The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-11 00:00:00

THE - SUN, LONDON,

hear.) Comparing this expenditure of £6,8,958,000, with
the receipts of £70,578,000, the committee will perceive
that we should have had a surplus of 13100E1113 over expendi-
ture of not less than £1,625,000. (Hear, hear.) That sur-
plus would have been the result of the liberal and wise pro-
vision made by Parliament in the past session to meet the
expenses of the year, and though it will not now- be avail,
able, as it has almost entirely been absorbed for the reduc-
tion of the National Debt, yet, nevertheless, it may serve
for ,a good example of the prudence of that rule which
always induces this house, when appealed to for the pur-
pose, to provide ample means to meet the public expendi-
ture. But after Parliament had adjourned we had to
encounter additional charges, and I come now to
what I call the disturbing causes which have
acted on the revenue. The necessity of making provision for
the expedition to China—to be the bearer, in the first in-
stance, of peaceful remonstrances—cast an addition on the
votes for military expenditure, which, together with an ex-
cess in the army expenditure in the year 1858-9, stands as
follows .—Army, £`900,000; Navy, £270,000. Then has
arrived the treaty with France. It is very difficult indeed
to estimate for so short a time as that which has to pass be-
fore March 31 what the results and effects of that treaty
will be upon the Customs revenue, more especially as a
question may arise with respect to certain payments which
it may be requisite to make to alimited class of persons who
are affected by the peculiar circumstances of that treaty.
However, we have taken what we think an ample amount,
and I have therefore to deduct from the estimate which I
have submitted to the committee a sum of £640,000. We,
therefore, stand worse than we should have stood by
£1,170,000 for additional charges on the army expenditure
and £640,000 likely to be lost on our Customs receipts in
consequence of the treaty with France. The total of these
two is £1,810,000, which, being deducted from the surplus
we should have had, would appear to place us on the wrong
side of the account. But deliverance has come in from a
quarter from -which perhaps it would not have been expected.
" Via prima salutis,
Quoad minime reris, Grata pandeter ab urbe."
A friendly kingdom has undertaken to pay us a debt at the
very moment when she herself is engaged in war. (A laugh.)
Spain is just now under peculiar pressure, but with a high
sense of honour and duty—(cheers),—not wishing to avail
herself of the plea which, I do not hesitate to say, she
might under the circumstances have advanced for time, has
remitted to us a sum in bills which will shortly come due,
of £500,000, of which £250,000 will come to the credit of
the revenue before March 31. If the committee will take
the trouble to compare the figures, it will bus 8e
that we sex out with a probable surplus of
£1,625,000; adding to that surplus the £250,000 of
which I have spoken it becomes £1,875,000, against which
we have a charge of £1,810,000, a state of account which
will leave the Chancellor of the Exchequer with a surplus
—undoubtedly one of the narrowest on record, but still a
surplus, not a deficit. (Hear, hear.) This is the state of
the account for the present year. I now proceed to approach
the more extensive and more difficult part of the subject—
that which relates to the charge and expenditure of the
coming year, 1860-61. The estimated charge for the funded
and unfunded debt in the coming year is 0n1y.£26,200,000,
which shows a decrease of £2,438,000—a sum considerably
larger than the annuities which are about to fall in. But
the reason of that greater decrease is that—as the commit-
tee may probably recollect—we were called on last year to
make a special provision for the quarterly payment that
falls into this yeas in consequence of the determination of
the annuities ; whereas, if it had continued to run its full
term of half a year, it would have gone into the year 1860-
61. That arrangement swelled the charge for the debt in
1859-60, and proportionately augments the relief from that
charge in the year 1860-61. (Hear.) Therefore, the charge
for the debt stands only at £26,200,000. The Consolidated
Fund'eharges, commonly solcalled,:stand at 12,000,000, ex-
hibiting an increase of £40,000. The Army and Militia,
including a vote of credit to the amount of £500,000, which
it will be our duty to propose on account of the Chinese ex-
pedition, will amount to £15,800,000. The Navy and
Packet Services—which I mention together for the purpose
of easier comparison with former years, though the packet
service is likely to be separated from the Admiralty—will
stand in the Estimates at £13,900,000. These two sums,
which together include the whole military expenditure of
the country by land and sea, with the cost of the packet
service, amount to 129,700,000, showing an increase of
£3,618,000 on the Military Estimates, in the same sense of
