The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-11 00:00:00

:he house are supposed by their silence b approve of whai

has been done. I appeal to them as representatives of some
portion of the English constituency, and I ask them if they
do not feel in a very different position in regard to their
rights and powers over the taxation of the country to that
which they occupied when the session opened. It is im-
possible to conceal the fact that the Horse of Commons is
shorn of its power, and that it has permitted itself to be
hustled, so to speak, and deprived of the authority which
for five hundred years our predecessors had exerted with-
out contradiction and without control. The noble lord
told us that if he thought that course of the other house of
Parliament was to be the beginning of a practice, he would
advise this house to resist it by every constitutional
and legal means in its power. But if the noble lord
were to turn back to a man whose authority he would
respect, Lord Chatham, he would see that Lord Cha-
tham declared that if you admit a principle like this you
may rely upon it that that principle will be constantly
put in practice so soon as it can be supported by power.
(Hear, hear.) That is precisely the dread I have now before
me, that if this be permitted, so hungry is the appetite for
power amongst all bodies of men, that I believe we shall
have this pleaded as a precedent, that we shall have the
principle supported by power, and that unfortunate state of
things which Lord Chatham hoped would never arise will
arise under the government of the noble lord, and by per-
mission of this house. Well, but the noble lord the member
for the City of London, a great authority on these questions,
told us that no question so grave as this had happened in
his lifetime; and he said on one occasion that he considered
it equal to a total change in our system of government. That
must be a matter of some importance which could draw
from one so cautious and so experienced as the noble loud
words so grave as these. But the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer said this was a gigantic and dangerous innovation.
The SPEAKER here intimated to the hon. gentleman
that he was quoting words which had been used in a past
debate.

