The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-02 00:00:00

tia;T.

:'.►MBER.

SEPTE

Monmouth ... 20
Manchester Autumn.. ...21
Newmarket F.O. 25
,BER.

Newmarket H 22
Worcester Autumn 30

'I%IBER.

Shrewsbury Autumn....l2

CRIMINAL COURT.-(TRIS DAY.)

OLD COURT.
(Before Mr. Justice Byles.)
Wm. Miles, nealy 60 years of age, carrying on business
as a greengrocer, inithe Oity, was indicted for a rape upon
the person of Emma Wright.

Mr. Sleigh and Mr. Orridge conducted the prosecution,
and Mr. Sergeant Ballantine defended the prisoner.
The prosecutrix, a modest-looking girl, gave her evidence
with great propriety. She said she was in the service of
the prisoner. One Sunday morning about eight o'clock,
her master came into her bedroom and committed the offence
for which he was indicted. She said she became very un-
well, and about one o'clock the prisoner gave her a tea
spoonful of a light liquid which he said was brandy and water,
after taking which she recollected nothing until four o'clock,
when she went home, but as her father was present she was
afraid to tell her mother what had taken place. She, hoiv-
ever, within two hours after the offence was committed told
a friend of hers named Carey all that had taken place. She
told her mother the next day.
Cross-examined—I tried to push him away. I found
him too strong. I did not scratch him, but I slapped his
face. He was in my room about a quarter of an hour.
There was no other person in the house but the prisoner
and myself. The window of my room was at the back of
the house: There were no houses facing.. I screamed for
some time. I will swear the son of the prisoner
did not order me out of the house when I told what his
father had done. When I told my mother, my father was
present. Before I did so, I told Eliza Carey what the pri-
soner had done. I was afraid, before I spoke to her, to tell
my mother of the conduct of the prisoner. I was not with
a butcher's boy or baker's boy the night before the offence
was committed. A boy from the Clarence-hotel hit Me with
a basket, and I hit him again. He is about 15 years of age,
I took the, basket out of his hand willingly, and he let me
hit him. I don't know what he hit me for. I don't know
whether it was done in fun. Hailes was in the shop, and
when he saw the boy strike me, he ordered him out of the
shop. The boy came for some potatoes, and I lent him
&basket tc take them home with, and it was when he brought
the basket back he struck me. It took place en the night
previous to the commission of the offence. My mother has
never accused me of being in company with bad boys and
girls. Upon my solemn oath, my mother never accused me
of being in bad company.
By the Judge—My father has seen me home on other
nights, to prevent me getting into bad company, and be-
cause I did not like going home by myself. I can both
read and write. What I said at the police-court was taken
down, and I signed it.

Justice Byles —You say you can read ; now look at that
statement (the witness's deposition before the magistrate),
and read the passage pointed out to you.
Witness (reading)—" My mother has accused me of being
in company with bad boys and girls."

Mr. Justice Byles—'ou said just now quite the contrary,
how do you account for that ?
Witness—l don't know—they must have made a mis.
take there.

Mrs. Wright, the mother, said the last witness was her
daughter. She always conducted herself properly.

Cross-examined—l have followed her to see if sho
wont straight home. She did do so. I have given her the
proper advice for a mother to give a child. I never accused
her of keeping bad company. My daughter has no reason
to fear me. I have always been kind to her.
By Mr. Sleigh—My daughter has always conducted her-
self as a most well behaved girl.

By the Judge—When my daughter came home on Sun-
day she had no opportunity of telling me what had taken
place, as her father was there the whole of the time she
was present.

11Ir. Hart, a surgeon, gave evidence to the effect that
the offence had been fully committed, but ho was of opinion
that no great struggling had taken place.
Eliza Carey corroborated the evidence of the prosecutrii
as to the fact of telling her of the conduct of Hailes.

Mr. Sergeant Ballantine then addressed the jury for the
prisoner, and called a number of witnesses, who gave the
prisoner an excellent chararacter for morality.
The jury retired, but had not returned a verdict when we
went to press.

NEW COURT.
(Before the Recorder.)
SHEEP STEALING.

The Kaffir who was taken into custody a short time ago
in Highgate-wood, charged with sheep-stealing and fully
committed for trial, was, this morning, brought up to be
discharged, the grand jury having ignored the bill of in-
dictment.

The man, on being placed at the bar, looked wildly about
him, and appeared to be quite delighted at his position.
The Recorder said the grand jury had agreed to the bill
of indictment, so the Court had no power to detain him.
The Sheriffs had, however, taken up the poor fellow's des-
titute position with a view of sending him back to his own
country, although he had been informed the man had no
wish to leave his present quarters in Newgate, which he
said was very comfortable, a remark which was by no
means common. (Laughter.)

The Kaffir then quitted the Court in company with one
of the warders of tho prison.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE-(THIS DAY.)

MARLBOROUGH-STREET.

SERIOUS INJURY CAUSED EY A DRUNKEN CHILD.—
Charles Bartlett, a boy of between 11 and 12 years of age,
an errand boy, was charged before Mr. Bingham with be-
ing drunk and furiously driving a cart in Piccadilly,
damaging cab 1,752, and also breaking the leg of a cabman
named Robert Aldridge.

