The Sun.
London, England, 1856-05-20 00:00:00

like redemption as the said consolidated 3/. per cent= an-

LA ties.
" Thatikhe said annuities, so to be payable as aforesaid,
shall be charged upon and paid out of the consolidated fund
of the united kingdom of Great Britaiu and Ireland.
" That every contributor shall, on the 22d day of May,
1856, make a deposit of 10/. per cent. on such sum as he or
she shall choose to subscribe towards raising the said sum of
5,000,0001., with the chief cashier or cashiers of the Governor
and Company of the Bank of England as a security for making
the subsequent payments on or before the days or times
hereinafter meutioned,ithat is to say ;—Payment of 201. per
cent. on or before the lAtt of June, 1856 ; 201. per cent. on
or before the 28th of June, 1856 ; 201. per cent. on or before
the 24th of July, 1856 ; 101. per cent, on or before the 28th
of August, 1856 ; and 201. per cent. on or before the 18th of
September, 1856.
That all the moneys so to be received by the said cashier
or cashiers of the said Governor and Company of the Bank of
England shall ba paid into the account of the receipt of Her
, Majesty's Exchequer at the Bank of England, to be applied

from time to time to such services for Great Britain and Ire-

land as have been or shall be voted by this house, or to such

services as are now charged en the cOnsolidatcd fund of the
united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or shall be
charged thereon by any act that may be passed hereafter."
Mr. ALCOCK regretted that the right hon. gentleman
had not made up his mind to reduce the duty on fire in-
surances to b. That duty was a tax upon prudence, and
in direct contravention to the principle of free trade, while
at the same time it pressed unequally on the rich companies
and poor companies. The right hon. gentleman had stated
that such &seduction would cause a loss to the revenue of

from 600,0006. to 700,0006., and no doubt it might do so in
the first year, but he did not believe that such would be
its ultimate effect. In France, where there was no duty,
seven-eighths of the population insured, while in England
only one-third did so, and if the duty in this country were
lowered a larger numberof persons would insure, and there
would be no loss to the revenue, while at the same time
prudence and precaution would be spread among the people.
As to thelincome tax he never wished to see it done away
with, because it afforded the opportutity of removing the
other taxes; ba.• at the same time both that tax and the
property tax might be readjusted with advantage. If the
property tax were placed on a fair footing there would be
no necessity for a malt tax or for a duty on tobacco, and
trtere would be much less smuggling and adulteration.
He did not wish to take up the time of the house, bat be
would repeat that he regretted that the Chancellor of the
Exchequer had not determined upon reducing the duty on
Ore iw.u.

