The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-22 00:00:00

that subject recommended a public expenditure of two mil-
lions and a half, and an advance of public money of a mil•
lion and a quarter. Estimates of that sort always were so.
Under this head alone they had an expenditure of five mil-
lions of public money and an advance of three millions.
Again, public offices required to be built—on what scale ?
Would they be content with the same expenditure as on
that house ? (Hear.) They were to have a New National
Gallery ; they had purchased Burlington House, but
had not yet covered the site with buildings
'Worthy of the purpose for which they were in-
tended. He next came to their old friends the packet and
telegraph contracts. Those contracts amounted to a million,
of which £600,000 a-year was voted. The house was aware
that these contracts were entered into by the Government
and then submitted tothe house; when the present Govern-
ment came into office the found contracts pending to the
amount of £600,000. (Hear, hear.). He could not speak
with such calm satisfaction as the right hon. gentlman of
the growth of the civil service estimates. (Hear, hear.) The
right hon. gentleman was also rather sanguine as to the
naval and military estimates. According to him nothing
was requisite but that the present Government should adopt
the views and follow the measures of the late Government
with regard to foreign policy, and all difficulties would
vanish, and the income-tax might be got rid of. He could
not agree in the broad assertionmade by the right hon. gen-
tleman or by the noble lord the member for Haddington-
shire as to the perfect wisdom of the measures adopted by
the late Government in the complication of Europe or their
perfect success. The right hon. gentleman said they had
been vindicated by him. He (the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer) would not attempt to follow him through all the topics
he had touched. He had flown far too high for a mere jour-
neyman hlrea Chancellorof the Exchequer, and he thought
it would be better if some other occasion had been taken for
a discussion on that policy. (Hear, hear.) The right hon.
gentleman said he was glad to hear the new Government in-
tended to walk in the footsteps of the old. As a humble
member of the new Government he had endeavoured to
make himself master of the papers connected with the acts
of the late Government, and must say the perusal left on
his mind the clearest conviction that Lord Malmesburyhad
applied himself to his task in the spirit of an English gen-
tleman and a lover of peace ; but as to anything beyond
that, he must beg to be silent unless he was required to
discuss the matter fully. He hoped hon. gentlemen oppo-
site would not try to compel their assent to sweeping as-
sertions, but would be content with the testimony they
had received from the noble lord the Secretary for
Foreign Affairs as to the aims and views of Lord Malmes-
bury, and not by continual vaulting leave them no alterna-
tive between the inviduous ask of dissection, or leaving it
to be sup # < by their silence that they approved of all
that had • done. The right hon. gentleman had
gen-
deavoured to impress strongly on the Government the
necessity of revivmgs or, he hoped he might say, of preserv-
ing the alliance which has so long prevailed between this
country and France ; and of acting on that line which has
become a law of the foreign policy of this country. The
right hon. gentleman told them to require a diminution of
armaments. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) believed
he did not go beyond his duty in declaring the sentiments
of his colleagues, that as soon as ever the state of Europe
would admit of applying that wholesome and salutary test
to those pacific intentions, that moment it would be the
duty of the English Government to apply it. The right
hon. gentleman said they would betray their duty, if they
were accomplices in any congress—he made no exception as
to the object of it—but gave a sweeping solemn denuncia-
tion dell congresses. Yet four or five months ago Lord
Malmesbury had no rest day or night, sending despatches,
recommending, enforcing, organising adjusting, seeking by
hook or by crook to bring about a congress. He would not
follow the right hon. gentleman into the discussion of the
peace; he hoped and believed the peace would be lasting,
but he must reserve his judgment. (Hear.) The right
hon. gentleman said fault was found with the peace because
it did not fulfil the programme with which the war was
commenced, but said no peace had ever done so. That view
of history was new to him. (Hear.) The right hon. gen-
tleman said the Russian war did not fulfil its programme.
