The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-30 00:00:00

(From the Daily News.)
The Privilege Committee has at length termi-
nated its labours, and agreed to a Report which
leaves the controversy betweenl the two Houses
precisely where it was when the Committee was
, appointed some weeks ago. Divided amongst them- •
selves- by party predilections and personal tenden-
cies they have been only able to agree in shirking
the duty imposed upon them of declaring what is
the law of Parliament in the great and vital matter
of taxation. The Tories could of course desire no-
thing better, for they want nothing done; and
hence their ready acquiescence in the amendment
of Mr. Walpole's draft Report by the elimination of
every phrase that could possibly be made a pivot of
controversy. What the Liberal members of
the Committee will have to say for them-
selves in accounting for their failure and defeat we
shall hear in due time. For the present, however,
our business is not with individuals or even with
parties so much as with the House of Commons
itself, and the grave responsibility imposed on it by
the conduct of the House of Lords, from the burden
of which it has in no respect been relieved by the
colourless and runaway report of the committee.
As to an armoury of rusty weapons, disputants
Imay resort to that antiquarian collection of by-gone
resolutions, bills, and acts ; but Parliament can
gather from it no warning es to the peril of per-
mitting a new precedent to be set for aristocratic
encroachment, no counsel as to the mode in which
like attempts may be guarded against in future.
No; the House of Commons must defend its
inherent prerogative of taxation entire and inde-
feasible by its own unaided wisdom and courage.
The established practice for two centuries, based
on broad and definite principles—principles •
thoroughly understood and universally recognised--
by theeammunity at large—cannot depend for its
preservation, on the texture or number of verbal • ‘,•
precedents that may be cited in a speech or a report.
It is not a thing to be played for dexterously /
in debate, and won or lost by a turn of they
rhetorical game. For generations the people' o'T
England have submitted to no other taxing
power on earth but that of their representa-
tives sitting in Parliament. It is one of the
chief of their liberties, and to their legally ap-
pointed guardians they look to defend it for them.
If their representatives surrender this eldest born
of their rights they will assuredly be held account-
able, collectively and individually, for their neglect.
It is no question of mere punctilio between the two
Houses ; it is emphatically and undeniably the all-
important question as between the nation at large
and an irresponsible chamber of nobles, whether
national taxation shall or shall not be subject to
the arbitrary will of the latter, or whether it shall
continue to be, as time out of mind it has been in
England, created, limited, and revoked by the vote
of the Commons, and of the Commons alone. It
signifies nothing, now, whether the Paper Duty
be a good or bad tax; it signifies nothing
whether the Exchequer could afford to do
without it this year or no. The House
of Commons debated both questions and de-
cided them ; and as well might the Queen, by
resort to an obsolete prerogative, have sought to set
aside that decision, as the House of Lords to consti-
tute itself into a financial court of appeal unknown
to the usage and custom of the constitution.
If the House of Commons consisted only of the
representatives of trades and professions, while it
claimed the right to tax alike incomes derived from
industry and from land, the House of Land-
Lords might fairly claim a legislative veto on
taxing bills; for they might with justice argue
that an undue share of the general burdens might
otherwise be laid on them. But confessedly there
is not a colourable pretence for any such demand
in the existing condition of things. More than
two-fifths of the House of Commons are members
for counties ; and Lord Derby himself, not very
long ago, declared that if he were told the acreage
of the family estates in any given shire, he could
with certainty designate the particular shade of the
landed interest that commanded its representation.
Beside the county members there are at least 100
relatives or connexions of peers who sit for small
boroughs, and the result is, as everybody knows,
that far more than half the members of the Lower
House are identified by blood, marriage, rank, and
property with the hereditary aristocracy. And this
is wholly irrespective of party distinction or pre-
ponderance. The Whigs are, and have ever been, as
anxious as their hereditary rivals to thrust the cadets
of their great houses into the representatioi of coun-
ties and towns. It is not a matter of party or of
opinion ; it is ono of social instinct, and of class.
Instead of too little, the landed interest have too
much power in the House of Commons ; yet
the people have never yet raised the invidious
question, or sought to have that preponderance
limited. When they recently asked for Reform
in the Representation, they did not deny the
right of the Peers to consult and vote on the
details of the change proposed. And why ? Be-
cause they felt that the House of Commons, as the
taxing power of the State, ought to be so co.nisti.-
tuted as to represent landed property as I
ins ;
as
commercial, manufacturing, and professional"
and because they had no desire towgihvegwaitiuesht
cause of jealousy to the great interest it,
apart, acting
the Peers are supposed to be specially. identified.
But if the house el' Lords, sitting 6
__
irresponsibly, and consisting exclusively of one
small section of a singleclastsheof the
Budget,
andnation,
tarc
voteto
have the power to overhaul
the imposition or forbid__
the repeal of what taxes
they please, then all conscience their sons and
brothers and nominees ought to be excluded from
the House of Commons. They cannot in common
with
their,d,l. s
of
the
community
fairness or decency pretend that they have a right
i in
ttlibbrels.otLutgoowhveotr ili
medium other
of
oiouse, and then that they have a right
trepresentatives
afterwards to vote separately and exclusively in
the Upper House. No question more pregnant
with consequences has ever been raised in our
constitutional history. Who will lead the Com-
mons on this great occasion ? We know who ought
and who are expected to do so—the Liberal
Ministers of the Crown ; and great and deep would
be our regret for the sake of those Ministers if they
hesitated or wavered in the performance of so mani-
fest a duty.

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