Payne, 0 C, put in a certificate signed by the house-
surgeon of St. George's Hospital, stating that the injured
man was an in-patient of the hospital with a fractured leg
Wm. Stockwell, hackney-carriage attendant No. 32, said
he was called the previous afternoon, a little after two, to
stop the boy, who was driving a cart in the Albany, Picca-
dilly, at a sharp rate. He was told to detain him as he had
run over a cabman. The boy was whipping the horse at
the time with the reins, and was standing up in a " see-
sawing" state. He took him to the station.
Rough, 178 C, said he took the injured man Aldridge to
the St. George's Hospital. The proper driver was now in
court.

A carman in the employ of Mr. Leftwich, the ice mer-
chant, the owner of the cart, said the boy only had a glass
of ale with his dinner. He left him outside of a house in
charge of the cart while ho went in, and when he came out
he was gone.

Mr. Bingham said the glass of ale appeared to hare been
too much for him. Mr. Leftwich must be bail for the boy,
who would be remanded for a week to see the result of the
injuries the man had sustained.

The carman said he went to the hospital, and understood
the man was in a fair way, but that he would most likely be
laid up for some weeks.
Remanded.

PERILOUS FEAT,—On Tuesday last, 'when the
final or top-stone, which is carved like a large flower, was
placed on the summit of Christ Church Spiro, at Clifton,
one of the workmen mounted and stood on his head upon
this dizzy point. it was a most nervoas sight to look at
the fellow from the road, as with his legs up i n the air he
beat his feet together.

M.R. BRIGHT AT LIVEROOL.

4.
LIVER.POOL, THURSDAY NIGHT.

• •
The Liverpool Financial Reform Association held a soiree
in the Philharmonic Hall this evening. The spacious hall;
capable of accommodating 3,900 or 4,000 persons, was filled
in every part. Messrs. Cobden and Bright had both been
invited to attend, in order to express their views, upon the
;best means of advancing the objects of the association, but,
as will be teen from the subjoined letter, Mr. Cobden was
prevented by illness from being present on the occasion •
On the platform were Mr. J. Bright, M.P., Mr. J. C.
Ewart, M.P., Mr. Pollard-Urquhart, M.P., Mr. Pilking-
ton, M.P., Mr. George Hadfield, M.P. Mr. Bright was
received on his arrival with loud cheers. The chair was
occupied by Mr. Charles Robertson, in the absence from
severe indisposition of Mr.- Robe4son Gladstone, the pre-
sident of the association.
Letters of apology for unavoidable absence were received
from Mr. Cobden (on account of indisposition), and the
following other members of Payliament :—Lord Fermoy,
Mr. S. Laing, Colonel Sykes, Mr. Caird, Mr. W. J. Fox,
Mr. J. L. Ricardo, Mr. Ayrton, Mr. Scholefield, Mr. Ker-
shaw, Mr. Alcock, Mr. Salt, and Mr. W. Ewart. A com-
munication to the same effect was received from the Earl of
Sefton, Lord-Lieutenant of the county, who stated that he
wished every success to the object of the meeting.
Mr, Cobden's letter, which was addressed to Mr. Robert-
son Gladstone, President of the Liverpool Financial Re-
form Association, was as follows :

" Paris, Nov. 28.

"My dear Sir,—For the last 10 days I have been con-
fined to my bedroom by severe indisposition, originating in
a cold and cough, followed by fever, which has left me in a
state of considerable debility. My medical attendant, who
promises me, with care and caution, a speedy recovery,
warns me that to undertake a journey to Liverpool to ad-
dress a large.public meeting would, in the present state of
my lunga, le almost an act of suicide. I need not assure
you how .deeply I regret to be unable to fulfil my long-
standing promise to be with you en the Ist. Ido not,
however, ask you to release me from my engagement, but
only to allow me to postpone its fulfilment to a future and
I hope earl)? opportunity.
"There never was a moment when I felt greater interest
than at present in the realisation of your society's pro-
gramme for substituting direct for indirect taxation. If I
required an illustration of the importance of your principle,
which 'implies the removal of Custom-house impediments
between nations, I should find it•in the present relations of
England and France.
" While means this periodical visitation, which', • like the
cholera or some other infectious disease, has, every two or,
three years since 1847, caused the panic cry of a French in-
vasion to overspread England, and which at the present
moment. is heard again in tones as loud- and menacing as
ever ? Here am I, with all my children, in the very jaws
of the imaginary monster which has been conjured up to
terrify:my good countrymen, and yet I feel no less safe from
attack or injury of any kind, so long as I refrain from mo-
lesting or wronging others, than if I were residing in Lon-
don or Liverpool. Whence springs the idea of danger which
pervades the public mind at home ? I attribute it mainly to
the want of intercommunication, and the consequent igno-
rance and prejudice which- prevail respecting-the character
and designs of our nearest continental neighbour.
" Here are two of the greatest nations, separated only by
the narrowest strip of ocean, with theft:distinct and proud
annals, their rival traditions, their differences in race, lan-
guage, and religion, all tending to•prodece alienation but
nature, which always works by laws of compensation, has
endowed the two countries with a variety of productions,
and imparted to the population an instinctive desire to sup-
ply each others wants and deficiencies, which, had nature's
laws been allowed their free action, would have brought the
two nations into such constant contact and communication,
and laid them under such mutual dependence, as would
have subdued the merely latent causes of antagonism, and
rendered impossible the present state of hostility and alarm.
But, down almost to the present day, the Governments of
the two countries have devoted their energies to the task of
preventing, as far as possible, any commercial intercourse
between them. The baneful consequences are naturally such
as we behold. Let us hope that legislators will awaken to a
sense of the responsibility which attaches to those who thus
array themselves against the obvious laws of the Creator.
" Meanwhile, your society will, I hope, persevere in its
useful labours, and continue to draw around you the sym-
pathy and co-operation of good men. You are not a political
organisation ; your functions are those of an educator, and
your object is to prepare the public mind for the future ac-
tion of the statesman. The day for the full realisation of
your views may still be remote, but, step by step, we every
year approach nearer to the desired goal. You have only
to persevere in the advocacy of your humane, just, and
peaceful principles, and God will assuredly, in his own
good time, crown your labours with success.
" Believe me, yours very truly,
"RICHARD COBDEN."