(Hear, hear.) If the programme was to be found in the
heated minds of some men, no doubt the peace did not
fulfil it ; but if the programmes were to be drawn from
the manifestoes of Sovereigns, the treaty of Paris more
than accomplished every object put forth by the Sove-
reign of England in her manifesto, and much more. (Hear.)
There was nothing in that manifesto about the destruction
of the fortress and arsenal of Sebastopol ; nothing
of a prohibition of a Russian fleet in the Black
Sea; nothing of a cession of territory by Russia to the
Danubian Principalities ; yet all these were accomplished
by the war of 1856. (Hear, hear.) Did not the great re-
volutionary war fulfil its programme ? Some of them set
out with a purpose to restore the Bourbons. Mr. Pitt never
went so far; he only wanted security againstFranee. Yet
he not only obtained that security, but the Bourbons were
restored, and that in the manner most flattering to-the na-
tion—by the presence of a foreign army. He did not share
the right hon. gentleman's views as to the congress. As to
the preservation of peace, there was one point which he must
urge on the house and on all classes—the duty of preserving
the greatest moderation in word as well as in deed. (Hear.)
It was the duty of the Government to strive to make peace
permanent in Europe. In that object he hoped they would
have the cordial and hearty co-operation of the right hon.
gentleman; but her Majesty's advisers must claim for
themselves, with regard to the measures they should adopt,
perfect liberty to form their conscientious judgment, when
they were in possession of greater lights and more extended
knowledge than the circumstances of the present day
afforded them.
Mr. BRIGHT was not sorry to have had an opportunity,
of hearing the right hon. gentleman before he himself ad-
dressed the house. There was much in the speech of the
right hon. gentleman and that of his predecessor which gave
him very great satisfaction. He must congratulate the right
hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) in having become a
convert to the views so often expressed by himself and his
hon. friend the member for Rochdale. (Hear, hear.) The
late Sir R. Peel was once taunted with having become a
convert, and any man of intelligence and genius who led the
party opposite (none other could lead them) must every day
tend more to the course of foreign policy he had felt it his
duty to propound. The speeches of the right hon. gentle-
man and of the Chancellor of the Exchequer were divided
, into two subjects—first, the question of the budgit, then
that of the foreign policy. He would venture to make a
few observations in the same order. The budget of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer had been received with as
much satisfaction as could fall to the lot of
such an unpleasant proposal. His approbation of it arose
principally from the fact that its arrangements were proposed
to last for a year only. (Hear.) The right hon. gentle-
man said that next year it would be necessary to take a
general and comprehensive view of the whole question of
finance and taxation. Notwithstanding all the Chancellor
of the Exchequer said of the ad vantages of the income tax,
it was a tax hateful to the people, and hateful because it
was felt to be unjust. He need not go into the question, but
that the same tax should be levied on fixed and precarious
incomes was felt by everybody to be a fixed injustice and a
fixed wrong. (Hear.) As long as that rule was maintained
he would never consent to have the tax made permanent.
As it was now, however, taken for one year only to meet an
emergency, he should not oppose it. He would be prepared
when the time came to show that the tax pressed with
double inequality on capital invested in trade or manufac-
tures as compared with capital invested in the cultivation of
land. What would hon. gentlemen say to the fact that far-
mers in England were charged income tax on an assessment
based on half the rent, but in Scotland on only a third of the
rent ? The expenditure had grown from 50 to 70 millions.