the term, which were voted last year, and an increase of
£2,448,000 on the Military Estimates for the current year,
augmented by the additional charge that will be brought
into them if the house should grant the sum for which the
Government think it their duty to ask. The Miscella-
neous Civil Estimates are taken at £7,500,000. That
amount exhibits a decrease as compared with the Esti-
mates of last year of £325,000; and if the committee which
the house has in some manner declared its intention of
appointing should be enabled to enter on its labours at
an early period, and shall prosecute them with such vigour
and success as to enable us to carry further the process of
retrenchment, I assure the hon. gentleman who moved,
the hon. member for Birmingham who supported, and the
other members of the majority who carried the motion for
its appointment, that it will be a result acceptable to her
Majesty's Government. (Hear, hear.) The Revenue
Department standing at £4,700,000 presents an apparent
increase of £225,000 ; but do not suppose that this is a real
increase of the charge ; it is due, to speak in general terms,
to an increase of accommodation in the Post-office Depart-
ment, which I have no doubt will continua to be fully
balanced by the increase of revenue in that branch of the
public service. The total of the six sums which I have
stated to the committee is £70,100,000. With respect to
one great, but fair and legitimate head of increase, that on
the Military and Naval Estimates, it is not my intention at
the present to enter into any discussion, but it will be the
duty of my right hon. friend and of my noble friend who
represent those departments respectively, to explain that
subject to the committee at the earliest date, and to lay be-
fore them the nature of the special, and, we may hope, in
a great degree temporary, causes which have renderedit ne-
cessary to make so considerable a demand on the country.
Now, Sir, when we look at the estimated income for
the coming year, it is a matter which at the first view will
not appear satisfactory. And I confess I am not sorry that
the figures should be such as will draw serious attention to
the whole subject. For it is well that, in addition to
your annual review of the income and expenditure, there
should be special junctures with circumstances so marked
that you arc obliged to institute a deeper and more cora-
-1 prehensive examination, and to consider more at large
what is the proper scale both of taxation and likewise of ex-
penditure for this great country. The estimated income for
1861 will be taken by me in the first instance with reference
simply to the law as it stands ; but I shall assume that the
committee would, of necessity, think it right to renew
the taxes on tea and sugar at a rate not less than that which
they deliberately adopted in 1852. Pray, understand that
I am assuming the renewal of these duties at what
would be called the minimum rate, but I shall assume no-
thing else beyond what is absolutely given us by the law, so
that I may exhibit to the committee as fully and as clearly
as I can the nature and the whole extent of the deficit
which they will have to supply, hone
order that they may
exercise the largest and the freest choice with respect to the
means which they may think proper to adopt for that pur-
pose. Approaching the subject from that point of view, we
estimate that the Customs will yield 122,700,000 ; the Ex-
cise, £19,170,000; Stamps, £8,000,000; and the Taxes,
£3,250,000. The Income-tax, that is, one-half year still
outstanding at the rate of od. in the pound, would yield
£2,400,000 ; the Post-office, £3,400,000 ; the Crown Lands,
£280,000 ; and the Miscellaneous. Revenue, £1,500,000.
The total of these receipts -would be £60,700,000. The
total charge which I have exhibited is one of £70,100,000,
and the apparent deficit, I need barely state to the com-
mittee, amounts to £9,400,000. I am not representing a
brilliant state of affairs as respects the revenue and expen-
diture of the country, nor do I pretend to place fan it any
such colour. We have a prosperous country, a wealthy
eutntry, a country rapidly growing in wealth and power ;
butthe relative state of your revenue and expenditure is
such
of £70,100,000 we get the benefit of the £2,000,000 of
as I have depicted. And pray observe that in that
charge
o annuitiessaywh thatichlwa
01
notf fall I
in
nn duringa condition th e year;to ask aynodult amo d
owhat
bound
also
t
might under other circumstances have been. desirable. I
frankly own that I do not feel myself in a position to propose,
paymenteerf.htohnedssuimn
Nofov£ollohoeor,Onooexavt.hicwh
iwthilolubt duo as I otherwise might, that you should make provision for the
Exche
U 0 for
such
provision you have the deficit before you. And now, sir,
it would be perfectly possible for mo to close, were it not for
the Treaty which I have to discuss ; it would, at any rate,
have been perfectly possible for the House, if such were the
view which they entertained, to close the whole account by
a very simple, but, 1 must say, a very rude process.