After some introductory remarks by the Chairman, the
following address to Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, and General
Thompson was read to the meeting :
" Gentlemen,—We, the council and friends of the Finan-
cial Reform Association, assembled this evening, while ten-
dering to you a warm welcome to Liverpool, take the oppor-
tunity of recording our sincere and grateful acknowledg-
ments for the numerous and important services rendered by
each of you during past years to the cause of public liberty
and good government. Especially do we thank you for the
energy, perseverance, and ability so disinterestedly displayed
in obtaining for the people of the United Kingdom an un-
restricted trade in the great staple article of human food.
Living in one of the chief centres of foreign commerce, we
have had every opportunity for observing the operation of.
Sir R. Peel's free trade measures, and we are.doing only
.the barest justice to those who toiled so long and so ear-
nestly to force that policy on a reluctant Government and.
Parliament in thus recording our conviction that the bene-
ficial effects of these measures have in every respect exceeded
the expectations held out by their nrornoters, and that to
them, under Providence, are we maieily indebted for the in-
ternal peace, good order, general improvement, and compa-
rative prosperity by which these islands have ever since
been honourably distinguished, even while engaged in fo-
reign wars, and when society in neighbouring countries
was shaken to its centre by revolutionary movements. But
now that the system so called of protection has been for-
mally renounded by the Government and the Legislature,
whfr, it maybe asked, are so muanV pretective dutieS still
allowed to remain on our tariff, inflicting', to they admittedly
do, grievous injury on' the public, and exposing us, as n
nation, to tile well-merited reproach of professing the
strongest faith in the great principles of free trade, while,
practically, we are guilty of gross inconsistency or dis-
Unesty in not carrying them out to their legitimate con-
clusion ? In this unworthy position are we, and must re-
main until the protective duties on timber, wine, spirits,
butter, cheese, and numerous manufactured articles. are
swept away. The mission of the. Anti-Corn Law League
is still unfulfilled:

"In our judgment, the time has now arrived when the
'Free Trade questioa must receive a wider application than
has hitherto been accorded to it. While fully admitting
that duties for Protect ion are worse in principle, and usually
more injurious in practice, than those levied merely for re-
venue, we yet believe that in their effects on the foreign
trade of the country theynre, in many respects, identical.
Invented, in times more or less barbarous, when the benefits
of commerce were but little appreciated, they exist alike in
defiance of common justice, common sense; and sound eco-
nomical science. Equally an obstruction to the free ex-
change of commodities, they both operate to restrict pro-:
duction, to diminish consumption,' to limit the area for the
profitable employment of capital and labour, and to deprive
the workman of his natural right to exchange the prOduce
of his labour where he pleases. And while it may be per-
haps, difficult to award to each its due share in this heavy
catalogue of wrongs inflicted on trade and industry, it may'
be safely affirmed that Customs and Excise duties have this
particular aggravation of evil, that they do in effect shift
.the burden of taxation from property to industry, and com-
mit the double injustice of placing obstacles in the way of
trade, by which the demand for, and the wages of, labour
are diminished, and at the same time of imposing on the
labour thus restricted the obligation to pay debts incurred
and to support establishments existing chiefly for the pro-
tection of property.

" They svpear to us,--therefore, unworthy of retention in
any civilized community, and least of all among a people
boasting of their. liberty,. whose wealth and greatness have
sprang from, and are maintained by, manufactures and
trade. We cannot understand the freedom of him who is
forbidden to labour, and to exchange the produce of his
industry in tho world's market, at his own pleasure or con-,
venience; or the policy of limiting the production and sale
of so many most important articles, by artificially increasing
their price, unless the object be to prevent trade from grow-
ing too great,land too valuable, and the community too pros-
perous and powerful. If the relaxation or removal of some
shackles from the limbs of industry has been found so uni-
versally beneficial—and chiefly, be it observed, bythose who
dreaded it most—what incalculable blessings may not be
expected to flow from striking off those which remain ?
What limit shall we set to the progress of civilisation, ma-
terial prosperity, morality, and peace, when commerce shall
go forth among the nations to assuage the woes of poverty,
to give scope for the spread of instruction, and, like a disen-
thralled Hercules, to direct the purifying currents of health-
ful and well-requited labour through the foul haunts of
wretchedness, filth, and sin? We agree with Mr. John
Stuart Mill, in the opinion that ' Commerce. first taught na-
tions to see with goodwill the wealth and prosperity of one
another. Before, the patriot, unless sufficiently advanced
in, culture to feel the world his country, wished all countries
weak, poor, and ill-governed but his own ; he now sees in
their wealth and progress a direct source of wealth and proms
gress to his own country. It is commerce which is rapidly
rendering war obsolete, by strengthening and multiplying
the personal interests which are in natural oppOsition to it.
And it may be said without exaggeration that
the great
ex-
tent and rapid increase of international trade, in being the
principal guarantee of the peace of the world, is the great
permanent security for the uninterrupted progress of the,
ideas, the institutions, and the character of the human race.'

