The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-19 00:00:00

TILE PAPER DUTIES.

What are we to say, and what are we to advise—
if our advice be worth the giving—as to the line of
the Lords on the great Paper-and-Privilege Debate
which begins next Monday ? It seems incumbent
on us, if not to take a side on a matter in which we
are so much interested, at least to state the question.
On the eve of a collision between the two Houses of
the Legislature it would be simply ridiculous for us
to show no concern, and this seems one of the many
occasions on which duty consists in braving ill con-
structions. When a young couple are living at a
great rate, and exceeding their income, the hus-
band is too delicate to check his wife, and the wife
too delicate to check her husband—it would look
so selfish—and so they go on till they are pulled up
by some better adviser or sterner necessity. As for
the imputation of self-interest, in our case it so hap-
pens that we have reaped the principal benefit of
every change made in the interest of literature and
intelligence for the last twenty years. If Mr.
Bright, or anybody else in the secrets of the News-
, paper Trade, is in a condition to deny this, let him
favour the public with the requisite intbrmation.
Our only fear is that with a repeal of the Paper
Duty we should incur odium even as unwilling de-
predators. It is our duty, however, to sweep away
all such considerations, and look only to the ques-
tion now before Parliament. There the broad un-
deniable fact which strikes the eye, and which has
become an universal admission, is that the House of
Lords is summoned to assist in an act which will
add near a million and a half to the largest deficit
that England has ever known in peaceful times. It
is all very well to say that the repeal of the Paper
Duty has been already balanced by the augmented
Income-tax passed by the Lords ; but, easily as this
is said, in no sense is it the truth. We believe it
would take a shilling Income-tax to balance
accounts even for the present year ; and as Mr.
Gladstone's Budget comprehended upwards of a mil-
lion in the shape of windfalls and mere financial
sleights of hand,' utterly unavailable for the next
year, and borrowed from it, we do not see how even
a shilling Income-tax would carry us through
another year. Even with this last resource, then,
it so happens that the national credit turns on the
Paper Duty.
Well, suppose the duty repealed, and near a mil-
lion and a half disappearing at once from the Reve-
nue, and money wanted immediately, what are we
to do ? In that case the only thing to be done is
to borrow, to renew Exchequer Bills, and, in duo
time, to ask Parliament for a Loan. But are the
public prepared not only to lay on war taxes, but
also to contract war debts, for the repeal of
the so called " Taxes on Knowledge "—that
is, on serials and newspapers ? If the pub-
lic are prepared for it, and will hereafter jus-
tify the wisdom of the Lords in adding
to the Debt for such a cause, then we have
nothing to do but to throw up our hats and cry
"Nothing like paper!" We could earn no end of
praises from most unwonted tongues by shutting
our eyes to debts and deficits, and running a muck
through this question. But in two or three years
the very same persons would charge us with join-
ing the cry for the sake of popularity; and, should
it happen, as we believe it would, that we should
be the chief gainers by the change, that would be
held quite enough to account for any advecacy we
could give to the repeal of the duty. Then remains
nothing to be done but simply to point out, for the
benefit of those who think it worth taking into ac-
count, that, being some way already in the down-
ward path, Parliament is now invited to accelerate
our financial descent. We have become conversant
with figures, both at home and in our Indian Em-
pire, that would have appalled Sir R. Peel or any
financier of those more careful days, and the pro-
position now is to launch deeper into debt. But it
may be said,-" Was not all this thought of and dis-
posed of a couple of months ago ? The House of
Commons has several times discussed the measure
in all its financial bearings, and has ended by re-
affirming its first decision." Unfortunately, our
finances have not cleared themselves with equal
facility, or added reason to this measure. It is
notorious that we have been going from bad to
worse, and at this moment the finances of the coun-
try are in a state that defies explanation. If as
good an account can be given of our finances as the
Chancellor of the Exchequer gave in February, it
would tranquillize alarmists, and perhaps sway the
decision of the Lords. That, in fact, is the very
turning point of the, question before the Lords.
They will not discuss the Bill only on its own
merits, which are beyond a doubt in favour of re-
peal. They must and will decide it with reference
to the present condition of our finances.
But what would the Commons do if the Lords
should throw out the bill ? They who think the
repeal of the Paper Duty worth to the country the
addition of a million a-year to the debt for some time
to come, will of course think it also worth a rupture
between the houses, a dissolution, and even, as was
pleasantly settled the other:day in a select party
at St. Martin's-hall, the deposition of the House
of Lords. If that " anomaly in the constitution,"
as some one there called it, were to follow Taxes
on Knowledge, it would be thought a happy event
that, lovely and pleasant as they were in their lives,
in their deaths they were not divided. The House
of Lords, however, is in the habit of consulting its
own dignity and its own interests. It interprets
its own precedents, and sets them, if necessary.
There can be no doubt of its power to throw out
the Bill if it chooses to stand the consequences,
and those consequences it is as well able to calcu-
late as any of its volunteer advisers. If the power
is undoubted, we presume it must be for somo pur-
pose—that is, for an extraordinary occasion—that it
possesses it. Such an occasion might arise if a great
measure, or budget of measures, had begun to reveal
itself more plainly than at first; if circumstances
had been more unfavourable even than had been
anticipated ; if a momentary enthusiasm had begun
to cool ; if Philip, drunk in one House, had become
sober on his road to the other. If, as some allege,
the House of Lords is really bound by the law of
desuetude, and must do what it has done, and never
do what it has failed to do, then a great constitu-
tional question does indeed present itself. Will
the Lords retain a form that has lost its power ?
Should they shrink from what they may very
naturally think a degradation, will they extricate
themselves from it by relinquishing the form or
asserting the power It is maintained by the
original authors of the measure now coming before
them that the Lords hate nothing to do with the
taxation of the country, and that when a Bill im•
posing or repealing taxes comes before them, they
have no choice but just to ascertain its object, and
pass it. Should this be so, then certainly the pre-
sent is an opportunity for setting the question en-
tirely at rest. It so happens that it is a question
of growing importance, and there is much to ac-
count for the extreme eagerness shown by some
persons to strip the Lords forthwith and utterly of
all voice in taxation. No one knows how soon we
may have a House of Commons interested and
pledged to a division of political duties, leaving
taxes to properity and legislation to numbers. A
Reformed House that starts with a deficit which a
shilling income-tax is unable to overtake is not
unlikely to improve such an inheritance, and de-
velope the mighty instrument bequeathed to it by
its predecessor. In such a case, all who possess
property, or care for its rights, will look to the Lords.
But what if that body should have already, and
most opportunely, lost its independence, and be
declared—perhaps confessed—without power to
checac any financial extravagance or political con-
fiscation ? The present measure is singularly
ominous. It professes to redeem a tax now falling
on the intelligent, active, and ambitious classes by
a new tax—that is, an addition to an existing
ex-
traordinary tax on property.
Such is the extraordinary character of the occa-
sion upon which the Lords will have to decide a
question of even more prospective than historical I
interest. At a time when the whole policy and
internal character of the country are turning more
and more on the choice of taxation, the Lords are
called on to say whether they have any voice in an 1
operation of which they may be the chief victims.
This is the question that comes before the Lords on
Monday, and we cannot help feeling that this is the
crisis for its decision.—?hues.

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