The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-27 00:00:00

THE S.

on the schedules B, C, and D, there had been an actual de-
crease of receipts between 1854 and 1857.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER referred
to the inconvenience of re-opening the question on partial

grounds. Sir H. Willoughby had complained that the pre-
sent arrangement of the income tax bore unjustly upon
those in schedule A. Another hon. member had opened
. .

another source of complaint, one that was much more rife,
and much more serious and difficult to deal with whenever
the subject was fairly broached—its unequal pressure upon
schedule D. The truth was that the-great battle of the in-
come tax was between schedules A and D. The question of

remissions in favour of the farmers under schedule B was

a very small one, the real question was between schedules

A and D. If the hon. baronet made the motion which he

promised, with a view to improve the terms for schedule A,

he would find other members on his right and left up in arms
for schedules D and E, and he might be left to be dealt with

by these gentlemen. (A laugh.) There was no doubt
that the tax was full of inequalities ; but there would be

no advantage to any particular interest in opening the

question of those inequalities, except at a time when the
house could give to the subject an attention bearing some
proportion to its extreme difficulty, its vast importance, and
the immense financial and social dangers which, ho hesi-
tated not to say, would infallibly attend any precipitate pro-

cecding in regard to it. (Hear.) He was not afraid of any
such precipitate proceeding ; but he thought it his duty
always to keep in view the extremely perilous and critical
nature of the whole question, which would, in fact, open

something like a soramble between class and class in this
country, and for the opening of which he did not wish to be
responsible, though he fully admitted the right of members
to give their attention to the subject and to bring it before
the house. If Sir 11. Willoughby made the motion he pro-

posed, it would be convenient to both houses, with regard
to the progress of the public business, if he would make it
either that evening or on the report of the bill. What he
(the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had said with respect to
assessment was intended entirely in favour of the tax-payers.
It had reference exclusively to schedule B ; and the object
was not to increase the burden on leaseholders. It had

been asked whether any relief could be given under sche-
dule Ato the tax levied on mines. He had not had any

recent application on that subject, but he should be happy,
either in or out of the house, to hear any statements which
might give an opportunity of adjusting the tax in propor-

tion to the receipts of the owners of mining property.
speaking of the unfavourable result that might happen to
schedule A, from a general discussion of the subject, he was
quite aware that the matter was a grave one. He himself
had laboured in that house to show that the tax fell upon
schedule A much more heavily than was generally sup-
posed, as all house proprietors in particular were aware, for
on them it fell with a weight that was really extreme.
(Hear, hear.) He had been so distinctly charged by Sir J.
Pakington with breach of promise with regard to the in-
come tax, that he must quote to the house the substance of
his statement in 1853. The right hon. baronet appeared to
think that he had promised that a certain course should be
pursued in 1860 irrespective of what might happen in the
meantime, and the demands of the public service. Had he
made so rash a promise as that, it would have been the act of
an insane man to attempt to keep it. But he did not find, from
the authentic records of their proceedings, that he had been
guilty of such an excess of folly. He had said in 1853 —" I
think it also desirable that effective measures should be
taken to mark this tax as a temporary tax. My own opinion
is decidedly against the perpetuity of this tax as a perma-
nent ordinary portion of our revenue. But while I state
the wish of the Government to propose it as a temporary
tax, I do not ask you to rely upon their words as binding
-either them or yourselves, irrespective of what may occur
in the interim, to put an end to the tax entirely in a given
year." The answer to those who said that such expecta-
tions ought to be fulfilled was to point to the increase of
fourteen millions in the expenditure of the country. How
far that was a sufficient answer he pretended not to say ;
but it merely showed how foolish it would have been in the
Government of the day to make such a pledge, or in the
Parliament to accept it, supposing they had done so. As to
the figures quoted by Sir John Pakington, he thought ho
should be able to show that they were strictly accurate.
He was not aware that he had referred to the produce of
the tax in 1858-59, or that he had stated it at £6,140,000.
But the produce of the tax in that year, whatever it was,
did not represent the value of a sd. tax; it really repre-
sented the value of a 7d. tax for the first half-year, and a
sd. tax for the second half-year. He had stated, as was
truly said, that there was due of the present year's tax, in
respect of the law expiring en the 31st March, £2,400,000 ;
also that there would be obtained by collecting three-fourths
within the year, if the tax were voted by the house, a sum
of £8,472,000. He had likewise stated the sum which would
remain to be collected after the Ist April, 1861, at £2,250,000.
There was an apparent discrepancy, but no real one. All the
calculations were as accurate as could be made in the form
of estimates. The reason of the apparent discrepancy was
this, that the collection was not quite equally distributed.
In Scotland, for example, the whole annual tax under sche-
dules A and I), and he believed B also, was collected about
January. That was one reason. It so happened that owing
to the lateness of the period at which, from other circum-
stances, the financial statement of last year was made, the
July dividend, which ought to have paid an income-tax of
13d. in the pound, escaped with an income-tax of only sd.
That consequently deraggeL the collection. Instead there-
fore of getting £9,000,000 within :the year, they got
zo,trz,ooo i. Rai. (Liu y cal , awl £2,260,000 boyond tho year,
making £10,7'29,000. T1.....i ....,..... kl. . ~,....-. ~.e 41,- ~„.--4.
discrepancy in the figures. With regard to the collection of
three quarters of the tax in lieu of one quarter within the
year, there was no alteration of the law. The collection was
not uniform as it now stood, it being paid in some cases
quarterly, in others half-yearly, and once for all, as in the
case of Scotland. With regard to another point of consi-
derable importance which the right hon. gentleman touched
upon, namely, the per centage on the collection of the tax,
there was only one change which they proposed to make,
and that was to take the assessment on the railways from
the head office of the railways, and transfer it to the head
office of the Government at Somerset-house. It was absurd,
for example, that because the head office of the North-
Western Railway, which had its revenue of so many mil-
lions, was in the parish of St. Pancras, the collector there
should have the per centage on the whole amount of its in-
come tax. They proposed, therefore, to make this a matter
of direct arrangement between the Government and the
railway companies. And he felt no scruple in doing this,
because the poundage afforded ample and adequate remune-
ration to the collectors. (Hear, hear.) The whole question
of the poundage on collection required revision, when the
House of Commons was in a position to vete the tax for a
term of years. (Hear, hear.) When the income tax was
at sd. in the pound, the poundage did not give adequate
remuneration for the trouble. On the other hand, when it
was 16d. the receipts were much larger than they ought to
have been. It was desirable, therefore, to adopt a better
balanced system. Another reason why he did not make a
proposal of this kind, and one which the right hon. gentle-
man would appreciate, was this, that in the present se lion
it would be the duty of the Government to propose a mea-
sure to Parliament bearing on the very important question
whether the assessed taxes should be continued to be col-
lected by local authorities or by officers directly responsible
to the Government. (Hear, hear.) He did not propose to
submit to Parliament any plan by which a general and coo
pulsory change should be made in the present system ; but
there was so strong an expression in many quarters of a de-
sire to be freed from the responsibility of the collection of
these taxes, and to put them under the control of the Execu-
tive Government, that they thought it right to submit a
measure for the purpose of transferring the function to the
Executive Government. (Hear, hear.)
After a few words from Sir J. PAKINGTON in explana-
tion,

