The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-17 00:00:00

TIER PAPER DUTIES. BILL.

1 _
It is, perhaps, too much to hope that Lord Derby
will retreat at once from the position he has taken
with regard to the Paper Duties Bill and allow it
to pass the House of Lords. The notice he has
given has, however, already been sufficient to set
all classes talking about the 'constitutional office of
that branch of the Legislature in matters of taxa-
tion, and there are already some forecast shadows
of contentions wherein that ominous word "privi-
lege will be heard. Some of the present genera-
tion can tell from their own experience what a
" privilege" quarrel is ; how it absorbs everything,
stops everything, and introduces violent and angry
passions into all our public business. Let us once
add a quarrel between the two houses to the
French Treaty, the Paper Duties, the Bankruptcy
Bill, and the Reform Bill, and we shall arrive
precisely at that dead-lock in the burlesque play,
where nothing but the Queen's command, in the
shape of a dissolution, will induce all parties to
throw down their swords and daggers. Now,
before the parties are committed, it may be useful,
perhaps, to say a few calm and impartial words
upon the constitutional doctrines involved in the
state of facts which seems impending.
Upon the statute•book, as it at present stands,
the Excise duty upon paper is a permanent. impost,
fixed for ever. It is a mistake to suppose, as we
believe many do, that it is granted year by year
by the Commons. This tax undoubtedly had its
origin in a Resolution of the Commons passed in a
Committee of Ways and Means, and afterwards
incorporated in an Act of Parliament, which is as
perpetual as any other Act. This is the case with
all our ordinary taxation. Some very few taxes,
such as the Income-tax, are granted only for short
periods, it being understood that they are excep-
tional imposts, to last only during the continuance
of some special necessity ; but the great body of
our taxation is, so far as its legislative character
appears, perpetual. To repeal any one of these
taxes, therefore, requires an Act of the Legislature,
and until this Repeal Act passes it must be col-
lected and paid into the Bank of England. This
is all plain sailing. No one doubts that the Repeal
Act is formally required. No one ought to be so
ignorant of the forms of government he lives under
as to suppose that a resolution of the House of
Commons can repo 11 an Act of the Legislature.
But now comes the question,—Are not the Lords
constitutionally bound to give formal effect to the
resolution of the House of Commons in matters of
taxation ? They who would impose such an obli-
gation on the Lords may say much in favour of their
proposition. The whole theory and practice of our
modern Constitution is that the Commons hold the
purse-strings of the nation, and are supreme in
all matters relating to taxation ; that it is for the
Commons to 'grant, the Lords to ratify, and the.
Crown to accept. It may further, we believe,
be said—although we will not say that our search
has been of such a nature as to enable us to
assert this positively,—that for upwards of a hun-
dred years, although there have been instances of
the Lords refusing to pass a Taxing Bill, there has
been no instance of the Lords refusing to pass a
bill repealing a tax. Here are two strong points
of constitutional theory and Parliamentary custom,
which tend to the proof that the Lords are under
some undefined and unwritten obligation to give
every facility to the Commons to stay the operation
at any moment of any tax which may be in exis-
tence.

On the other hand, it may, and doubtless will, be
urged that the Lords, being an independent Estate
of this realm, cannot be under any obligation to
exercise their legislative power at the mere dictation
of any other body. It will be said that the mere fact
of_ their assent being necessary is in itself full proof
that they have a plenary right either to grant or to
refuse that assent. It will be argued that, as there
is confessedly nothing either in the rolls of Parlia-
thent or in the text-books of constitutional writers
to fix upon the Peers an obligation to exercise the
forms of their house as a mere ministerial office,
and as there is no legal means by which the col-
lection of a tax can be stayed except by an act of
the Queen, Lords, and Commons, it cannot he thus
gratuitously assumed that the Lords lie under any
such an humiliating obligation as that of affecting
to give their free adhesion to a measure which they
notoriously disapprove. It will probably be ad-
mitted that the House of Commons has by strenu-
ous and successful, and by a most happy usurpation,
obtained absolute jurisdiction over the initiative of
all taxation. It will be conceded that, according
to the practice now settled, no tax can be placed
upon the country until it has first been voted by the
Commons in a'Committee of Ways and Means, and
then passed into a law by the three Estates; but it
will 'be affirmed that, the tax once made law, it is
open to any one, of those three Estates to object to
and to prevent its cessation. Against the precedents
voted by those .who may adduce the old abuse of
tacking popular bills to money bills in order to se-
cure the passing of the former, several more modern
instances will be produced wherein the Lords have
refused to ratify grants of money to individuals.
If the distinction between taxes levied for purposes
of revenue and taxes imposed for purposes of general
policy can be got over, the precedents for the in-
terference of the Lords will be uniform and nume-
rous. It will be asked whether, in the discussion
of the corn laws or the navigation laws, it was ever
pretended that the Lords were ousted of all discre-
tion because the bills which abolished protection
altered or abolished the scales of duties by which
the machinery of that protection was worked. It
will probably be also pointed out that there are
other matters in which the initiative belongs to the
Commons, but wherein the power of the Lords to
alter or to object is never questioned; and perhaps
the constitution of the Commons' House itself may
be cited as an example among many of this class of
questions. These are a few of the considerations
which occur in favour of the power of free action
claimed by the Lords, but the chief of all must be
the broad ground that, before this Repeal Bill can
become law, the Lords must read it three times and
pass it; and that, as men of honour and indepen-
dence, they cannot do this if they believe in their
consciences it is a bill which ought not to pass.
We believe that of these two sets of arguments
the latter is the more cogent ; that there is no dif-
ference in law or in constitutional form between a