" We contend that it is not only most iNsirable, butper-
fectly practicable, whenever public opinion is matured, to
abolish the present cumbrous, costly, and barbarous sys.,
tern of taxation. Many things apparently far more difficult,
and respecting which men's passions and prejudices were
mush more violently excited, have been in our time happily •
accomplished ; and we firmly believe that there are no
unities in the way of this great change which may not be
. overcome by ordinary courage and resolution. We have the
fullest confidence thatbytherepeal of all taxes on industry,
and the substitution of a system of direct taxation levied in •
some reasonably fair proportion to the means and rt f
prope yo
the taxpayers,' every class of the community, and chiefly the
-wealthy, would- be largely and. while the
presstire ef the publiclrthms swoteilbillybbe"reeifidnitieddeee:d in three
several ways :-1, by increasine• vastly and
of
futirtaetliy the
means to pay. them through unlimited frdedn
m by saving to the community the enormous Cost (4 the wleis'il2,
sale and retail. profits on the duties, and the great expensee
of Ilya Excise and Customs establishments; n, by inducine4-
economy of expenditure, and making the house of Ciotti;
n6ns again in reality what they have long ceased to be,
save in name, stewards of the public purse. -
• 4‘ We hail your presence here to-night, gfMtlemen, as an
assurancs that this great question shall at length receive due
consideration and discussion. We assume, that you agree
with us in thinking that when a certain instalment of free
trade has proved advantageous, it is not fitting that the
completion of the enterprise should be indefinitely post-1
potted, rind nothing be done, because Chancellors of the
Exchequer, in stereotyped phraseology, ' cannot spare the
money,' but that, on the contrary, you are of opinion that
the results of our recent experierwe combine with the de-
ductions of political economy in demonstrating that the surest
and speediest means of increasing the revenue is by remov-
ing every impediment from the perfect freedom of industry
and exchanges ; and that he alone is deserving of the name
of statesman who, disregarding the antiquated traditions ef•
office is prepared boldly to advance in the path marked otit-
by the successful policy of the last 17 years, and to provide
for the requirements Of the public service by taxium Aott4e