There was no reason why it should not rise to 100 millions
if a different course was not adopted. In dealing with the
subject of taxes, he would take the succession duties of
every kind, probate or legacy duties, and succession duties
under the act of 1853, as strictly property taxes. They were
calculated, they were imposed on the property left by a man
at his decease. They did not affect that unfortunately too
large class who had nothing to leave behind them, but they
affected anybody who succeeded to any property. The pro-
bate duty was a tax which fell only on personal property,
and not on land or real property. If the subject came
before the house next year he would bring this subject
before them, and urge them to remove this standing com-
plaint. The probate duty produced a large revenue, and
the return obtained on the motion of the hon. member for
Lambeth, who had so often called attention to this subject,
and so often attempted to remove the injustice, showed how
heavy a burden it was on personal property. In 1853, when
the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced the Succession
Duty Act, he referred to this subject, and it was believed
he would have remedied the injustice • but nothing had
been done, and since then £1,328,300 had: been annually
raised from personal property exclusively. In 1856 people
said there never was such a Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and then they spoke with wonder of the feat he had per-
formed in passing the Succession Duties Act, by which
landed property had for the first time been made liable to
legacy duty. But what did the right hon. gentleman cal-
culate would be the produce of that tax ? He said that in
1854 he expected it would yield £500,000. In 1855 he
thought it would produce £700,000 additional. In 1856,
£400,000 additional ; while in 1857 and the following years
he looked forward to its yielding 2 millions per annum. By
the present time, therefore, they ought to have received
from it no less a sum than £9,300,000. But what had been
the actual result ? He would not give the actual figures,
because the Board of Inland Revenue told him they could
not separate with accuracy what they had received from the
succession duty, and what they had received from the old
legacy duty. But he would adopt a mode of calculation
which the right hon. gentleman had himself employed the
other night. The old legacy duty used to yield £1,380,000 ,
a year, whereas the legacy and the succession duty together
yielded last year a sum of £2,211,000. That would show an
apparent increase of £831,000 a year. But even from that
they ought to deduct a certain sum for the natural increase
of the legacy duty, and also for a class of property which
used to pay legacy duty, but which the right hon. gentle
man, under the name of rateable property, had transferred
to the•succession duty, which it paid at a lower rate. The
amount paid by this rateable property he had no means
of computing; and he would only deduct £50,000 on account
of the legitimate increase of the legacy duty. The result
would then be that instead of £2,000,000 the right hon. gen-
tleman's new tax only yielded £781,000 a-year. How came
that ? The fact was, it was not what it pretended to be.
It was not a tax upon a fair valuation of each property as it
passed from one party to another. It attempted, indeed, to
cure one great inequality; but in so doing it established
another almost as great and almost as offensive. He did not
blame the right hon. gentleman for that. The measure was
perhaps all that it wag possible for him to carry; but he did
blame him for want of acuteness in estimating at £2,000,000
a-year a tax which only yielded £781,000. (Hear, hear.)
He (Mr. Bright) would illustrate the operation of the law
by the case of a man who left £20,000, half of which was in
land, and the other half in stock, machinery, or other pro-
perty. He would suppose that this man left his property
to a stranger in blood. Now how would the Board of Inland
Revenue deal with the land? They would refer to certain
tables in order to ascertain what was the probable value of
the legatee's life ; they would then multiply the annual value
of the property by the number of years they found he had to
live, and charge him succession duty in the product. He
(Mr. Bright) had himself been so fortunate as to have a
small property left him by a person of whom he had no
knowledge, and whom he had never seen. (A laugh.) He
friend
was,r of course, too grateful to be discontented that it was not
of that war,
more. e• It bad belonged to a who was a great friend
of peace, andperson
way of making sho disapproved of the Russian war. His hon.
Cobden)and
and he had b sen the strongest opponents
was worth about
herefore this gentleman left it to them by
for £1,500 or £1,450 ;Ma ;
themzlo some compensation. (Laughter.) It
having to pay so Israeli in fact, he remembered selling it
was taken, the calculatiaons
£5O so pay instead of the £:140
very much astonished he was at
ninivafsor succession duty. His age
made, and he had £4O or
which would have been de-
in thhoenfouunradsb.le(mHeemar:
mended had the property been
hear.) He would take another case.