Mr. BRIGHT—I thank you, sir, for the intimation. I
have no other reference to make to them, and I thought I
was not trespa.sing on the rules of the house in bringing the
evidence of ministers to bear in favour of the conclusion at
which I wish the house and the ministers to arrive. The
question is, what, under the circumstances, have we done ?
We have passed three resolutions, very harmless it may be,
but they were introduced in a speech which was far from
harmless. If in the search which we made in that prece-
dents committee we had found within the last fifty
years three cases like this, I will undertake to say
that the committee would have been forced to admit
that there were precedents of a very overwhelming nature
regarding the power of the Lords on questions of this
kind. Well, 50 years or 20 years hence, if the matter re-
mains as it now stands, there may be another committee ;
there may be partisans of the policy of the Lords upon that
committee. They might read the resolutions which the
noble lord proposed, and which the house agreed to. But
they will say what matter these resolutions. The resolu-
tions of this house or of the other house do not make a pre-
cedent, hut the thing done—the final conclusion—where
the matter rested—that is the precedent as to the action of
the two houses with regard to matters of this nature, and
therefore they will look upon this as a precedent a hun-
dred times more fatal to the House of Commons than any
of those that were produced by the diligent researches of
the officers of this house. Now, I may be asked what would
I have done in this matter. There are several things which
might have been done. If the noble lord had been a man
of the spirit of Chatham or Mr. Canning, in a matter of
this nature, he would have come down the day after the re-
jection of that bill, and he would have asked the house,
not because the excise duty on paper was a great question,
but because the rights of the house were something of
great value, to have suspended the standing orders, and to
permit him to pass a new bill, reaffirming that which had
bad been rejected. But the noble lord was afraid to do
this. lam told that there were great doubts whether it
could be done. It was said that money was wanted for the
China war, and that we could not ask the house to do this.
But, after all, it is a mere bagatelle in the £70,000,000 you
are voting and spending. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
has told us it is only £700,000 up to the commencement of
the next financial year; and therefore it is perfectly idle to
say that it is worth while, for the sake of these £700,000,
to put in jeopardy the rights of the House of Commons,
and to resign an authority over taxation into the hands of
another house which this house has exerted—and without
question--for a period not less than 500 years. (Hear,
hear.) But there was another course which the noble
lord might take, which it was still open to him to
take, and for which he might find a most conclusive prece-
dent, if he were anxious to do so. In 1731 a case happened
in which the Government wished to save the country gen-
tlemen from the pressure of a heavier land tax, and they
agreed to take £1,200,000 for the service of the year out of
the sinking fund, and to apply it to purposes for which it
was not originally intended. When they brought that bill
into the house it consisted of only two clauses. They moved,
on going into committee, that the committee should be in-
structed to receive clauses of appropriation. They bound up
the appropriation clause of the year with, those two, and the
two matters together in one bill went up to the House of
Lords, and were passed by that house. Well, there is an
Appropriation Bill to be yet passed by the House of Com-
mons this session, and I think the House of Commons it-
self, if it has, as Mr. Canning said, a spark of spirit left in
it to maintain its privileges and rights, will avail itself of
that or some other proper mode for the purpose of restoring
itself at the end of the session to the independent porition
which it occupied when we met. (Hear.) But there is ano-
ther mode which I would recommend to the noble lord.
He will see that I am merely offering suggestions for his
consideration and for that of his colleagues in the Cabinet.
There is a mode like that which Mr. Canning adopted in
1527. On that occasion the House of Lords rejected, by a
substantial and great alteration, a bill which altered the
duties leviable on foreign corn. The day after Mr. Canning
came down to the house, and in language of greater severity
than any which has been used in the course of these de-
bates asked the House of Commons to take a course to
maintain their rights. But he said he felt that as Minister
it was his duty to prevent, if possible, a collision between
the two houses and therefore he asked the house not to
pass exactly the measure which had just been rejected, but
to pass another bill including its provisions, but limited to
a duraticn of nine months; and I think he prayed that
heaven in the mean time might grant intelligence and good
sense.to legislators in another place, so that at the end of
nine months they might agree to that which the Commons
had determined upon. Now that was, in point of fact, very
much like a bill of suspension. I would suggest to the
noble lord and his colleagues that they might, if they
thought proper, introduce into the house a bill for the pur-
pose of suspending the collection of the excise duty on
paper up to the month of March or April next, which
would allow time, when parliament met again, for the re-
introduction and passing of a bill abolishing the excise duty
on paper for ever, and I think such a course as that would be
judicious in every way. (Hear.) There is one other course
which might be pursued, and that is the course which was
recommended by the hon. member for Finsbury at the be-
ginning of these transactions. My hon. friend proposed a
resolution, and although it was not in the form that could
be accepted, yet its intention was that steps should be taken
I presume by an address to the crown—that parliament should
not be prorogued as usual, but adjourned till November, to
allow the postponed bill to be reconsidered in the House of
Lords ; to allow them to take up the bill and to pass it, as
I believe they would do, and, by so doing, to restore har-
mony between the two houses. Either of those two courses,
that of suspension or that of adjournment, would be pro •
positions of conciliation between the two houses, and not
prepositions which might be said to bear the character that
the House of Commons was interfering to override the
House of Lords. O'ne of these courses Government ought
I think, to take, and I believe the house would support
them. (Hear.) That Government had just the same fears
the other night about that seven-eighths of a penny in the
pound. How many weeks did they hesitate about that, and
no one could tell why, except that they had some doubts
whether they could carry it, and they did not like to run
the risk of a defeat. But they brought it before the house,
ani after one night's debate, the argument being trium-
phantly in their favour, the good sense of the house gave
them a majority which was, I believed, three times the ma-
jority which the noble lord believed he possessed when he
first met Parliament. (Hear, hear.) I believe if he had
taken an equally wise and direct course with regard to the
excise duty on paper, the House of Commons, disregarding
the £600,000 or £700,000 of revenue, would have risen to
the height of the case, and would have supported him in
maintaining the privileges of the house. (Hear, hear.) I
want to put this question to the house. Is it willing to
sustain itself, or is it willing to mark itself by concessions
of this dangerous and even of this ignominious character?