£9,400,000 is wanted. I will suggest to you two modes, by
either of which you might have thought fit to supply it.
You might have said, or you may still say, we shall keep
the tea and sugar duties at their present rates; that would
supply a sum of £2,100,000. But £2,100,000 taken from
£9,400,000 still
leaves the less formidable, yet rather in-
tractable sum of £7,300,000. And now I beseech the com-
mittee to observe that if they think, with the Government,
that the large and ample provision which we are about to
propose for the services of the country is a necessary out-
lay, they will have to make good the deficit of £7,300,000,
irrespective of any relief to the people, of any improvement
of the commercial laws, of any remission whatever of taxes
affecting trade or industry, even to the extent of a single
shilling. And what is meant by filling up the deficit of
17,309,000 ? It means, at any rate, an Income-tax of 9d.
in the pound. That would give you £7,672,000, or a sur-
plus of £372,000. This would certainly be a possible mea-
sure. But, again, supposing you were to take a more li-
beral view of the matter, and to say we do not think it ri!;lat
that there should be no remission on articles connected with
the trade and industry of the country, or that duties on tea
and sugar which were imposed for the purposes of war, and
have been kept on during. three or four years of peace,
should be further prolonged. Well, then, abandoning the
war duties on tea and sugar, and keeping on what may be
called peace duties, in order to Our) the deficit of £9,400,000
you\rvould require the very neat and easily stated and easily
de
steed sum of an Income-tax of is. in the pound.
(Laughter and
sensation.)
This also would be without
any other remission of duty,
but simply what is required
for the general &minds of the revenue. Then, Sir, it may

be said, and said with justice, to many members of her
Majesty's Government—but most of all with justice
may it be demanded of me—what has become
of the calculations of 1853 ? (Hear, hear.) It is a perfectly
legitimate question, and I can render to my hen. friend who
cheevs it an answer so simple that the wayfarer "who runs
may read" it. Our financial calculations up to 1853 are to
be found in "Hansard," and from that indubitabte source
I have within the last two or three days refreshed my own
recollections. Those Estimates I find are capable of being
presented in a very simple form. We reckoned that we
should gain a revenue in the interval between 1853 and
1861 in the following proportion :—from new taxes then
proposed, including the Succession-tax, £2,549,000; from
lessened charges on account of the national debt, £1,264,000;
at the same time we knew that terminable annuities would
fall in in 1860 to the amount of £2,146,000. Adding together
these three chief sources of relief, they make a sum of
£5,959,000,-which is as nearly as possible the sum to which
the Income-tax, at the rate of sd. in the pound, amounted
for the year 1859. Its actual amount was £6,140,000, which
with this sum of £5,959,000 to set against! it, we should
have been able to surrender. With regard to these calcula-
tions, they have suffered some damage; they have suffered
considerable damage from what has since occurred. (Hear.)
But that damage is not the cause of our not being able to
dispense with the Income-tax. I can show demonstrably
that this is not the case. The succession duty failed to. pro-
duce what we expected of it, partly, or rather mainly, be-
cause it was found that by the law of succession real pro-
perty goes in the direct line in a much greater number of
cases than personal property ; so that if £100,000,000 a year
in real and settled propertycarne under the succession duty,
that amount would not yield the same average of duty as if
it had been personal property. Ido not now speak of a fact
known to the committee, that only life interest is valued
with respect to real property, but, over and above that, real
property descending in the direct line from father to son and
grandson pays only 1 per cent duty. And that direct descent
prevails in a much greater number of instances in real than
in personal property—(hear)—and consequently the revenue
from this source attained its maximum more slowly than
we anticipated. At the present moment, in 1660, we stand
worse than we did in 1853 by £1,000,000 on account of the
failure of tho succession duty. Besides this, instead of
being able to apply an annual surplus of revenue towards
the extinction of debt, that surplus was required by the
necessities of the war, and its application to the diminution
of debt was stopped for three or four years. That likewise
tended to disturb our calculations. The amount of this sur-
plus was £320,000. But the most serious item of all was
the additional debt contracted on account of the Russian
war. (Hear, hear.) It created an additional charge upon
us of £1,400,000. Under these three heads, therefore—the
deficiency in the amount of the succession duty, the stop-
page of the surplus applicable to the extinction of debt, and
the additional charge created by the Russian war—we stand
worse than in 1853 by the sum of £2,720,000. But, Sir,
that sum has been fully compensated from other sources.
