The Sun.
London, England, 1866-05-04 00:00:00

tent our system does actually distinguish between them.
The house, perhaps, will be surprised to know that the
revenue which we derive from locomotion in all its forms
is not less than £1,600,000. Of that sum the moiety, or
£852,000, is the portion of assessed taxes which I consider
fairly due to locomotion, that is to say, derived from taxes
upon horses, taxes upon carriages, and taxes upon the pro-
portion of men-servants connected with them. With that
amount of £852,000, and also with the revenue of £459,000
derivable from railways, I do not propose in any manner
to interfere. The first arises from a description of charge
that may, I think, fairly be retained on our statute book,
at any rate for the present ; and the revenue derived from
railways is, in my judgment, a revenue which Parliament
would never think of surrendering, unless it were in con-
nection with some comprehensive arrangement for secur-
ing benefits to the public. (Hear, hear.) This, it is quite
plain, we are not at present in a condition to entertain. The
house is aware that a commission,composed of very able and
very distinguished men, was appointed more than a twelve-
month ago to examine into the general condition of the
railway system, and how far it might be possible, by such
means as were defined in the instrument appointing the
Commission, to improve our railway system in the direc-
tion of general accommodation of the public, and particu-
larly of goods traffic. It is plain that we must adjourn
any examination of that subject until the Commission has
concluded its labours, which I hope, and am given to
understand, will be in the course of the present year,
There are, however, subjects similar in character which I
think may well engage our attention, and upon which such
slight remissions of duty as we are in a position to make
will be attended with great advantage. We derive from
post horses and carriages, including all descriptions of car-
riages in London and elsewhere, £266,000, and from public
conveyance £142,000, including all descriptions, whether
stage coaches, waggons supposed to travel under four
miles an hour in the country, or omnibuses, which form
so conspicuous a feature in the streets of London, and which
are becoming from year to year instruments of almost in-
dispensable use to the enormous number not only of the
middle and lower middle, but even, in the strictest sense,
of the labouring classes of the community. The proposals
therefore which I have to make relative to the tax on
omnibuses and all public stage carriages relate not only to
the comfort and advantage of the labouring classes in great
towns, but in another point of view tend to diminish the
very injurious effect which the severity of the duty exer-
cises in restricting rural accommodation—(cheers)—more
particularly accommodation in connection with railway
stations. (Cheers.) The present tax is estimated to
amount tono less than from 9 to 11 per cent. on the gross
receipts of the London General Omnibus Company and
other companies of a like description. And when one
considers the relation which gross receipts bear to net, and
what a very large proportion of gloss receipts is swallowed
up in payment of necessary expenses, it must be admitted
that such a duty imposes a very heavy burden on this
description of trade. I do not dwell on what relates
to the railway stations, because every gentleman who
resides in the country will, I am sure, be familiar
with that matter from personal experience. But the
manner in which the working classes iu the large towns
are affected is very much as follows :—A continuous pro-
cess is going on, unobserved, but steadily from day to
day, by which the value of land in the limited areas about
the centre of great cities is rising in a proportion hardly
credible, though proved by experience. The statistics, if
produced, would astonish those who have never attended
to the point, and the result is this —a continual transfer of
premises in central situations from residential to business
purposes. The wealthier class of residents, thus dispos-
sessed, disappear, for their pleasure, while the labouring
class—and that in a considerable proportion—cannot afford
to pay the increased rent and go out to live at greater dis-
tances from town. It is absolutely necessary, however,
that their labour should still be performed in town, and ac-
cordingly it is of the greatest importance that they should
have cheap conveyance. (Hear.) Hence the tax on loco-
motion, considered as a tax on the labouring part of the
community, is in the severest and crudest sense a tax on
the raw material of industry. For nothing more materially
corresponds with a tax on the raw material of industry
than a tax affecting the sinews and muscles of the labour-
ing man ; and if he is obliged to spend those sinews and
muscles in travelling to and fro, he spends them upon that
which brings him in no wages, instead of spending them
in reproducing labour. (Hear.) I hope I have satisfied the
house that it is right to deal with these questions. (Hear.)
We propose to leave the licenses on these carriages as at
present. We cannot offer a thoroughly searching solution
of the whole question at present, but we think we can re-
lieve the burdensome part of the duty which is calculated
on a mileage. The present duty is ld. per mile, and that we
propose to reduce to id. per mile. (Cheers, and " Why not
repeal it altogether ?") There would be considerable diffi-
culty in doing that. The house will please to recollect that
though there are, as I have described, strong reasons for
modifying this duty, it cannot be separated altogether
from other duties—from the duty on hackney carriages for
instance, which we are not able consistently with the
plans of the Government, to relieve ; it cannot be separated
from the consideration that in a very great number of cases
these carriages aro in direct competition with the short
local traffic of railways in the neighbourhood of largo towns,
on which you levy without compensation a tax of five per
cent. on their gross receipts. The total income from this
source, with full duty, would be£l3o,ooo for the year. The
duty can only be reduced on the 2d of July next, when the
arrangements are made for the quarter and licenses are is-
sued. The reduction will not in this case take place from
the date of the resolutions passed by the house; an Act
of Parliament will be necessary for that purpose. I have
said that I do not propose to interfere with the hack-
ney carriage duty, because the receipts from that tax are
of a peculiar character, and may be considered as some
compensation made by the metropolis for a great outlay in
the matter of its comfort and advantage. But the post-
horse duty applies all over the country. The duties are
now regulated by a scale varying with the number of
horses and carriages possessed, and are so framed as to
bear hardly on the smaller as compared with the larger
proprietors.
One horse or one carriage pays per annum £7
108.; two horses or two carriages just double; four horses
or three carriages, £2O; eight horses or six carriages, £3O.
If you will compare £7 10s. for ono horse or ono carriage
with £3O for eight horses or six carriages, you will see
how the scale is framed to bear heavily on the small as
compared with the large proprietor. I propose to reduce
the rates below the £3O rate so as to correspond as nearly
as possible with the higher rates—viz., one horse or ono
carriage will be charged £5 ; three horses or two carriages
will be charged £lO, and so that the small owner, the
man who drives his own fly, will be placed, as nearly as
the nature of things will admit, on an equality with the
larger capitalist, with whom he competes. The estimated
loss from that source (with allowance of 10 per cent. for
increase in traffic) will be £20,000 ; or £16,000 in 1866-7,
and £4,000 in 1867-8. The committee will see that we have
now disposed of about £562,000 out of £1,350,000. I now
pass to a subject of an entirely different description from
those on which I have touched—having this only in com-
mon with them, it would dispose of a large portion of the
remainder of the surplus, and it is undoubtedly a very im-
portant financial arrangement. Before, however, going to
that subject, I should state that I shall submit resolutions to
give effect to all the changes which I have mentioned; and
also for renewing the income tax at 4d. per pound, and for
. continuing the tea duty. But the proposal I have now to
make, and which I hope will receive the sanction of the
house, will most conveniently and naturally form the sub-
ject of a separate measure ; though it is one which I am
anxious to prosecute as speedily as possible. The question
I am about to call the attention of the house to is connected
with an item which I omitted from the retrospective part
of my statement. It relates to the condition and move-
ment of our National Debt. (Hear, hear.) .1 will first give
to the Committee what has actually been done with respect
to the reduction of the National Debt in the year. The
amount paid off in the year 1865-6 consisted of—