ber who sat on that side of the hseousekawhia,,ti) had a property
was not a blood
worth £32,000 left him by a gentleman
relation. The hon. member was not an old he was
,
in fact below the average age of members of thatt
he would only be called on to pay £7OO. (Hear, hear.) house;lsrutas

it e onsistent with fairness, with their personal honour, or
with their public duty, to pass a law under which a class of
property the most solid, the most durable, that attracted to
it the best social and political advadtages, and that was
n lost susceptible of improvement, was it right to charge
such a property £7OO, whereas if it had been of another and
a. far more fleeting character, it would have been charged
£3,200. (Cheers.) He should object to any permanent re-
tention of the income tax until the whole taxation of the
country was placed on a more satisfactory and honest foot-
ing. (Hear.) But the whole question was part of a larger
and a more serious one : the growing and frightful expendi-
ture of the country. (Cheers.) The Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer said that up to 1853 therehad been no great increase
for many years past. In 1853 the whole expenditure in the
'estimates of the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) was
only £50,782,000; whereas it was now £69,207,000, (Hear,
hear.). It was only fair to say that the present estimates
were charged with an expenditure which formerly did
not come into them—a sum, namely, of £4,740,000 for
the collection of the revenue. But even after making that
allowance, the public expenditure had positively increased
by no less an amount than £13,685,000 a year. (Cheers.)
There could be no doubt that the most serious item of the
increase was on account of our armaments, the charge for
which had risen from £17,000,000 to £26,000,000. (Hear,
hear.) Now, he should like to ask the house a few serious
questions on this state of things. Did thehouse, forinstance,
believe that we were more or were less safe now than we
were in 1853 withregard to foreign war, and particularly with
regard to the invasion of the country ? He knew that we had
men amongst us who were afflicted with periodical panic.
(" Hear," and a laugh.) There was no complaint so in-
curable as that ; and each fit seemed so to weaken the con-
stitution of the patient that each became more ' and
more alarming than the last. (Laughter.) Then we had
newspapers. (Hear, hear.) We had one in this City con-
nected with a particular trading interest, which, from day
to day, from week to week, and from month to month—he
knew not at whose instigation, or whether at anybody's in-
stigation, poured out most foolish, but at the same time
most bitter invectives against the Einperor of the French,
and by that means against the French nation. (Cheers.)
Whether we approved of such a Government as there was in
France or not, it was clear that if we had such a Govern-
ment, and if we had foreign neighbours who were constantly
insulting that Government, depend upon it we should take
a great portion of those insults to ourselves. (Cheers.) Take
another paper, the Times, which most unfortunately, but
most untruly, was believed abroad to represent the opinions
of the English nation. (Cheers.) Day by day, every form
which the English language could express was used by that
paper for the purpose of stirring up animosity between the
two greatest nations on the face of the earth. (Cheers.) And
yet in that very paper they had published letters which told
of acres of bleeding and mangled human bodies over which
cavalry had galloped, till universal humannature shuddered
at the tale. If this sort of thing went on, nothing could pre-
vent our being embroiled in war with France. (Cheers.)
But these doctrines were not confined to thenewspapers. If
they went into another, and what was commonly supposed
to be a higher place, they would find some aged peer deli-
vering a speech which might be somewhat in character with
the barbarism of 60 years ago, but utterly unfit for the times
in which we lived. No intelligent man in Europe reading
speeches of that character, whether made in that house or
in another place,. could fail to come to the conclusion—false
utterly false, as in his conscience he believed it would 1
be—
that there was in England a number of men, representing
a large amount of public opinion, who had utterly forgot.
ten the disasters and ruin of that great revolutionary war
to which the right hon. gentleman had referred, and were
ready to enter into another war equally costly in treasure
and in soldiers, and with a result equally hopeless to Eng-
land or to Europe. (Cheers.) There could be no peace be-
tween Austria and France that would not be infinitely pre-
ferable to the evils of the war which had just concluded.