Mr. DISRAELI said he had already expressed his opi-
nion that the financial scheme of the right hon. gentleman
was improvident and unwise, and had an opportunity of
voting against the repeal of a particular tax—a portion of
that scheme—on a subsequent occasion. The house, how-
ever, approved of the general policy of the budget, and de-
cided in favour of the repeal of that particular tax. This
being the case he did not think he would be justified in voting
against the 10d. income tax. But he could not understand
the remarks of the lion. member for Kent (Mr. Deedes),who
voted in favour of the general financial policy of the govern-
ment, and he believed in favour of the repeal of the tax on
paper, and now seemed alarmed at the dangerous financial
policy of the country. The hon. member for Kent was ready
with his warnings against the consequences of events which
he himself assisted in accomplishing. (Hear, hear.) They
were now called upon to vote an income tax of very great
amount, without any prospect, as far as he could judge, of a
speedy.releaso from what he still believed was an unpopular
burden. (Hear, hear.) The right hon. gentleman, not for the
first time, referred to what took place in 1853 in order to prove
that he entered into no compact with Parliament, or with the
country, that there should be an absolute abolition of the in-
come tax in 1860, when by an unfortunate coincidence the
right hon. gentleman was the Minister to make the proposition
for its continuance. Of course no one supposed that any
Minister could enter into an absolute compact, or that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer was to be held to the " letter
of his bond" apart from all financial considerations, and the
circumstances of the country. But the right hon. gentleman
would not pretend to deny that the scope of his policy was
not—that in 1860 the termination of the income tax should
take place. (Hear.) He could not deny—for he must feel—
that upon the expediency of that policy and the hope of its
realisation he enjoyed fur seven years the reputation which
that statesman-like scheme was calculated to afford. (Hear.)
He could not forget that he particularly referred to the Ter-
minable Annuities, on which he might calculate on
£2,000,000 or more as affording positive data for his calcula-
tions, and to show that his estimate was not based upon
mere transient and illusory speculation. (Hear.) What he
complained of now was that the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer, having all the credit of a policy which proved so frail
and fallacious, was the person who having power to appro-
priate these £2,000,000, had not appropriated them to the
relief of the country, but on the contrary, opened out new
schemes which, if it were improvident and unsafe at any
time, as he believed, were replete and rife with danger un-
der present circumstances. (Hear.) That was the cause of
the dissatisfaction in the public mind, and it was a point
which the Chancellor of the Exchequer always evaded when
he came to the consideration of the question. He could not