The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-25 00:00:00

111 E SUN, 'LONDON, SA FURDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 25, 1860.

were applied in 1842, in 1845, and in 1853? (Cheers.) There
is another view of the case', to which no allusion has been
made by gentlemen who have spoken on the other side
of the house, but which I must confess impresse. itself very
forcibly upon my mind, and it is this :—I heard with pain
the speech of my right hon. friend the member for Ports-
mouth, which gave the weight of his authority, not so far,
as I could understand, in support of the motion, but, at any
rate, in disapproval of the financial proposals of the Govern-
ment. My right hon. friend referred, and my hon. friend
the member for Stamford referred, to a political reason for
the recommendation of schemes different from those of the
Government. My hon. friend the member for Stamford
gave us a glimpse of finance to which he would gladly have
been a party, and he said that, instead of an income-tax of
10d. in the pound, we ought to have an income-tax of 7d.
in the pound. My first objection to that agreeable sugges-
tion is, that he proposed entirely to abolish the very small
and modest surplus which I asked ' the house to provide,
and that entire abolition of surplus is not, as I understand,
a condition or characteristic of safe or prudent finance.

(Hear.) My hon. friend proposed to restore to the revenue
what we took away. He proposed to take away 3-10ths of
the income-tax, or about £3,550,000, and the difference be-
tween those sums swallowed up the modest surplus which I
have asked. " Aye, but," sayri my hon. friend, "you have
always an increase from indirect taxes." It happens that we
have reckoned that increase already at as high an amount
as the opinion of official persons warrants us taking it, and
I need not tell my hon. friend we cannot eat the cake and
have it too—(laughter)—we cannot reckon a sum twice on
thelsame side of the account. But then my hon. friend said
he would provide a surplus by new taxes. But what new
taxes ? (Hear.) By taxes on the trade and industry of the
country. Depend upon it if ever you adopt a stationary fi-
nance—stationary in fact, but retrogressive in spirit—you
will not simply stand still ; you will lose those continual
supplies welling forth year by year from sources which
prudent legislation has opened, and you will be obliged to
make provision by new taxes, to which my hon.
friend so very mildly glanced. (Cheers.) My hon.
friend said, we do not make proper provi-
sion for 1861. (Cheers from the Opposition.) Supposing
hon. gentlemen opposite had attained a Spartan heroism,
and were as rigid financiers as they are Puritanical Free-
traders when it suits them—(laughter)—and they had said,
"It is intolerable that this £1,400,000 should be applied to
the purposes you propose ; take £1,000,000 of it and apply
it to the payment of Exchequer-bonds ;" I am not sure
they would have had the hop-growers to assist them ; but
they would have acted on those high principles of finance
which I must say have for many years l oe 1 the peculiarcha-
racteristic of the party which they claim to represent.
(Cheers.) But it is not so. They ask you to give the utmost
possible relief to the class which chiefly returns members to
Parliament—nothing to any othsr class—and to apply the
malt and hop credits as an expedient to meet expenditure in
<dead season, tin accordance with a policy which provides
from hand to mouth, looks not to the future, and contains
within it no germ of possible improvement. (Cheers.) My
hon. friend said, "Take care what you are doing," and he
was echoed by my right hen, friend. What are we doing ?
We leave to April, 1861, to make provision for 1861, as we
are makinc, provision for 1860—(cheers from the Opposi-
tion)—anifthe reason of that proceeding is not concealed.
It is a very tame reason—that we do not recognise this ex-
penditure as fixed and immutable. We wish it to be watched
by the people of England, to be controlled by Parliament,
and therefore it is well that the Government should be de-
pendent on Parliament for a portion of the revenue, instead
of its being absolutely fixed, in order that Parliament shall
have control over the taxes. (Cheers.) Here I think lam
entitled to make a strong appeal to my right hon. friend.
He did not speak of great expenditure as desirable, or to
be looked on with indifference. He, I thenght, from the
tone of his speech, looked with anxiety, which in my
idea every prudent statesman must feel, to see the expen-
diture increased. I have no article of faith more cardinal

than that large expenditure is not only an evil
in itself, but constitutes a social and politidal danger to the
country. (Cheers.) But my right hon. friend said, " You
will never get down the expenditure until you refuse some
of the taxes," and yet he objects to us when the course
which we take is to leave in the Parliament of next year the
power of employing that lever, if it thinks fit, for the pur-
pose of acting on the expenditure of the country. (Cheers.)
I must say we are acting on the principle of my right hon.
friend, and I shall be very sorry if we have not his aid to
give it effect. But here he and my bon. friend came in and
intimated that there is a peculiar danger in leaving to the
Parliament of next year to make provision for the exigen-
cies of next year, because it is likely to be a Reformed Par-
liament ; and so, because it is likely to be a Reformed Par-
liament, you are to tie up its hands, as a man who holds an
estate in fee simple, and has got a disreputable son, entails
-and hampers it in every way he can, for fear his son will
abuse his power. (Loud cheers.) That is the spirit in
which we are to act towards the reformed Parliament.
We are to go and say to an additional portion of the people,
"We hold you worthy to be associated with your fellow-
citizens in the great and noble office of choosing your re-
presentatives in Parliament, but when those reppsenta-
.

