The Sun.
London, England, 1833-05-04 00:00:00

duce of land, and of all produce of mines, when the sales
are made on the lands or at the mines, are wholly ex-
empted, as well as all the produce of quarries, or of imple-
ments used in quarries, mines, or farms ; and that thus,
while every product of the hand of man has to bear this
tax in almost a double degree, compared with linds and
tenements themselves, the produce of the land bears rat'
part of this tax, which is thus shifted from the shoulders
of the great and the rich, and made to fall almost exclu-
sively on the middle and working classes of society.
These resolutions, be contended, established a complete
case of injustice committed by the rich man upon the
poor man ; and in no one instance did ever the semblance
of impartiality appear but in that of apprenticeships.
The Nobility and Gentry never put their children out to
trades, and hence it was they had been so just. Having
thus, as he thought, shown the inequality of taxation,
and how much more it pressed upon the poor than ulnae
the rich, he hoped the House would agree with him in
thinking such a system ought not to continue. The Hon.
Member then moved—
" That this House will, with as little delay as possible.
make such an alteration in the several Acts, imposing
duties on stamps and on sales at auction, as shall cause
the Peers, Nobles, Baronet.), and other great landowners,
to pay, in proportion to the amount of their property
(subject to those duties), as great an amount in slime
duties as is paid by the fundholdere, annuitants, trades-
men, manufecturere, farmers, mechanics, and the rest of
the industrious then.' of the kingdom ; and as shall
cause, in all cases, the rich to pay the said duties in the
same proportion as the poor."
That was the motion which it was his intention to propose.
to the House. He was not indifferent as to its success
He sincerely wished that it might be agreed to, for the
sake of the House and for the country. If he held the
opinions which some Hon. Gentlemen attributed to him,
he should be gratified by the rejection of this just prop-
sition, because be was convinced the result of that rejection
would be most disastrous. What had been tl.e cause of the
French revolution ? That the aristocracy would not
listen to the representations made to them. The higher
orders in France had been destroyed by tie unequal
taxation, rather than by the weight of taxation which had
prevailed in that country. Arthur Young, who had vi-
sited France in 1787 (and those were greatly in error
who fancied that the revolution in that country
did not commence long before it appeared to com-
mence ; for it begun by the oppression of the people),
stated the evils which existed in that country
and put f rward as the foremost of those evils,
partial taxation. The rich were invariably favoured
at the expense of the poor ; on whom a double or
treble amount of taxation was imposed. Goaded by their
sufferings, and by the perpetual comparison of their situa-
tien with that of their rich and aristocratic neighbours,
the people at length determined no longer to endure such
tyranny and oppression ; and that cause alone produced
all the evils as hich ensued. Now he hoped, after what
he had said, the House would be ready to do justice—a
tardy justice—a justice, he must say, too long delayed—
to the poor people of this country. He would not refer
to old grievances. lie, for elle, was willing they should
be forgotten—for ever buried in oblivion. lie wished no
ripping up—he asked only for justice for the future. He
had done his duty in bringing the matter before the
House; and whatever their decision might be, he was
willing that the country should decide between them.
The Hon. Member concluded, by moving the first of his
reeolutions.
Mr. S. RICE said if the simple question before the
House was whether the Stamp Acts required amendment
or not, he did not b.l eve there could be found any man in
the country of a contrary opinion. And though he would
not quarrel with the well known vigorous impatience—
not to say indiscretion—of the Hon. Member, he must
still express his opinion, that when notice had been given
of the intention tif his Noble Friend, Lord Althorp, to
ameliorate these laws, the more proper course would have
been for the Hon. Mover of the resolutions to await the
Ministerial proposition, and then to have addressed himself
closely and fairly to it.—(Hear.) He held in his hand a
book—not a volume of the Journals of that House, nor a
work, which, being of great research and value, was hard
to get at—but it was a work published by one Mr. Dunn,
called the Law and Daily Commercial Advertiser,
where, he could assure Hon. Members, they could find the
whole matter of the Hon. Member with much less ex
pense of time and trouble—(Laughter)—than lad that
evening been exacted from them. All that the Hon.
Member uttered came from Dunn—he made Dunn his
own—Dunn and he were identical.—(Loud laughter.)
From the publication of this book by Dunn, he
supposed was to be dated that new era which the Hon.