The experiment I commenced with a timid hand in 1853, of
raising the spirit duties, was again followed up by myself
in 1855 and by my successor in 1858. That increase has
added a permanent revenue to the country of £1,500,000 to
£2,000,000 a year; and if, along with the general produc-
tiveness of the revenue; your expenditure had continued to
be anything like what it was, you might have done what
you please with the Income-tax. (Cheere,) In 1853 the
annual expenditure was £52,183,000; I add on account of
the additional debt, £1,400,000, and £4,700,000 for the col-
lection of the revenue; this would make the actual charge
£58,283,000. But the estimate of the revenue for the year
1860-61, with the tea duty reduced to the minimum
as fixed for a time of peace. is not only £58,283,000, it
is £6o,6oo,ooo—(hear, hear)—leaving a surplus at your dis
317 -
posal, without looking to the Income-tax, of £2,,000,
if your expenditure had continued what it was. (Hear,
hear.) In 1853 the whole amount voted for Supply
and Services of every description, including the Miscel-
laneous charges on the Consolidated Fund, was £24,279,000,
—that was the amount of the charges under your own
control, and actually voted. But in 1860-61, instead of
£24,279,000, these charges amount to £39,000,000, showing
an increase in your expenditure of £14,721,000, whichis the
exact representative of What would be in itself an Income-
tax of 13.14. in the pound. (Hear, hear.) I ask now, Sir,
whether I have not redeemed my pledge ? (Cheers.) This is
a period of so much interest and so much importance that,
even at the risk of occupying a few minutes of your time, I
wish to dwell a little on the subject of publico expenditure,
because I admit that my statement thus far, though true,
and I hope clear, is an imperfect statement. It would not
be fair to speak of the great increase in the expenditure of
the country without considering the great extension of the
dealings by which that increase is caused. The country is
richer, than it was in 1863 in a degree really astonishing.
Permit me to lay before the committee, as well as I can, a
criterion by which we may arrive at some idea of the truth
with respect to the increase in the wealth of the country ;
and then we can institute a just comparison between the
rate of increase in this wealth'and the rate of increase in the
public ezpenditure. The best mcde of making an estimate
of the rate of increase in the wealth of the country is to re-
sort to the income tax. No other criterion is comparable to
it, for though it may not be an exact index of the truth in
this matter, in any one year, yet, asbetween any one period,
and another, I believe it is an index on which we may-
safely rely. But, in taking the income-tax as a measure of
the income of the country, I beg to object to two out of the
five schedules of the tax. Schedule C does not, I think, re-
present any portion of the wealth of the country is the
sense of its productive power. It represents incomes from
realised property, such as capital invested in mortgages.
Schedule E represents the income of the fraternity to
which I myself belong, including the salaries of officials,
Ministers, and others supported by public allowances.
But I do not take any increase in the salaries of these
gentlemen as any material augmentation of the
wealth of the country. (Loud laughter.) What this
house has been about I do not exactly know; I believe
there has been a considerable transfer of officers from D to
E ; and the growth of that most respectable company of
salaried gentlemen must have been viewed with delight by
all who take an interest in the body. (Laughter.) But the
test by 'comparison of, the wealth of,, the country must be
taken principally from schedules A, B, and D. The profits
derived from lands and tenements, and other property, are
included in schedules A and B. Schedule D includes the
profits derived from trades and professions. I will take the
period from 1842, when we commenced our great career of
commercial legislation, to the year 1853, when we closed it
—I hope to be renewed—under the pressure of war. I will
also take the period from 1857-58, because it is the last
year in which the returns are made up ; and I will carry it
on, assuming the same rate'of increase to have continued to
1859-60. Now the net amount shown by the three schedules
of the income tax is as follows :—ln 1812, £151,000,000 ;
in 1853, £172,000,000; in 1857-1, £191,000,000; and in
1859-60, £200,000,000. The increase in the wealth of the
country between the first period and the second was 12 per
cent. in 11 years ; the increase between 1853 and 1860 was
161 per cent. in six years. That undoubtedly shows a very
large increase in the wealth of the country, and I think it
will be interesting to the committee to know in what pro-
portions that increase has been distributed between the
classes represented by three of the schedules to which I
have referred ; for I must say that the statement is one
which throws a very considerable light upon the condition
of the landed interest, and more especially upon that of
our old friend, Mr. Farmer. (A laugh.) I shall take the
period from 1853-4 to 1857-B—a period of four years ; and
I find that during those fouryears the income under the
head of schedule D, which embraces the profits on trades
and professions, grew from £64,974,000 to £70,700,000, or
at the rate of 9 per cent. ; while that under the head of
schedule A, which represents real and immovable pro-
perty, grow from £96,129,000 to £106,972,600, or at
the rate of 11i per cent.; schedule B—which repre-
sents the profits of the farmer, but having, also, no small
reference to the rent of the landlord—having grown from
£11,123,000 to £13,436,000, or at the rate of 19 per cent.
