The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-07 00:00:00

and if those resolutions should be carried, which he hoped
they might be, it was not his intention to make any other

proposal. (Cheers from the Opposition.)
The motion for the adjournment was then agreed to.
TAX BILLS.—ADJOURNED DEBATE.
Mr. H. DI SEYMOUR resumed the adjourned debate.
Ha had just heard the declaration of the noble lord that he

was perfectly satisfied with the resolutions, and did not in-
tend to go further. The resolutions were good in them-

selves; but his complaint was that they stopped far short
of giving due effect to what ought to be their proper pur-
port. They laid down what was entirely abstract, and as-
serted what could not be contradicted. It would have been
much better for the dignity of the house and the consistency

of the noble lord if he had proceeded to draw the conse-

quence that legitimately followed from his resolutions. If
the sole right of controlling the supply rested in that house,
and it was jealous of its ancient and undoubted functions—
if the House of Lords had not frequently used that power

and if an undue exercise of that power had now taken place,
there sought to have been a plainer and more unequivocal
declaration of that fact by the house. He hoped that the
noble lord would amend the third resolution before it was

put, or that the house would sipport him (Mr. Seymour)
in the amendment, of which he had given notice-
-46 That the rejection by the Lords of the bill for re-
pealing the paper duty is a violation of the constitutional
rights of the Commons." The noble lord had declared in
his speech that it certainly was not consistent with the
_ _

rights and functions of that house that any material por-
tion of the general scheme of finance should be rejected by
the other house ; and he admitted that the Lords in prin-
ciple had done this—in other words, that they had inter-
fered with the undoubted and ancient privilege of that
house. If he was in earnest in making these observations
why should he stop short ? Why not prove to the coun-
try his sincerity by putting in a declaration that the House

of Lords had violated and- encroached upon the privileges
of that house ? (Hear, hear.) He was still more astonished
at the noble lord's justification of and apology for the House
of Lords. He not only apologised for them, but grounded
his apology on the supposition that the Lords had taken
into their wiser heads that that house had been acting pre-
cipitately, and that they, the Lords, were entitled to review
and amend the budget. (Hear, hear.) Upon whom did
the Queen call for supplies ? To whom did she offer the
estimates ? She called upon her faithful Commons, and she
told them the proper estimates for the service of the year
should be laid before them. If the noble lord were right
that form must be altered, and her Majesty must ask the
Lords and Commons for supply, and direct the estimates to
be laid before both houses. He protested against the Lords
setting themselves up as a court of appeal from the com-
. _ _