When he heard of the peace he felt quite relieved io think
that the species to which he belonged was no longer engaged.
in so fiend-like a destruction of human life. The Emperor
of the French had made a most valuable admission in that
most remarkable speech which he had just pronounced. He
said he had discovered that he was making ;war " against
the mind of Europe." (Hear.) He (Mr. Bright) only wished
that he had made that discovery three months sooner.
(Cheers,) Again, the Emperor said that he had discovered
the war was Assuming dimensions that were inconsistent
with the interests of France. He (Mr. Bright) confessed
that ha was surprised that the Emperor had not found out
from the first that there would be a danger of such a result
taking place ; but these two admissions proved to him (the
hon. member) that the suspicions which had been so sedu-
lously Inculcated in this country against the Emperor of the
French were altogether unfounded. (Hear.) He did not be-
lieve that the Emperor was at all anxious to enter upon a
war with a nation strong in the poasession of 30 millions of
united people—the most powerful, the most rich, and, all
things considered, the moat satisfied with their government
of Bay in Europe. (Loud cheers.) War was not the thing it
used to be, There was a time when soldiers despised the
makers of machines. There were in those days no garters,
stars, or baubles to decorate men who made steam engines,
or manufacturing tools, Bnt what had war now become ? It
was no longer a question of personal prowess, or strength
of body, or nerve, or quickness of eye, It had become a
mere mechanical slaughter, and it would go on becoming
every day more costly and more savage, until it broke down
by its own weight, or until some government—he hoped it
would be ours—suggested a general reduction of armaments.
(Cheers.) Our foreign policy had hitherto been to be
perpetually meddling. We never wished to annex any
portion of European territory, but we maintained great
armaments, so that when anything happened we might
negotiate, intervene, advise, or do something or other
with what was called " ati,effect equal to the magnitude
and dignity of this country." (Laughter and cheers.)
Well, that was exactly what the French did. (Hear, hear.)
We built large fleets, then they built large fleets ; then we
built larger, and so the thing went on. We had no right to
blame them, nor bad they to blame us. We were both very
silly, and it was believed in France that all the stir we were
making about the national defences was merely to coverthe
preparations we were making to invade France. (Laughter.)
He had that day read a letter in which it was stated that all
the coast between Dunkirk and another point was fortified
and secure against any attempt to land an English army.
Just before the Russian war broke out, the French wished
to draw back, but we were not willing, and they stuck to
the original proposal, simply from an anxiety to imitate the
foreign policy of England. Subsequently we went to war
with a more distant country—China—and again the French
joined with us. In a word, the foreign policy of the Emperor
might be described as ananxiety toimitate our own. (Hear.)
With respect to the proposed conference, he thought that if
we were merely to put our name to documents that were of
no advantage to Italy or to ourselves, we had better have
nothing to do with it, (Hear, hear.) The 36 millions of
Frenchmen wh a were quietly engaged in their own industries
were as anxious for perpetual peace with England as any
English Christian could be for perpetual peace with France.
He believed that the Emperor was no less anxious for
peace, and he had no doubt that persons in France were
utterly annoyed at the course taken by certain English
newspapers. (Hear.) He trusted that her Majesty's Go-
vernment would throw away those old, ragged, worthless,
bloody traditions, which filled the waggon loads of old
papers that were to be found in the cellars of the Foreign-
office. Let us approach the subject like sensible Christian
men. Let us tell him that the trade between the two coun-
tries was nothing like what it ought to be. Let us offer to
remove the heavy duties which we had placed upon the
greatest produce of France, her light wines. (Hear, hear.)