Mr. HAD 01e1LD proposed to submit to the committee,
at a proper time, a proposal for the reduction of the duty
on tire insurances, from- 3e. to is per cent.; and he did still
hme that the right hon. gentleman weulcl yield on this
point. Ho was confident that a great ineiease of insurances
would f a reduction.
I'dr. W. WILLIAMS said the financial statement just
submitted was a winding-up of the wer, and he saw no
alternative but to place the same confidence in the Govern-
neat on this point as had been placed in them with
rsgerd to the expenditure for carrying on the war.
As respecte 1 the resolution, it was of no use to find fault
with it now. He had expressed a decided opinion re-
warding the two former loans, as well as the funding of
Etelsequer-bills —namely, that it would have been much
more prudent and economical if the amount of those loans
had bee.' added, not to the Three per Cent. Consols, but
to the new stock introduced by the right hoe. gentleman
the member for the University of Oxford (Hr. Gladstone).
However, 5,030,000/. was too swell an amount of itself to
deal with in that way; but if the whole amount of
36,000,000/. had been raised in these new stocks it would
have been infinitely better than its addition to the Three
per Cents. He wished to ask the right hon. eeutlemau
whether it was intended to lay on the table a new estimate
for the army and the various military departments, and
the navy, stating the items upon which reductions from
the proposed war expenditure were to lee made?
Mr. E. BILL asked whether he was to hope that it was
intended to remit the additional duty of 5 per cent. upon
wait ? He was quite awe the pu'olic would recognise the
propriety of inch a measure. (Hear.) The statement of
the right hon. gentleman on the subject confirmed his
',repression that in proportion as you augmented the duty
on malt, in that proportion you diminished the consump-
tion. (Hear.) If the duty were reduced to 2s. per bushel,
or 16s. per quarter, he believed the gross revenue would
equal that which would now be derived from this source.
Mr. VANCE, on the part of the Irish distillers, remon-
strated with the right hon. gentleman on his proposal to
retain the present increased rate ofeduty on Irish spirits.
He warned the right hon. gentleman that if he persisted
in that system the number of gallons brought to charge
next year in Ireland would be much reduced, and that in
consequence of the low price of agricultural produce—par.
ticulaely of malt—great inducements would be given to
illicit distillation. The present amount of duty was 200
per cent. upon the raw material, and the Chancellor of
the Exchequer was acting very unwisely, even as a ques-
tion of revenue, in retaining so high a duty.
Mr. GIBSON did not like one part of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer's speech, in which he seemed to discredit,
as it were, the idea of revising our financial system. Look-
ing back to what had lately been done, the right hon. gen-
tleman left the committee to infer that we had arrived at
a perfect modesof raising the public revenue, that every-
thing worked remarkably well, and that the existing sys-
tem-of taxation must be submitted to without any change.
To those opinions he (Hr. Gibson) demurred. He had
never asked. for the repeal of a tax upon the ground that
the money could be spared, but on the ground that the Le-
jury produced by sum tax to trade and industry was far
greeter than the benefit which it yie..:tded to the revenue.
That was a question of fiscal polier which it was the duty
of the Government to considers The fire insurance duty
was undountedly one whist. ought not only to be reduced
but altogether abolished,' and he had been glad to find that
the noble member Per Lynn (Lord Stanley), iu a very able
speech he had de:dvered in the country, when shadowing
forth the peodey he would pursue, had mentioned that tax
as oue wh'.ch he would be prep,red to repeal. He (Ur.
aibson) had repeat, ally brought beano the house the qu--
ti,,u of the duty on paper, and his motion had been sup•
ported not only by many hon. members, but he believed by
nearly every gew le irvtu who had filled the office of Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, and-Who was not in that office
when the motion was brought forward. The right hon.
member for Buckinghamshire (Hr. Disraeli) yote-t, he be-
lieved, ou one occasion for the repeal of the paper duty.
The right hole member for Oxford University (Hr. Glad-
stoue), when he lately visited Manchester, took occasion
himself to attack the paper duties in a manner which made
his (11r. Gibson's) constituents all the mere earnest in urg-
ing bun to press the question upon the attention of the
Government. He regarded the paper duty as a disgrace to
the lineucial system of this country, and, unless that, tax
was repealed, it was impossible to attain those results
wuieh they had in view when they repaled the newspaper
stamp duty and the duty upon advertisements. He was
for taking the exciseman's hand from the press altogether.
He wished to see a free and untaxed press, and that they
could not have so long as the duty upon paper was main-
tained. It had been said the repeal of the newspaper
stamp had proved a failure, but he would take leave to say
that-that was a great mistake. He knew of his own know-
ledge that there wore at least a hundred penny and three-
half-penny papers in circulation in this kingdom, which
were not in a dying state. They wore frequently told that
penny newspapers had departed this life, but the great