proiesses by which wealth is produced, but the wealth
itself, when actually realised by its possessor.
" In this faith and hope we once more bid you gratefully
and heartily welcome to Liverpool."
Mr. Belli:me', whose rising was greeted by veleement
cheering; said—Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemeet,—l
wish I were able in fitting language to make some ansev•er
to the address which has just been presented to me, and
which was also intended, and may be understood, to be pre-
sented to my friends Mr. Cobden and General Thompson;
but I can make no answer to it but this, I.feel most grateful to
the council of this association, and to all present who have
taken part in the presentation of this address. If we have
done anything that is worthy of it, we can only 'endeavour to
repay you by striving to do that in the future which may
not allow you to look back on the proceedings of this even-
ing with regret. I am sorry—more sorry than any one else
in this room, I believe—Gen. Thompson and Mr. Cobden
are not here, for 'I thought I was coming to this hall on this
occasion as an auxiliary, and I find myself in the position of
having a much larger share of labour thrown on me to-
night than I had calculatedupon. However, whether friends
of mine be present or absent, this I can say with a clear
conscience, that I am ready now, as I believe 1 always shall
be as long as health or any power of usefulness is given me,
to co-operate heartily with your association, and with any
association whatever that shall endeavour to carry out in
the legislation of this country those great and noble princi-
ples on which your movement is founded. (Cheers.) There
are many minds so small as to seem only capable of ridiculing
that which is noble ; minds which are unable to comprehend
the grandeur of the scheme which this society offers to the
public ; they cannot understand the simplicity or the eleva-
tion of the purpose which they have set before themselves
in the attempt to abolish custom-houses, and to make the
world, not a number of nations jealous of and dreading each
other, often fighting each other, but rather one vast nation
governed by separate municipalities, but living in perfect,
happiness and harmony together. (Cheers.) Let us endea-
vour to-night to look at this question with the eyes of men
of business and of common sense, with that kind of faculty
which we bring to bear on our own private affairs when we
are considering the course we ought to take. Your associa-
tion proposes to influence Government on two points—first,
as much as possible to confine the Government to an econo-
.mical expenditure ofpublic money ; and, secondly, to confine
them to this simple principle ofjustice, that whatever may be
the amount required to be levied, it shall be levied from the
people in proportion to the property which every man pos-
sesses by reason of the security which the Government gives
him. (Cheers.) I think you will scarcely meet with a
man of ordinary intelligence who will not say at once that
it is fair, in a State where large funds have to be, raised to
carry on the pnrposes of Government, that all should sub-
scribe according to their Means ; and, that being agreed
upon, one would suppose it would not be difficult to arrange
the system by which that end could be arrived at., That
end, however, can only be attained by some plan of what
is called direct taxation, because if you turn to taxes upon
necessary articles of consumption, you will at once discover
'that though the consumption, for example, of bread, but-
ter, beef, cheese, tea, coffee, and sugar is equal to a great
extent in all the families among the people, that is no test
of an equality in the means of those families. The more,
therefore, you fix your taxes on the basis of what you sup-
pose is an equal consumption of taxed articles, the more
you depart necessarily from the principle we have laid down
—namely, that men should pay in proportion to the pro-
perty they possess. Nature has made us all so much alike
that any 20 men dining will eat just about as much as any
20 other men (lining with the same fare before them—(a
larth)—but the 20 men at one table may be worth £lOO,OOO,
or, for aught I know, £1,000,000 a-piece, while the other
20 men may not have more than the ls. 6d. or 2s. which
they will be called upon to pay for their dinner. The _ ,
con-
sumption of taxed articles, then, is no criterion whatever of
the means of particular individuals or families, and can
never be honestly adopted as the rule or measure, of taxa-
tion by those who admit that taxation should be regulated
by the means of the taxpayer. (Cheers.) Well, this does
not look like a very irrational proposition. I dare say,
however, that some newspapers in your town, and no doubt
two or three, perhaps half a dozen, in London, the day
after to-morrow will tell us that it is most irrational and
revolutionary. (A laugh.) Some rich men—but I am
happy to say not many among the trading classes—doubt
the principles we are now upholding, and think it would
be pernicious to the country. Among the landed pro-
prietors, who are always the least informed on these ques-
tions, you find a very strong dread of what you propose.
This arises in some, doubtless, from selfishness, but in
many others purely, I believe, from entire ignorance of the
facts and requirements on which our position is based. I
maintain that the landed gentry of England ought to be
very modest on subjects of this nature. Twenty years ago
an agitation was begun on the Corn Laws by a body of
gentlemen as few as the Council of your association ; and,
while some of those predictions were put forth, some of which
are still almost ringing in our ears, there were some great
men in this country, and at least one duke, who gave the
country full notice that they should leave it if any such
measure as the League advocated was carried. (Laughter.)
In fact, we all expected that if knybody wanted to see a
duke hereafter he would be obliged to go abroad to get a
glimpse of one. (A laugh.) Well, what has happened?
That probably twice as much corn and cattle has come into
this country during the last 13 years as almost anybody
anticipated—amounting, in fact, to something like 20 mil-
lions sterling per annum in value. The dukes are nit
gone, the land is more,valuable than ever it was under Pro-
teclion, the class of farmers is higher, there is more capital
' laid' out upon the land, and millions of your countrymen to
whom the law denied the commonest right of free men, and
who were then suffering periodical starvation of the bitterest
kind, are now living in a degree of comfort to which they
had hitherto been unaccustomed. (Cheers.) Am I not,
then, entitled to say that the landed proprietors, noblemen,
and gentlemen of England—many of them so kind person-