(Hear, hear) That being the case, I rejoice to think that
we now live in times when any hen. gentleman may, if he
thinks fit, attend an agricultural dinner and congratulate
his hearers upon the prosperity of their condition witheut
fearing to insult them. (" Hear, hear," and a laugh.) I
must at the same time observe, lest I should appear to be
representing the condition of this particular class in cc:deems
too sanguine, that during the period which elapsed between
1842 and 1853 the case was far different with it, inasmuch
as schedule B exhibited during that time, unfortunately, no
increase whatsoever. (Hear.) A change has, however,
since taken place, and I am happy to say it is a change
which must be satisfactory to the community at large.
(Hear.) Having thus spokenof the increase of wealth in
the country, the committee will, perhaps, permit me very
briefly to compare it with the rate of increase in our expen-
diture. I shall in the first instance compare it with the
total expenditure—that is to say, with the whole State as
well as the whole local expenditure, as far as the latter can
be ascertained ; for the local expenditure of 'the country is
likewise beginning to form a very considerable item in our
i firhtruinagashibttcweiheaoonlrntegh.alculations, and shows a disposition to grow to an
extent whioefyhori,daemnlet/idnhwoothuusgegilhtlwell worthy of the serious attention
of the committee. I may, in the first place, state that my
ItSecretary
oobtainito
tr
uf
go
for
nro
rt
thone 1 Homecontend
teerut certain
i Department
tnh
returnsa tthey
air
ne
literally accurate. Well, then, to
connection with this local expenditure which are entirely
proceed, the gross
expenditure of the State was in 1842.3 £55,223,000, and
the local expenditure in the three kingdoms £13,224,000 ;
making a total, in -round numbers, of £68,500,000. In
1553.4 the total State expenditure was £55,769,000, cr
very nearly the same amount as in 1842.3, and the local
expenditure £15,819,000 ; making together, in round
numbers, 71 millions and a half, instead of the 68
millions and a half which was the amount in 1842-3. In
the year 1359.60 the gross State expenditure grew from
4'55,769,000, which it was in 1853, to £70,128,000. me
local expenditure, no doubt actuated by a spirit of honour-
able rivalry—(a laugh)---increased in the same period from
£15,819,000, which it was in 1853, to £17,458,000—the total
expenditure for the year 1859-60 having been £87,697 000,
that is to say, that in the 11 years from 1842.3 to 1853-4'
the expenditure of the country under the two heads which
I have mentioned increased at the rate of 41 per cent., while-
in the six years which have elapsed between 1853 and 1859
it became much more WlCreltrial, and increased at the rate

whose amount is in the main determined by public opinion,

having thus in 11 years amounted to a sum of £1,874,000,
or at the rate of 8t per cent., while from 1253 to 1859, a
period of six years, it increased to £36,898,000, or at the
rate of 58 per cent. on the entire national expenditure.
Now, therefore, you have at your command a tolerably com-
plete comparison between the growth of the wealth of the
country and the increase in its expenditure. Between the
years 1842 and 1853 the increase in her wealth was at the
rate of 12, and that in her expenditure at the rate of st
per cent. ; while between 1853 and 1859 the national
wealth grow at the rate of 162, the national expenditure at
the rate of 58 per cent. (Hear, hear.) I have troubled the
committee with these particulars, because I deemed it right
to invite their attention to what is a subject of vital impor-
tance. (Hear.) The country may be right in the course
which she is now taking, but, at all events, that course
ought not to be pursued blindfolded. We ought, on the
contrary, to have a clear knowledge of the proportion which
our wealth bears to our expenditure, in order that we may
be able to take a comprehensive view of our financial posi-
tion, and the policy which we ought to adopt. (Hear, hear.)
