was said that the income-tax by common un-
derstanding was reserved for the great emer-
gency of war—that it was a proposition never heard of,
entertained, or conceded in time of peace, and should be
reserved for those great occasions when the relations of
this country with foreign nations were tither altogether
broken off or temporarily suspended. And the answer
made to that argument in support of the Right Hon.
Gentleman's resolution was that Parliament could judge
of the exigency for itself—if it thought it necessary, in
order to maintain the public credit of the country, and
to keep up the establishments in a proper state of effi-
ciency, that it should be imposed. Do not let Parlia-
ment' be deterred from acting up to its duty by the
fallacious, delusive argument of a compact entered into
for fettering its discretion and binding its freedom of
action.—(Hear, hear.) He was not at all prepared to
admit the facts involved in the resolution of the Right
Hon. Gentleman, still more to admit the inferences he
drew from them. The Right Hon. Gentleman cited ex-
tracts from individual Members, but he would say they
were far from carrying out the conclusions to which he
wished to arrive. He (Mr. Peel) thought, whentat
he
he
spoke of the declared intentions:of Parliament, that
would have been able to point out some act which would
speak in an effective manner the sense of the Legislature.
He wondered he did not refer to the proceedings in
the Parliament of 1816; in that year Lord Bexley
then Mr. Vansittart, as Chancellor of the Exchequer,
brought forward a proposition for imposing the income-
tax. That proposition excited great opposition, and the
chief ground was the common understanding of the
country that the income-tax should not be renewed after
the expiration of the war and the conclusion of a treaty
of peace. The opposition brought forward a number of
speeches from individual members of Government; but
the Chancellor of the Exchequer refused to be bound by
them, and showed that Pitt, Addington, and Grenville
had „mortgaged the produce of these duties for several
years after the peace, for the purpose of repaying loans
borrowed during the war. The opposition was trium-
phant; the income-tax was rejected, and why? Because
the opposition was able to point to a section in the Act
of 1803, which provided that the income-tax was to be
continued so long as the war lasted, and was not to be
afterwards renewed. The Right Honourable Gentle-
man brought nothing of the kind forward, and he
also disputed, as he had said, the inference he drew
from his facts. He said the tax had reference to a
temporary emergency, the expense of the China war and
the remedying some of the financial blunders of the Ad-
minibtration that retired in 1841. But he did not say
that these were the grounds on which the Govern-
ment themselves rested the imposition of the income-tax,
and he (Mr. Peel) could confidently state that the real
financial.policy of the Government of 1841, as developed
in 1845, was, that by means of an income-tax the Go-
vernment might be enabled to take off taxes infinitely
more oppressive, burdensome, and vexatious, than the
income-tax. The principle of the financial policy of the
Government was, that by means of the income-tax they
might effect great reforms in the financial and commer-
cial policy of the country. The first leading principle
was to take off the duty on the food of the people, and
then the duties on the importation of the raw materials
of their manufactures—these principles were acted upon
with great vigour and great aptitude of design, but he
did not say that the policy was brought to a completion;
they took off the duty on sheep and cotton-wool on the
express ground that they formed the material of the chief
staple manufactures, but he could not say the policy was
completed while there remained a heavy protective diffe-
rential duty, amounting to sd. per cubic foot, on timber,
which was one of the materials of their manufactures. He
could not say that the policy was complete which took off
the duty on sugar on the ground that it entered into the
subsistence of the mass of the people, while there still
remained the heavy duty of 2s. 2id. per pound on tea,
amounting to 200, 300, or 400 per cent. on the cheaper
sorts, which were those consumed by the lower class.—
(Hear, hear.) Still less would he say that the policy
was complete which took off the excise duty on glass, and
by the removal of excise restrictions gave a rapid de-
velopment to that manufacture, while there remained a
duty, characterised by Adam Smith as one of the four
necessaries of life, taxed in his time by the British Go-
vernment, a most important article which entered into a
great variety of manufactures—he meant soap.—(Hear,
hear.) If these were the temporary exigencies to which
the Right Honourable Gentleman referred, he could
not say that they had passed away, and ho could
not vote fur the resolution on such grounds. He
should give his vote in favour of the renewal of
the income-tax to enable the Government to carry
out these reforms to completion. That led him to
consider what were the inducements held out by the
Government to obtain the consent of the House to the
imposition of the income-tax. They were of a threefold
character—they want to repair a deficit, to retain a sur-
plus, and to remit taxation. First, as to repairing a de-
ficit, there was this advantage in taking the discussion
now, instead of at an earlier period of the session, that
when the first financial statement was made they were
obliged to take upon the credit and faith of the Govern-
ment the correctness of the estimates laid before them.
Since then the House had been in Committee of Ways
and Means; estimates had been agreed to in Committee
of Supply, and they had now ascertained that, but for
the income-tax, there would be a deficit of 800,0001.
With respect to the appropriation of the surplus, he
agreed with the Hon. Member for Montrose that econo-
mically there was no gain in paying such a tax as a
tax upon soap, or a protective duty on the import of
timber, to apply the produce to the reduction of the
National Debt, because taxes of that sort took out of
the pockets of the public more than they bronght into
the Exchequer. At the same time there was
a great moral advantage in the determined re-
solution of the House to deal with that enormous
amount of public debt, and to show that they were
willing to make great sacrifices to obtain such a re-
duction.—(Hear, hear.) Not that he entertained any
idea that public opinion would ever go to the extent of
repudiating the payment of that debt. The Chancellor
of the Exchequer bad told them that five-sixths of the
fundholders of the country received dividends not ex-
ceeding 50/. a year, and he might have stated a fact
still more striking. The British Association, in its
meeting in Edinburgh, read a statistical paper, in which
the fund'nolders were divided into twelve classes, ac-
cording to the amounts they received. It appeared that
there had been, between the years 1831 and 1848, a con-
, siderable and large diminution in the number of fund-
holders in every one of these classes except one; and
what was that? The class of persons receiving less
than 51. A proof, not so much that the working classes
were making accumulations of money, as that they re-
garded the public debt as a safe investment for their
savings.—(Hear, hear.) No doubt the great point in the
scheme of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the re-
duction of taxation that he proposed. He would say
nothing of the equalization of the duty on foreign and
colonial coffee, and the reduction of the duty on foreign
timber, because he apprehended that nobody would raise
an objection to them, and probably ,the Right Hon.
Gentleman could not have laid his finger on two ar-
ticles more deserving of the consideration of the House;
but the loss in these was small compared with
what he proposed to abandon with respect to
the window-tax, and it was with regard to that
part of the Right Hon. Gentleman's policy he was com-
pelled to give a qualified and hesitating assent. He
should have thought that the Right Ron. Gentleman