ally, so tinwilling, as I believe, to do an unjust act—on this
great question were wholly mistaken?' (Cheers.) Go a
little further ; when the income-tax was laidon for the pur-
pose of enabling certain considerable changes in the tariff
to be made, there was great dislike to that tax. There are
very good reasons for disliking it apart from that for which
we dislike all taxes—because they take our money. But
many persons dislike it because they did not like the• object
for which• it was imposed—namely, to make approaches in
the direction of Free Trade; and yet everybody knows
who knows anything—(laughter)—there may be people
who know nothing—(laughter)—but if you can find a per-
son who knows anything from his own discovery, from his
own thought, I will undertake to say. he knows that it was
by the imposition of the income-tax that the amendment of
the tariff was mostly done under Sir Robert Peel's Govern-
ment, and that it has been productive not only of very great
advantage to the labouring people and commercial classes
in this country, but that it has actually increased and given
additional security to the riches of the landed proprietors
themselves. (Cheers.) So now this scheme which is put
before the country by your association is ridiculed by some
as an imagination of a luriatic—scOffed 'at by others as a
democratic and revolutionary movement. The time will
tonne when every sensible man in England will admit' that
the carrying out of these great principles has proved to be
an additional step in the salvation of tke poor, and to have
conferred additional blessings, upon those who were fortu-
nate enough to be rich. (Cheers.) But we cannot conceal
from ourselves that there are people who sometimes think
that if you are saying anything for the poor you mean some-
thing ill to the rich. (A laugh.) You cannot make a speech
as I am doing now without being either mistaken, or mis-
represented, or calumniated. A man cannot write a letter
to his constituents without having I don't know how many
newspapers barking at his heels as if he was spreading some
desperate disloyalty through the nation. (Laughter.) I
wrote a letter a few weeks ago to a respectable association
amen.- my constituents in the town of Birmingham, in which
I touched upon the subject of the income-tax, and upon the
pressure of indirect taxation on the labouring population of
this country. Now, if you would allow me I would like to
show you what kind of instructors in political economy some
of these great authorities are. (A laugh.) I said in my letter
what I thought nobody would have been disposed to call in
question, that the Customs and Excise raised more than
£42,000,000 collected upon articles—the great bulk of which
is consumed by' that portion of the population which has
no property but its labour, and no income but its wages
--(cheers)—and which, as might to expected from the
fact just stated, has no voice in Parliament, and is really
without representation in the Government, of the country.
(Cheers.) And I said, further, that a greater proportion of
the heaviest taxation in the world is thrown upon the class
possessing no property but its labour than is the case with
other countries whose system of taxation we are acquainted
with. I said, also, that there is something essentially mean
and singularly cruel in the manner in which the taxes of
this country have been and are still levied. (Cheers.) 'Well,
now the ' most influential newspaper in this country, from
its long-standing, its large circulation, and great means, is
the Times. The Times has written several articles on this
particular letter, and it would be difficult to say which of
them is the most illogical, or the one which most entirely
contradicts what it has said in a hundred others of its articles
on questions of political economy. (A laugh.) But in its
number of the 1 lthof November there occurs this passage •
" It is impossible to say who are not affected by a tax."
Now, that is not the question. The question is, who is af-
fected by a tax ? (A laugh.) The Times, however, says :
" It is impossible to say who are not affected by a tax;
whether it be direct or indirect; whether it be aimed at in-
come or expenditure, whether at one class or another. 'The
employer pays the employed, and he pays them according
to their usual rate of living. If they cannot or will not work
without beer, spirits, and tobacco, or if they willgive their
families tea, coffee, and sugar, he has no choice, but to give
them wages sufficient to provide those luxuries." Now, I
will read this passage as it might be" read with equal logic :
—The employer pays the employed, and he pays them ac-
cording to their usual rate of living. If they cannot or will
not work withour beer, spirits, and tobacco, err if they will
give their families tea, coffee, and sugar, and a carriage and
pair—(laughter) —he has no choice but to give them wages
sufficient tie provide these luxuries. Again, in the same ar-
ticle it is said, " Whether the6s millions is extracted ironic-
diately and nominally; out of the income or out of the ex-
penditure—out of the employer's pocket ore out of the
pocket of the tradesman who supplies the employers, ser-
vants, and workpeople—makes but little difference to the
effect of the taxation on individuals; the incidence or pres-
sure is on all sides." Now, if this were true there could be
no objection whatever, and it. ,would be much the simplest
mode to lay all the taxation it it were possible on the pro-
prietors of the Times—(laughter)--or on the proprietors of
land. The whole, or at least the largest portion of this rea-
soning is a simple mystification, and the conclusion of tke
" the incidence is on all sides." Why, I under-
writer is that somehow or other the £65,000,000 are
andob-
tet:a:l:l„,:nneeloto',,ysait,
that sm alil
fe smallest withdey the ofpoonlittiecaal
will attempt intiatrioideae duties
coffee, sugar, malt, spirits, tobacco, and'those articles whicil
are mostly used by the great body of the people were all re-
pealed to-night, not only would there net be a single la-
bourer in Lancashire whose wages would fall, but I believe
every man's wages would rise, (Cheers.) Now, the man
who wrote this must either be a very ignorant man, which
it would be a great offence to a writer in the Times to assert,
or else he must be, what is much worse, a man of a very
low morality, who thinks he can say anything to a public for
whose intellect he has a sovereign contempt. But another
paper of long-standing and great respectability, the Specta-
tor, in an article certainly not in the least degree offensive
to me, contains reasoning of much the same kind, and I
only said to myself when I read it, " What a declension
from the time when Mr- Itintoul conducted the Spectator to
the gentleman, whoever he may be, who now manages its