tax repeal bill and any other bill, and that if ever
the occasion 'should unhappily arise it would be
thus held in every court of law in Great Britain.
Where, then, it will be asked, is the meaning of
the Commons holding the public purse-strings ? We
Must go one step further to explain this, and we
must show how the-security for our liberties lies
not so much in the control over taxation as is popu-
larly supposed. A tax is imposed by a law, which
exists until it is repealed, but the produce of that
tax does not pass immediately to the Crown, or
rather to the Government—it is paid into the Bank
of England. When there, no one can touch it,
without the concurrence. of an irremovable officer
called the Controller of the Exchequer; and that
officer is bound to exercise his authority within the
limitations of the Appropriation Act anually passed.
This is the pivot of the supremacy of the House of
Commons. It is the paying out of the money, and
not in getting it in, that they bold limir power of
the purse. Some time ago, as any one may ree who
will refer to the blue-book of the Committee on
Public Moneys, some rash utilitarians proposed to
abolish this office of Controller of .the. Exchequer,
and to trust all to "confidence in the Treasury."
These people, although in high office, were igno-
rant of the rudiments of the Constitution. They
were for pulling out the pivet. Let no one under-
value these constitutional forms. It is better for
all parties that there should be no temptation to
encroachment.

But now for the practical application to passing
events of a dissertation not very usual in our

columns. We haven° doubt that, even id the highest
and most liberal view of the.theory of our :Consti-
tution, Lord Derby and his Peers have full right.
and authority to
„throw out the Paper .Duti2s
Repeal Bill. But the prudence and -expediency
of- such a course of action are quite another
Matter. For what, would. I.R. the practical conse-
quences? If the Commons and the country should
be satirfie'l by the' reaSons"given in debate that
the Lords arc substantially right, it is probable that-
• the matter wtculd!te.passed over with a formal pro-
ted by the Commons. The same thing ha,g hap-
pened in a fee:6l'A case, where-tbe'Lords amended a
Stamp Bill. , Instead of kicking the hill down the
,house,; according to the ancient ceremouy—.tbe
Speaker giving it the first kick—the Ccinirnoils,
recognizing the propriety of the alteration, simply
dropped the bill, and pa.sed another with the Lords'
amendment ineorport.ted, and sent it up to be passed;
but let us suppose for a moment that this should
not be so,---let us imagine that the House of Com-
mons mounted their high-privilege horse, and
seriously resented this unusual practical interfer-
ence with the taxing and untaxing power' of the
Commons: The Commons could not prevent the
produce of this tax going into the public account at
the Pank . of England, • but they could prevent it
from ever going out, and they could, if the dispute
went on, do any amount of wanton Mischief. In
fact, both houses might act like some of .those wise
couples who, when they quarrel, smash
_their look-
ing-glasseS and pictures. We are not to suppose
that any folly of this kind would be committed .at
the present day ; it would be a sufficient evil if
there were a conflict between the two houses.
Whether the Lords are Prepared to buy the rejec-
tion of this bill at such a price is for their considera-
tion. If they are, we do not see how it is to be
prevented. Strict formal right is on the side of the
Peers, but the exercise of that right might be more
pernicious than the commission of an ordinary
wrong. The counter-move of the Commons would
be to vote every tax for only a limited period.-
2 fines.