mittee of supply of that house. It had been made a question of
party struggle in the other house ; and they had not hesi-
tated to single out the Finance Minister, and attack his
arrangements for the year. Was it a simple negative to enter
into an angry debate on the merits of the budget ? The apo-
logy of the noble lord was misplaced and mistimed, and put
the position of the Lords in a more unconstitutional light
before the country. To refer to the number by which the
third reading of the Paper Duty Repeal Bill had been carried
was a most unfortunate argument. (Hear, hear.) It was
opposed to every constitutional precedent, and to every
sound reason that could be addressed to the house. Did it
not occur to the noble lord to inciaire what number was ne-
cessary to place a Ministry in power ? It took a majority of
13 to place the noble lord's Government in office. (Cheers.)
And was it to be said that the majority of nine on the Paper
Bill was too insignificant to be noticed by the Lords ? He
trusted that the amendment which he had submitted would
receive the sanction of the house. It was most essential
that that house should not be degraded in the estimation of
foreign powers. It was far more important that the dignity
of the house should be maintained in the eyes of nations
than that they should suffer it to sink from any affected
wish to cultivate harmonious relations with the other house.
(Hear.) He had long admired the talents of the Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer, and respected him as an able and elo-
quent orator and a great financial Minister, but last night
he had assumed the character of an indignant, honest, and
fearless patriot. (Cheers.) His speech would have an effect
from one end of the country to the other. It might be that
some results would happen of a political character; it might
bo that the Minister who had consulted rather the interests
of his country than the convenience of his colleagues would
be called upon to suffer for it. (Hear.) But though he
might lose a seat in the Cabinet he would be rewarded by a
throne in the affections of his countrymen. (Hear.) He
hoped that the right hon. gentleman would either bring in
another bill, and pass it at once through all its stages, or
that he would ask the house to support him in giving in-
structions for the tax not to be collected after August.
Though the noble lord had told them the resolutions were
to remain a dead letter, en the other hand they had the
promise of his colleague. One was pledged to action : the
other to inaction. Considering that the eyes of numbers
out of doors were turned towards the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, he trusted that he would be true to his character
and to the pledge he had given last night. (Hear.) The
paper duty had been repeatedly doomed by that house ; and
now, a tax which that house had declared unfit for con-
tinuance would, from the 16th August next, be imposed by
the authority of the House of Lords alone. (Hear.) That
was a position which no precedent supported, and of which
no example could be cited in bygone years. He had
examined the whole of the precedents and found that they
crumbled into dust and ashes. (Hear.) The committee had
shown great diligence ; but many of the cases cited by them
were not only not precedents, but were so far from that as to
give an air of ridicule to the comparison. One of these was
the Tobacco Trade Bill ; another was the Pawnbrokers Re-
gulation Bill; another related to the duties on raw silks and
velvets; but each of these bills involved other subjects of
legislation. Then there was the bill for a reward to Dr.
Smith. (A laugh.) Who Dr. Smith was he had no idea.
Next was Phillips's Powder Bill. (Laughter.) The object
of that bill he had supposed might be to provide medicine for
her Majesty's forces. (Laughter.) The hon. gentleman went
through the other precedents referred to in the report of the
committee, and contended that there was not one of them
which could be said to jastify the conduct of the House of
Lords in rejecting the Paper Duty Repeal Bill. The com-
mittee drew the line of precedent at the year 1628 ; but he
believed the lights of the House of Commons were older
than 1628. He might go back not merely to the times of the
Stuarts and Tudors, but to the earliest chapters of the Eng-
lish constitution, and there he found distinct and explicit
avowals of the right of the House of Commons to control
and regulate the supply and taxes of the country. He found
it recorded in the rolls of Parliament for 1315 that supplies
were granted by the Commons only, without any reference
to the House of Lords. (Hear, hear.) In 1404, the 6th of
Henry IV., he found it recorded that the Commons granted
a subsidy of hides, wool, and wool fells, to which they an-
nexed this condition, that the King's treasurers were to
account for the expenditure of the supply, not to the Lords
and Commons, but to the Commons alone, in the next Par-
liament. In 1407, the 9th of Henry iti., he found another
precedent of a similar kind. So far back as the year 1407,
the Lords having pressed the Commons to grant the King
a subsidy, it was recorded that the Commons were
greatly disturbed at the degradation which was sought to
be put on them. But there were many other precedents
of a similar kind accorded on the rolls of Parliament. In
1640 a similar one was cited by Clarendon, in which the
Commons, after conference with the Lords, recorded a de-
claration to the effect that all supplies should originate with
themselves. They declared that any attempt to originate
them elsewhere was a high breach of their privileges, and
they declined to proceed farther until they received satis-
faction and reparation from the House of Peers. How were
they to ask reparation now ? A large sum had been added
to the supplies to the Crown, but that house had not granted
it. It was granted by the House of Lords, which had esta-
blished from henceforth a new method of granting the sup-
plies. But he had a precedent so late as the year 1835,
when in the case of the Municipal Corporation Reform Bill
the House of Commons refused to permit any interference
even with a case of grand juries. He asked the house, then,
not to be content with these resolutions, nor consent to be
drawn into what must obviously become a precedent. He
did Rot speak in any revolutionary spirit, nor did he wish
to see any diminution of the just privileges of the House of
Lords, but he wished to see preserved intact all the just
and constitutional privileges of the House of Commons.
The hon, and learned member having sat down, rose again
and said he should move the amendment of which he had
given notice as a distinct resolution. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. lIORSMAN said he agreed with the hon. and
learned gentleman who had just resumed his seat, and with
all those hon. members who had preceded him, as to the
importance and magnitude of this question. But its im-
portance and magnitude did not present themselves to his
mind for the first time on this occasion, for he had in an
earlier part of the session singled out the repeal of the
Paper duties, and had humbly warned the house, not in
the language of the right hon. gentleman the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, that it was a gigantic and dangerous inno-
ntin; but this wag the most important financial proposition
which had been submitted to Parliament in their day—
(hear, hear. f _
i.from the Opposition)—whether as t concerned
the
TrinelPles involved or the questions to which it would
inevitably lead.
housecil ,11:
and When the question was again brought
before the
ventured to employ the same language
as to the p
had noticed the progress
consequences of this measure. He
country and the Changes whichwhich opinions had made in the
had taken place, and parti-
cularly that it had become l popular in the country, and
that it had at last become the.:ubject of embarrassment to
mortifying to
the ministers,
of the members of the
cabinet, and a matter of disescriooratifiate.tiuureesitnr the other house of
Privilege be-
parliament, and raising
twee the two houses. (llear.) lie had listened with very
great satisfaction to the speech of the nobles
assurance,
at the head
of ti Government, because he
of
for a committee to look raveopreeedente, tehea' when he
that step he did not intend to provoke a collision nibe.tween
the two houses. But what the noble lord had inn
asking the house to come to itspresent decision did not seem
to present itself to the mind of the Chancellor of the Esehme.,
titter. The noble lord wished to make the independence of
the Lords a reality, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer
seemed to desire that it should be merely a sham. (Hear.)
The noble lord would place the Lords in equal authority
with the House of Commons, while the right hon. gentle-
man would say that was the house which ought to have
abooluto power in casee of this sort. The Chancellor of the