economical department." (A laugh.) But the Spectator
says, howsoever taxes are imposed they are borne in some-
thing like an eqtial percentage by the entire body. of the
producing and consuming classes, whatever their incomes
may be. • Well, just such stuff as that• was talked twenty
years ago about corn; it was always-urged, in opposi-
tion. to General ThompsOn's illustration that though the
corn laws made bread dearer and scarcer, somehow every-
thing else was dearer in proportion, and thus by a gene-
ral' shuffing of the cards, combined with the effect of
the exchanges, nobody was' injured, but was in fact a
great deal better off in consequence. (Laughter and cheers.)
Another newspaper, of great authority on these questions,
has now taken uet this matter and treated it with gravity.
1 refer to the Economist, which. on the 19th of November,
says, " That the higher classes bear the cost of meeting the
sudden emergencies of the country, so far as that cost is
met by taxation and not by loans.' Now, when it is said
that the war taxation is chiefly paid by the "higher classes,"
and that the lower classes in comparison scarcely pay at
all, this circumstance should be borne in mind in estimat-
ing the respective burdens of poor and rich in times of peace
—viz., that the. taxes ordinary and extraordinary must be
considered together. The Economist, however, does not
seem to remember that the 28 or 29 millions a-year paid for
the national debt is any portion of the grinding taxation of
war ; the writer alludes merely to the fact that when the'
Russian war broke out an increased income tax was im-
posed, but does he not know that at the same time in the
very same session the descending duties on tea and sugar
were arrested by a special act of Parliament ; that at the
conclusion of the war the very first thing the Legislature
did was to repeal the war income tax, while they have left
the war tea and sugar duties till this moment ? To show
that I have no, bad authority for what I state, I go back to
the Economist itself. In its issue of the 18th of November,
1858, the writer there says, that "one of the chief aims of
Sir R. Peel's policy was to re-adjust, on wise principles,
the taxation of the country, lightening the pressure upon
labour, and increasing the charge upon property." How
far have those principles been acted upon of late ? What
'is the present tendency of Parliament in reference to taxa-
tion ? The reverse of that which was established by Sir R.
Peel. Every step that is taken is in the direction of relief
to property; at least 40 out of 50 millions are raised from
indirect taxes. The war income tax was repealed nearly two
years ago; two millions more of permanent income tax
have been given up in the present year. The war tea and
sugar duties still exist. So far from the financial policy of
Sir Robert Peel being extended, the House of Commons is•
deliberately engaged in reversing it by abandoning the in-
strument by which it can alone be maintained or extended.
(Cheers.) Only one more extract, and I have done for the
present with our friends of the press. The Times of the 23d
November, referring to my having stated that there was
something essentially mean and singularly cruel in the way
in which the taxation of this country has been and still is
levied, remarks that " a more mischievous untruth was
never uttered by a public man in a free country,l and then
they go on to observe, "When this letter first appeared we
remarked upon its mischieVous character, and its obviously
dangerous tendency also naturally attracted the attention of
official persons. Some calculations have consequently been
made, and their results were printed in the Economist, from
which we yesterday transferred them to our columns."
Now, will the meeting believe that, although this writer
says these calculations were made inconsequence of the dan-
gerous nature of my statements a fortnight before having
been brought to the notice of official authorities, these very.
calculations were actually printed iu the Economist on the
15th January last ? , (Cheers.) So far as this matter of fact
goes, the whole theory of the Times about the anxiety of,
official persons relative to the dangerous nature of these
statements, and to the necessity for calculations to be made!
to disabuse the public mind, is merely something this autho-
ritative writer has imagined or fabricated, there not being;
the slightest foundation in truth for it ;' and, after reading the?
quotation L have just made from the Economist, I may men-
tion that the Times dare say that " The whole tendency of
financial legislation, from the time of Sir R. Peel to the pre-,
sent day, has been to decrease the pressure upon the indus-
trial classes and place the weight of taxation on property."'
Now, I have shown you that the Economist says exactly op-
posite to that. It does appear that about a year ago the
authorities of the Inland Revenue gave to the Chancellor
of the Exchequer some calculations to show how much
the upper, the middle, and the lower classes consumed
of the articles'of tea and sugar, and the result was this—
that of sugar the upper classes consumed 221 per cent.—
that is, out of. every 1001 b. confirmed in the country the
upper classes consumed 221 b. ; the middle des es 38 per
cent., and the poorer classes 393 ; of the article of tea, the
upper classes consumed 171 per cent., the middle classes 38
per cent.. the working or poorer classes 441 per cent. Well,
we don't know at all how this calculation was made, or the
principle on which it proceeded, and therefore I cannot
exactly say whether it is right or wrong ; but, taking their
own figures, let us put them to the teat :—The upper classes,
according to this calculation, pay in the shape of tea duties
£992,000; the middle classes, £2,000,000; and the poorer
classes, £2,345,000; the total amount being £5,200,000 and
upwards. Of the sugar duties the proportions contributed
are £1,345,000 by the richer classes, £2,227,000 by the middle
classes, and £2,369,000 by the poorer classes. Of the to-
bacco duties, the respective contributions are—from the
richer classes, £956,000; the middle classes, £2,076,000;
and the poorer classes, £2,431,000. Taking these three
articles together on this calculation the rich pay £3,224,000,
the middle classes £6,351,000, and the poorer classes
£7,139,000. Now, of the whole Customs and Excise, which
amount to £42,000,000 and upwards, the proportions,
according to the same scale, are—for the upper classes,
£7,350,000; middling classes,' £15,960,000; poorer classes,
£18,960,000. But you must bear in mind that whatever be
the consumption of the richer classes, especially of what is
called the upper classes, that far more than one-half of it is
consumed, not by what is called "the family," but by the
servants who minister to their wants, and I take it for
granted that whatever is contributed to their maintenance
in their houses represents wages. This maintenance must
be reckoned as wages for services, and my Lord This or Mr.
Somebody who may have 20 or 30 servants in his household
is Rot to put down to his family expenditure all the taxes
paid upon articles consumed by those whose services he
pays for partly in food and lodging and partly in money
wages. (Cheers.) And if it were possible by any calcula-