It might be said that this would involve a loss to the re-
venue of £1,200,000 ; but what were one or two millions a
year in a question like this? It would strengthen the
Emperor against the only people he could not keep down,
the monopolists and the protectionists of France ; for if he
were enabled to say to them, " I offer you as customers
thirty millions of the richest people in the world," it would
give him an irresistible power to make changes in the tariff
of France, which would be as beneficial to us as to our
neighbours. (Hear, hear.) He would be enabled to lock
together two nations, so that statesman nor monarch would
never again be able to throw the brand of discord between
them. We should then be able to ask him why he squan-
dered away millions of his treasure in increasing his arma-
ments, merely to compel us to squander millions of our
treasure to keep pace with him. He believed that if these
considerations were honestly and frankly made they would
be successful. (Hear, hear.) He was aware there were
two or three men in that house who would say that these
things were as the idle wind. But let them recollect
that we were paying
.£30,000,000 a year for interest on
the debts incurred m former wars ; and that that added
to the cost of our present armaments at home and in
India, made up no less a sum than 76 millions a year.
The tone assumed by the right hon. gentleman (Mr.
Disraeli) and by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was one
that would find a response in the hearts of millions of people
in this country. He had never flattered the noble viscount ;
but be did not think it was possible there could ever be a
minister who could more effectually press upon the Govern-
ment of France the views he (Mr. Bright had been ex-
preseing. (Cheers.) It was not for the sake of those who
lived in great houses or that sat in legislative halls that he
made these remarks, but it was for the sake of those thou-
sands-of persons in this country for whom a state little above
pauperism was the lot which awaited them from the cradle
to the grave. (Hear, hear.) It was because his heart sor-
rowed beyond what language could express at the suffering
which might follow from the foreign policy of the Govern-
ment that he prayed there might come soon some statesman
who should take the steps which he had indicated, who
should cement these two great nations for the future, who
should show that 1,800 years of Christian profession was at
last to be accompanied by something like Christian practice.
(The hon. gentleman resumed his seat amidst loud cheering,
again and again repeated.)
Lord J. RUSSELL rose in consequence of what had
fallen from his hon. friend the member for Birmingham, to
say that he quite concurred with much which had fallen
from him. He must say that he had seen with pain the at-
tempts which had been made to induce a feeling in this
country against the sovereign, and he must add, against the
people of France—(hear, hear)—attempts which could only
produce amongst the French nation a feeling of animosity
against the people of this country. He believed, on looking
back to wars between great nations, that they had occurred
less because there was any cause for dispute than because
there had been some feeling of animosity between the na-
tions. A feeling which had roused all the pride which be-
longed to a great nation had often made a most trifling
cause, a cause which a few weeks of diplomacy might re-
move, a source of calamitous war. It was, therefore, that
he felt with his hon. friend that there was something dan-
gerous, not in the present disposition of the Emperor of
the French, not in the present disposition of the people of
;hat country, but in the constant attempts which were
being made to excite a feeling of jealousy with re
gard to some deep plan which was being made against our
peace and security. (Hear, hear.) Now he believed, with
his hon. friend, that whatever reproach might be addressed
to the Emperor of the French on the various questions of
his foreign and domestic policy, he had been as regarded
this country a faithful ally to us on trying and great occa-
sions. And he believed likewise that as each question
arose it was his wish to obtain the concurrence and appro-
bation of the people of this country. (Hear.) He believed
that he estimated the good sense and intelligence of the
people of this country; he estimated duly cur power, and
set great value 9n the feelings we entertained. These being
his views with regard to the Emperor of the French, it was
another question what we were to do with regard to the
armaments to which his hon. friend had referred. He re-
collected 11 years ago, in the reign of Louis Philippe, who
was the most peaceoble of the sovereigns of France, he called
the attention of the house to the changes which had taken
place in the means of war, and reminding them that with
existing meauz of crossing the sea we could no longer rely
on our position alone, In so saying he meant no offence to
Louis Philippe, and in saying the same thing now he meant
no offence to the Empercr of the French. He only said
this—that we must bear in mind that we were one of the
great nations of Europe, and that we must act in a way
worthy of our position. He would net say whether itwould
be wise or not in this country even to form one ea congress
on the affairs of Europe—that was a matter which had yet
to be decided upon. As his hon. friend said, this country
ought not to be a Arty to any congress for the mere purpose