difficulty with which the conductors of such publications
had to contend was the duty on paper. He knew, for in-
stance, one small publication—a penny newspaper—which
paid the Government 3,0001. a year as a tax upon paper.
What a tremendous obstacle that was in the way of cheap
literature ! Thus, 3,0001. a-year deducted from the funds
of a penny publication must deprive the managers of the
opportunity of producing good as well as cheap literature.
He concluded that the maintenance of the duty on paper
was utterly inconsistent with the desire which had been
frequently expressed in Parliament for the diffusion of
knowledge among all classes of the people. He therefore
gave notice to the Government that, whether there was a
deficiency or a surplus of revenue, he should feel it his duty
on a fitting occasion to ask that house to repeal the duty
op paper. Er.e would urge that proposition mainly upon
moral and educational grounds, although he could make a
very strong case_ upon commercial and industrial grounds.
A reduction of expenditure was an essential preliminary
to an extensive revision of our financial system,-and ho
hoped the expenditure for the defences of the country
would be reduced to the amount at which it stood before
the war commenced, if, indeed, it could not be reduced
below that amount. Increased expenditure had been, re-
quired on particular emergencies, but the practice had been
to reduce such expenditure as soon as the necessity for it
passed away, and he hopedthat no longer expenditure would
be incurred for the defences of the country than wasrequired
to maintain a proper and effective peace establishment. He
could not lend any countenance to the doctrine that before
the commencement of the late war the country was help.
less and defenceless in consequence of the Government not
having been supplied with sufficient funds; for that house
had always supplied the Government with any funds they
required for the defences of the realm. If the state of our
armaments afforded any cause for just complaint, it must
have been owing to the miernanagementand misapplication
of the funds which Parliament had placed at the disposal
of the Ooveru:aent. He hoped, at no distant period, to
have the opportunity of supporting large reductions in the
public expenditure, and he trusted that the trade and in-
dustry of the country would be relieved from some of those
oppressive Excise duties which had so pernicious an effect
upon the moral and material interests of the great body of
the labonring classes.
Mr. ING le AM slid he was quite prepared to go into the
quedien of the paper duty; but as the right hon. member
for Manchester lied intimated that he would call the at-
tention of the house to that subject on a future occasion,
he (Mr.. Ingram) would defer the observations he wished to
matte until the right hone gentleman brought forward his
motion. He regarded the paper duty as a most obnoxious
tax, and he thought tiro statements he would be able to
adduce would satisfy the house that is ought to be abo-
lished.
Mr. DISRAELI—The right hon. gentleman the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer has stated that ho has been in com-
munication with an eminent capitalist in this country, and
I am sure it must be gratifying to the house and to the
country to receive from the highest authority upon finan-
cial topics an assurance that the resources of the empire
are not diminished by the great struggle in which it has re-
cently been engaged, and that, whatever emergency or exi-
gency may arise, we may always appeal to them with full
confidence that they will suite to vindicate the honour of
the country. I will not touch upon those points connected
with particular taxes to which the Canceller of the Exche-
quer has referred. Opportunities will no doubt be afforded
for expressing our opinions upon suck questions; but it does
not seem to me that there is, at the present moment, any
very immediate prospect of a Chancellor of the Exchequer
introducing into this house a proposition for the reduction
of any existing tax,
the Exchequer to settle'
with
th willh leaveis
habitualthe
supporters o
Chancellor of
f
liberal opinions those doctrines of financial finality
which
be has promulgated with so
in
will no doubt be regtrcled wiuthchgraelaitthoarittteyn,tiaonnd
bwyht"hclei
country. I will, however, take tali:: opportunity of most
seriously ,expressing my hope that, when the excitement
of the war It hich has just terminated has passed away, the
Government will give their bast; attention to measures of
wise, but at the same time most rigid economy. (Hear.)
That is expected by the country, and I am convinced that
that is the only spirit of legislation in which we can con-
firm the wise principles of finance upon which our system
is now generally established, and that will enable us to
prepare those resources for the future which, whenever an
emergency arises, will enable us to show the same power
we have recently displayed. I will also take this oppor-
tunity of stating my belief that it would be most uneise
on the part of the country to allow itself to be misled by
what I cannot but regerd as a most superficial and
founded opinion, and io suppose that it can guard itself
spinet the repetition of many—l will admit mortifying—
incidents which occurred at the commencement of the war,
by habitually supporting a much larger military establish-
ment. (Hear.) I feel persuaded that if we suppose we
can protect ourselves from the repetition of events which