Member had foretold should commence when be was in-
vested with legislatorial power—improvements were to be
made in every quarter on the advent of this new Shiloh—
this political Saviour. For his part, he thought the bet-
ter way would have been that Dunn—(Laughter)—he
read by the Clerk of the House, and entered on the Jour-
nals.—(Laughter.) He dare not, of course, impute mo-
tives to the Hon. Member, as that would be unparlia-
mentary, but very luckily he could go close into the enemy's
quarters in another way—he could drive at the double—
for it would not be unparliamentary to treat Dunn—
(Laughter)—as Dunn deserved to be treated.—(Cheers.)
Dunn was not protected by privilege, and he therefore hesi-
tated not to say, that that book, which so strangely agreed
with all the Hon. Member had uttered, was filled with the
grossest calumnies, and the most unjustifiable and daring
exaggerations.—(Cheers.) But he would go to the facts.
The Hon. Member's great effort in his speech was to chow
' that in there Acts the rich had been especially careful to
protect themselves at the expense of the poor—in fact, to
throw the entire burden on that class of society. The
lion. Member had forgot to state—and why did he forget
to state ?—that the first schedule of the Act contained a
special exemption in favour of the poor.—(Cheers.) Cer-
tainly, it might be a question whether the indulgence
should not have been carried further ; but it was not even
mentioned by the Hon. Member, amidst his vituperation
of the tyrant rich.—(ileer. ) He contented himself with
a general assertion, that the schedules got heavier and
heavier as the people became poorer and poorer.—(Hear.)
Why, as to real property not being subject to legscy duty,
let it he remembered, that money might be transferred in
millions without any tax whatever; but land, in every
change, was made to contribute to the revenue, and that
heavily, by imposes on conveyances, mortgages, tee.—
(Hear.) Then as to probates. In all scales of taxation,
there must be a point which it reaches where there can be
no taxation. Whereever there was a fixed scale, there
Was an opening for arguments such as those used by the
Hon. Member. Instead of taking the mean, he (Mr. Cob-
bett) very unfairly took the extreme ; anti so was produced
the most complete piece of jumbling that ever came before
the House.—(Hear, hear.) His (Mr. Rice's) plan was
to take the mean—to go by averages---( Hear, hear)—and
he would leave the House to decide which was the
fairest. The Hon. Member asserted, that the probate
duties pressed exclusively on the poor ; whilst, at the same
time, he must know that probates under 201. were exempt
from any duty whatever.—(Loud cheers.) And why did
he conceal this fact ? Why, that it might go forth to the
public that the rich were unfeeling—regardless of the duty
they owed to those beneath them—that, with " malice
prepense," they shifted the national burdens from their
own shoulders to those less able to bear them—that they
were, in fact, tyrants.—(Loud cheers.) Let that one fact
be a running commentary on the mischievous powers of
one who might have turned his great gifts to nobler and
better purposes than that of exciting the bad passions of
the poor against the rich.—(Cheers.) But to the facts.
From 20 to 100 the mean was 60, and the duty on that
was 10s. or 163. Bd. per cent. From 100 to 200 the
mean was 150, and the duty, unfortunately for poor Dunn
laugh)—was IL 4s. The mean of 250 paid a duty
of 21. per cent. in lieu of this 16s. Bd. ; the mean 375 of
21. 2s. Bd., in lieu of Dunn's 16s. Sd. ; and of 900 of 2/.
tis.loil. and a fraction in lieu of aforesaid Dunn.—(Cheers. )
Here he admitted that he came to that portion of the
Stamp Acts, in which were anomalies, which, as he had
before stated, no one would wish otherwise than to see
corrected. lie could go through the scale of the pro-
bate duty in the same manner, not for the purpose of
proving that the scale was invariably right, but for
that of allowing that the Honourable Gentleman was
invariably wrong.—(Hear.) There was no one point on
which the Hon. Member had rested his case that was not
capable of being overthrown when it came to be fairly
considered. It must be admitted that the probate duty
wasr oppressive iu particular instances, but it certainly did
not deserve the charges which the lion. Member hod
brought against it. He did
nopretend to defend every
part of that duty, but merely te‘i show, in answer to the
Hon. Member, that the scale did not get higher as the
people on whom it operated were
icherp.°° rteire,
nowno lowercame as
)
those whom it affected were r
the case of conveyances. The Hon. Member made the
same statement with regard to this duty as with regard to
the rest; he said that the amount of duty diminished as
the value of the property on which it attached increased.
The scale of the duty on conveyances was to be dealt with
in the same manner as that of the probate. duty. He
would willingly give up to the Hon. Member a part of
these duties—namely, those which attached upon con-
veyances from 10/. to 351., or even to 100/. lie did not
intend to defend them; but though there were Cases of
conveyances among the poorer classes where the convey-
ance was for a sum within 1001., on which lee was not
prepared to defend the duty, still he must say that the