tion to withdraw these large items from what the rich are
said to consume it would show, no doubt, that upon this
calculation my statement as to the proportion of taxation
paid by the working classes of this country would be fully
substantiated in every figure., (Cheers.) But new I will
show reasons why these calculations cannot be correct:
Take the article of sugar, for instance. The Protectionists
used to say that sugar enough came into the country, and
that anybody could have 'it who could pay for it; which,
of course, was a very pleasant thing for those who had
money enough in their pockets—(a laugh)—but what has
been the ,}emit ? In 1833 our consumption of sugar was
4,000,000 cwt.;-whereas in 1859 it was 9,000,000 ewe. Well,
who has consumed all that extra quantity ? Were the
richer classes in 1838 stinted of sugar ? )Vas it not on their
tables mbruing and evening for their tea and their coffee,
and to sweeten all their delicacies? Did any of you dine
with a wealthy man and find the mistress of the house lag-
gardly with her sugar ? (A laugh,) The conclusion is ine-
vitable, that this enormous increase must have been mainly
consumed by those vast cial.ses of the people who, under
your old system of protection to the colonies, were almost
wholly debarred from the use of that most necessary and
most wholesome article of food. Again, take the case of
tea. In 1838' our consumption was 38,000,0001 b. ;' in 1857,
the last year for which I have the return, the consumption
had grown to 69,000,0001 b. ; so the game argument applies
here aiso. Into whose cupboards has this increased quan-
tity of tea gone ? Surely not into those of the lords and gen-
tlemen supposed to constitute the upper classes. Again,
coming to the article of tobacco. In 1843 the consumption
was 22,000,0001 b. of the unmanufactured article. Now, the
upper classes don't often smoke short pipes. (A laugh.)
They use Havannahs at from 30s. to 60s. the lb. Unmanu-
factured tobacco is mainly used by those whom for want of
a very apt definition we term the common people of this
country, but I should like to know where the middle class
begins and where it ends. I have stated that we have re-
ceived nearly £20,000,000 in annual value of corn and cat-
tle. Does anybody suppose that that increased importation
ond. consumption has gone into the larders of the rich ?
' All this enormous increase of consumption, caused by the re-
moval of prohibitions, the extension of trade, and the doub-
ling of our exports, proves to my mind that the calculations
which have been made_for the Chancellor of the Exchequer
are not to be relied upon, and that the statement which I
made in my letter is substantially correct. But let us now
look at the line which has been drawn between the middle
and the working classes. An attempt has been made to set
up the middle class as a sort of squire to the knight of the
upper class. It is to fight for the upper class against the
working class. Such wits the tone taken by Mr. Disraeli
and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton in the debates last session
on Parliamentary Reform. Let us see where the middle
class ends and where the working class begins. Two gea-
r tlemen I have named assumed that under the Reform Act
of 1832 the middle class is represented ; they admitted that
the working class is not. If the franchise stops at £lO and
includes the whole middle class, it follows that those who
occupy houses below £lO belong not to the middle and
upper classes, but to the working class. Now, 'Mr. New-
march, the Secretary of the Statistical Society, who has
paid profound attention to this subject, says that in England
and Wales 60 families out of every 100 live in houses under
the value of £6 • 15in houses between £6 and £lO, and 25
in houses above the value of £lO. 'lt thus appears that 75
per cent. of the; population live in houses under the value of
£lO, and only 25 per cent. in houses above the value of £lO.
Had Mr. Newmarch taken Scotland and Ireland into his
calculation he would have found that 80 families out of
every 100 live in houses under the value of £lO. If that be
so, and I have no doubt ofit-myself, no sensible man can
come to the conclusion that 80 per cent. of the population
do not consume more of all those heavily taxed articles of
food which I -have mentioned than the remaining 20 per
cent. No fewer than 24,000,000 of pecple live in houses
under the value of £lO, and only 6,000,000 occupy houses
above that value. Will any man, with the slightest knoW-
ledge or the slightest power of reasoning, pretend to say
that 21,000,000 people do not consume more tea,
sugar, and other similar articles than 6,ooo,ooo—even cre-
diting the latter with the consumption of those servants who
live in their houses and minister totheir wants ? The bur-
den arising from direct taxes upon articles of first necessity
imposed upon individual families belonging to the working
class is very considerable. A friend recently ascertained for
me what was the consumption of those articles by the fend-
lies of 18 of his workmen, who are of•the very elite of the
working class in Lancashire, intelligent, living in excellent
houses, above thd average in many respects, and earning
about 355. per week each. As proof of their superiority, I
may state that their consumption of beer, spirits, and tobacco
is very small Indeed. The .mount expended on those articles
must be considerably larger in families whose incomes are
much less, yet the result of the inquiry showed that the in-
direct taxes which those 18 workmen paid upon tea, coffee,
sugar, ale, spirits, and tobacco rmounted to from ls. 3d. to
ls. 6d. in the pound. In the case of nine of them, whose
wages were only 245. per week, the payments amounted to
Ii40:8?On the pound, or 81 per cent. upon their whole earn-
ings. Many articles of consumption are left out of these
calculations, which, perhar s, ought to be included, such as
periodical failures in the demand for labour ; but yet it
shows how severely our system of indirect taxation presses
upon men who have toirevery day-and hour of their lives,
and whose condition at the best is one of small comfort and
much privation. Is it not fitting, I ask, that we, the more
fortunate middle •and upper classes,' should say to our
rulers that wo are willing to contribute to the necessary
c ot
theh ne slfeirntettel
little
oec
lannielyfo
rlt ati
trade,
e\h‘
il
and
edhci hl
ay
allowvl
orarli
ci(lctnhhi
expenses of the State, but that henceforth wo shall never
eene poseg
nitras
ax.)n- g
cans tle
ush t
er ir
ec
rt i ot ne s
eus upon
sbtyathedis iinadrausy-
trey securetteri f°
at ourr his family?
system of taxation was mean and
singularly cruel. I have no objection to retract that ex-
pression, so far as it refers to those supporters of the system
who are ignorant of its consequences and who fear the
change which we propose. Ido not think so badly of any
class of my countrymen as to suppose that if they know at
all the facts of the case, if they had so thoroughly examined
the natter as the gentlemen around me have done, they
would net for a moment continuo a system whichcan be de-
monstrated to be most unwise, and especially injurious to
the great body of the working people. (Hear, hear.) What
is the change we propose ? lam not about recommend
that the Chamellot of the Exchequer should karuediately