1. Exchequer Bonds £1,000,000, exchanged by reissue.
2. Exchequer Bills paid in for re-

venue ... £783,000)
Purchased with surplus revenue 877,000 £2,555,000
Sent in at the exchanges 895,000
3. Cancelled by Land-tax ... 59,000
4. Stock purchased with surplus re- .

venue ... 1,395,000
5. Capital redeemed in Terminable .
Annuities 1,620,000

Total ... £5,629,000
A sum of £450,000 was raised for fortifications, and there-
fore the real reduction of the National Debt in 1865-6 was
£5,179,000. (Hear, hear.) The next statement I have to
make to the Committee relates to the Unfunded Debt. Great
changes have taken place with regard to our Unfunded Debt.
Part of itconsists of Exchequer Bonds, which are not seri-
ously affected by the extraordinarily rapid and frequent
fluctuations which, under the present, I think, wise admi-
nistration of its affairs by the Bank of England, continually
attend the conditions of the money market. But it is quite
possible that in a country and at a period where the cur-
rent rate of interest on commercial paper for short terms
with 90 or 120 days to run, or perhaps six months, is run-
ning up and down two, three, four, or five times a year,
from 3 to 8 or 9 per cent., it is almost impossible to make
any large portion of these Government securities live in the
market, unless you choose to adopt a course which I think
unwise—to give a high rate of interest upon them. That
would be a very wasteful proceeding, and the alternative
adopted is to encourage a gradual absorption of them. The
total Unfunded Debt of the United Kingdom in 1815-16 was
£44,727,000. Just before the Russian war, on Jan. 5, 1854,
it was £16,024,000; on March 31, 1857, it was £27,989,000;
in 1859, £18,277,000; but that was by funding, and one
object of reduction by a gradual process is to get rid of the
necessity of funding, which is a very expensive operation,
generally performed at unfavourable periods. In 1866 the
Unfunded Debt, which in 1859 was £18,277,000, was re-
duced to £8,267,000, consisting of about two-thirds, or
£5,887,000 in bills, and one-third, or £2,300,000 in bondt.
Nov, with respect to the grave and serious subject of the
National Debt, I hope the committee will not think I take
undue liberty in calling their serious attention to it. It is
a subject as to which it may be difficult to say why it
should be introduced to the notice of the house at one mo-
ment rather thananlootnherex;
pbourtienuenedoouf bttheedlflynlanacmial
con-
vinced, with my now g
de-
partment. that the thus has come when it is fitting that Par-
liament §hould bestow a greater degree of attention than