Let me now recall to the recollection of the committee the
fact that our fiscal situation—to borrow a phrase from our
neighbours at the other side of the Channel—as it stands
is, that there is a deficit of £9,400,000, the best means of
providing for which it becomes our duty to consider, and
we ought not, in my opinion, to face a question of such
magnitude as that without having duly weighed the prin-
ciples upon which we are to proceed, and the policy on which
we mean to act. Now, as I have already indicated to you
a summary Budget which might have the effect of filling
up the hiatus which I have mentioned, I have also sha-
dowed oat to you another and a more generous Budget,
which, providing you with an Income-tax of Is. in the
pound, would achieve the same object, and would enable
you to relieve the consumers of tea and sugar to a certain
extent, as well as a more niggardly Budget, which would
keep up the duties on tea and sugar, and would still leave
the country liable to an • Income-tax of 9d. in the pound.
With what views, then, and upon what principles are we
to face this state of circumstances ? I may at once tell you
frankly that I am not satisfied with the rate of expendi-
ture. (Cheers.) I trust, therefore, that we mean in a
great degree to retrace our steps. (Hear, hear.) The pro-
cess of retracing our steps in such a matter, however, is one
which must necessarily be gradual ; for, if it be not pur-
sued with circumspection and with caution, it will serve
but to aggravate the very evils which it was intended to
remove. (Hear, hear.) I assume, therefore, whether the
committee concurs with the Government in the expe-
diency of the Estimates which they have submitted or are
about to submit to the house or not, that you can effect
no radical change in the scale of that expenditure on
which you have now for a series of years embarked—no
radical change, I mean, applicable to the operations of the
present year, or to the provision you will have to Make for
filling up the gap which yawns before you, and which is
represented by the figures £9,409,000. The real question
with which we have to deal is whether we ought upon this
occasion to say our necessities are great, our means too
narrow to enable us to effect any commercial reforms. Such
reforms are all very well, it may be contended, for fine
weather, but they do not suit a period of pressure and
alarm. That is, I know, a favourite doctrine with some
classes, but against the justice of that doctrine I, for one,
protest. (Cheers.) And upon the part of the Government
I do not hesitate to say that, in an epoch so marked and
signal in our financial history as the year 1240, it is their
opinion that it is the duty of Parliament to take some steps
in advance in that career of commercial improvement
which, perhaps more than any other cause, has contributed
to confirm the prosperity of the country and to the security
of its institutions, under the auspices of the Sovereign under
whose rule it is our happiness to live. (Cheers.) There are
in the present year special reasons why we should pursue
such a policy as that to which I refer. Are we to be told
that when a sum of £2,000,000 and upwards, which we
have hitherto been obliged to pay on the national debt,
comes into our possession, it only remains for us to cast it
into that groat gulf of expenditure, there to be swallowed
up and to disappear ? (Hear, hear.) That sum is a
mighty engine for the purposes of relief, while for the pur-
poses of expenditure it is comparatively unimportant.