member for North Essex is a proposal which attacks the
whole of the past course of legislation since 1842, and which
stigmatises it for the past, and which renounces it for the
future. (Cheers, and cries of " No.") I have also shown
that, if Parliament is to be reformed, the best security we,
can take for the institutions of the country, for the loyalty
of the people under the action of the new system, is to show
that we have done justice to all classes while the old one
was in existence. (Cheers.) Upon these two issues the
house has now to decide, and I am convinced both that
their decision will be favourable to the scheme of the Go-
vanmeat, and likewise that in delivering it the House of
Commons do no more than echo back the voice which
has sounded throughout the nation from one extremity to
the other. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. DISRAELI then addressed the house as follows:
I rise to answer the•challenge of tho right hon. gentleman,
and to interpret the indignant negative which he heard
from my friends behind me, and which he said I was bound
to translate. (Hear, hear.) The right hen. gentleman says
the motion of my hon. friend the member for Essex is one
which impugns the whole policy of our commercial legisla-
tion for `,ha last 18 years—that the measures which he in-
troduced and the policy which he recommended are pre-
cisely the same as those which on preceding occasions have
received the sanctien of Parliament and the approbation of
the nation ; and that if the house accedes to the motion of
my hon. friend, weare doing all we can to reverse the spirit
and principle of our commercial code for the last 18 years.
But I deny the position assumed by the right hon. gentle-
man, and deny that there is any similarity between this and
the measures of 1812, 1845, and 18.53, when he himself in-
troduced that budget to the house. Sir R. Peel in 1812 and
1845, and the right hon. gentleman in 1853, found or made
a deficit; but when they proposed a tax it was for a period
which covered the period during which the experiment was
to apply, and during which the revenue might be rallied.
But the right hon. gentleman now finds a deficit—he makes
a deficit, and does not propose any experiment by which
that deficit can be supplied. (Hear, hear.) The whole of
the speech of the right hon. gentleman depends upon this
position; for if he be not warranted in the assumption ho
has made the whole of his arguments and calculations fall to
the ground. I hope I shall succeed in showing this to the
house. The house, lam sure, will generously rememba
_ _

that the hour is late (20 minutes to one), that this is not an
occasion on which I should shrink from representing the
opinions of the party which I have the honour to represent.
I will therefore consider as briefly as I can, and for the mo-
ment in a merely financial point of view, the plan of the right
hon. gentleman, and see how it agrees with the position he
has laid down, and how he can reconcile it with the character
he has given of the motion of my right hon. friend. Of this
budget of the right hon. gentleman, I would say that it
aims at too much and provides too little. The right hon.
gentleman finds a deficit, he increases it, and he closes his
proposition with introducing a tax of a very extensive cha-
racter, to exist only for a very short term. The right hon.
gentleman has estimated the deficiency at £9,500,000.
When he made his financial statement, however, the army
estimates werenot on the table, and I think it will turn out
that the expenditure for the army will be one million more
than appears in the estimates. We heard to-night of an
armament sent to China from the India establishment,
and when they arrive in China froin India they will be im-
mediately on our own establishment ; in the same way, when
regiments arrive here from India, they, too, will be on our
own establishmenr. In the same manner I find that only
£500,000 is taken for China, an amount ludicrously small.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER—You are
not to suppose that the vote of credit represents the whole
charge of the Chinese war, it only represents certain extra-
ordinary charges which could not bo stated in the ordinary
estimates.

Mr. DlSRAELl—Certainly £500,000 appears on the irst
blush very inadequate to the occasion; the estimate has
already assumed the form of £850,009.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER intimated
dissent.

Mr. DISRAELI proceeded. Without dwelling at this
moment too much on the estimates, there should not be a
very sanguine anticipation on the part of the house to sup-
pose that the estimate could not be exceeded. The right
hon. gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the
enormous deficit already existing, will next year have a fur-
ther deficit in the malt and hop credit of X 140,000, and the
appropriation of which I protest against as a measure un -
2,mnd in finance, and of which I am quite surprised the
right hon. gentleman should have proposed to avail him-
self. In 1852 I proposed as a measure of reform the ex-