(Hear, hear.) Applied to the purposes of relief, you may
by its means shed a thousand blessings over the land;
thrown into the scale of your expenditure it represents,
after all, but the difference between the £13,000,000 which
you have already added to that expenditure and the
£11,000,000 which you might have added. Take, upon the
other hand, the question of the relief which it is in your
power to afford in dealing with the duties upon sugar
and upon tea, and, I may observe, in'discnssing that part
of the question you must pay regard to the claims of the
people as well as the claims of trade, on which the prospe-
rity of all classes mainly depends. (Hear, hear.) You have
at this particular season a considerable remission of taxa-
tion by the lapse of annuities. There is another special rea-
son. It is my intention before sitting down to propose to
the committee that they shall apply in aid of the expendi-
ture a sum of not less than £1,100,000, which is no part of
the proposed taxation of the year, but obtained by render-
ing available another portion of the malt credit and the cre-
dit usually given on hops. That will be a salutary measure;
but undoubtedly I think it marks in a particular degree the
'obligation under which we lie at this time to make the
means, if we have not got the means, of carrying forward
the great work of public improvement. (Hear, hear.) Sir,
I am not satisfied to place this duty on narrow grounds of
whatever kind. It is not simply because annuities are fall-
ing in—it is 'not that you have considerable funds to be
drawn from this source or that ; you must look at it from
another point of view, you must take it for granted that for
the present you have attained to what may be called a high
level of public expenditure, and that you are likely to re-
main on that high level for some time at least. Is that a
reason, or is it not, why you should stop the process of re-
forming the commercial legislation of the country ? I say
that is no reason for stopping (hear, hear)—l say more, it is
a distinct reason for persevering in that process and carry-
ing it to its completion. (Hear, hear.) If we were, in the
year 1860, to hold our hands, let us consider what aspect our
procedure would wear. In 1860, when the people have paid
war duties on tea and sugar for three years in the hope of
something being done for them, in 1860 we stopped—we at-
tempted not in the slightest degree to carry forward the
work of commercial relaxation and improvement. If, after
that period of years, on a review of a juncture like the pre-
sent, when a particular fund of this nature is placed in our
hands, . we stop in 1860, will it not be supposed that
you stop for ever. (Hear, hear.) And if this be not
the opportunity for endeavouring to give increased
effect to the beneficial principles of your legislation, I, for
one, must frankly own I know not when such an oppor-
tunity will arise. (hear, hear.) This, sir, is shortly the
truth of the case. Our high taxation is not a reason for
stopping short in our commercial reforms ; it is a reason
why we should persevere in them. (Hear, hear.) It is
by means of these reforms that we are enabled to bear high
taxation. What, I ask, has the country done during the
last six months? Paying an income-tax, which during the
half-year was at the rate of Is. Id in the pound. Would
that have been done had it not been for the felt belief ,that
we should go on with our commercial reforms ? (Hear.)
I am speaking generally. Certainly I myself had about
two weeks ago a letter addressed to me, complaining of the
monstrous injustice and iniquity of the income-tax, and
proposing that, in consideration thereof, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer should be publicly hanged. (A laugh) I
don't mean to say there has not been a murmur ; but upon
the whole, speaking with the necessary latitude that must
attach to general expressions, I am justified in saying that
this high rate of taxation has been borne throughout the
country with a most extraordinary, laudable, and honour-
able forbearance. (Hear.) It was Lord Londonderry who
complained of the people of England as exhibiting an "ig-
norant impatience of taxation ;" but I think, were he to
rise from the dead and again take his place in this house,
he would be very much more likely to complain of an igno-
rant patience of taxation. (A laugh.) I wish, air, to
shim the connexion there is between commercial reforms,
as affecting trade and industry, and the power to pay the
high taxes you have imposed. These two subjects are
inseparably locket the one to the other. You shall have
the demonstration in figures. I again ask you for a mo-
ment lo attend with me to the experience of two periods.
I take 10 years from the crisis of the Reform Bill down
to 1841, during which our commercial legislation was
upon the whole stationary; and I take the 12 years from
1842 to 1853, within the circuit of which are
comprehended the beneficial changes that Parliament
has made. In the 10 years from 1832 to 1841 this was the
state of things :—You imposed of Customs and Excise
duties, £2,067,000, and you remitted £3,385,000, exhibiting
a balance remitted over and above what you imposed of
£1,317,000, or at the rate of £131,000 a year. Now, observe
the effect on the state of the revenue. During these 10 years
the Customs and Excise increased. by £1,707,000, or at the
rate of £170,000 a year; while the increase of the export
trade was £15,156,000, or at the annual rate of £1,515,000.
Let us now take the 12,years from 1842 to 1853. You re-
mitted during that period of Customs and Excise
£13,238,000, and imposed.'ll,o29,ooo, presenting a balance
remitted of £12,209,000, or an annual average of £1,017,000.
What was the effect on the revenue ? The Customs and
Excise increased £2,656,000, or at an annual rate of £221,000
Wheu you remitted practically nothing, your Customs see
venue, in consequence of the increase of the population,
grew at the rate of £170,000 per annum ; and when you re-
mitted £1,017,000 a year, your Customs and Excise revenue
grew faster than when you remitted nothing at all, or next
to nothing at all. (Hear, hear.) I ask, is not this a conclu-
sive proof that it is the relaxation and reform of your corn.
merciel system whia). 11145 giya4 to the couptryl4oth the dis-
position to pay taxes and the power to pay taxes? Thoforcign