The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-16 00:00:00

interez,t, he could not help recollecting that bythe tax of Is
per quarter on corn they already enjoyed a virtual protec-
tion of £2,000,000 or £3,000,000, which it would be well for
the community to abolish altogether.
Mr. LONG believed, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer
knew a little better the extremity of distress which the bad
harvest had inflicted on a large and deserving portion of the
community in the agricultural districts, he would not have
smiled as he did when the hon. member for Cambridgeshire
suggested some measure for their relief. He should be glad
to obtain from him a practical expression of sympathy in the
repeal of the hop duty.
Sir J. PAXTON highly approved the repeal of the
paper ditties. There was a large consumption of paper in
Coventry, and great advantage would arise from the remise
sion of the duty among his constituents. He thought the
Chancellor of the Exchequer had very much understated
the productiveness of the revenue next year. There were
only two causes which could interfere with it—the possi-
bility of another bad harvest, which he trusted a kind Pro-
vidence would avert, and our being drifted into a war which
ho hoped the good sense of the country would take care to
avoid.

•
Mr. BENTINCK did not participate in the surprise
which had been expressed by some of his hon. friends that
the Chancellor of the Exchequer had done nothing for the
agricultural interest. Since, in 1846, the right hon. gen-
tleman seceded from the party which was more particularly
connected with the agricultural interest, he had done his
best to show that, however great might be the zeal of the
convert, it was far exceeded by the bitterness of the apos-
tate. (Hear, hear.) The hon. member for the W est Riding
talked of a protection of between £2,ooo,oooand £3,000,000
as enjoyed by the agricultural interest, but he should like
to know whence it came, as the actual produce of the tax of
ls. per qr. on corn amounted to only £BOO,OOO. As the hon.
gentleman was disposed to open the question as to the
amount of protection enjoyed by the agricultural interest,
he begged to say that he believed it would be found that
the balance at present was greatly in favour of commercial
industry.
Mr. CROSSLEY explained that, if Is. per quarter were
levied on corn imported, the same duty 'should apply to all
corn grown, and then £2,000,000 would come in.
Mr. MALINS felt great satisfaction that the Chancellor
of the Exchequer had been enabled to reduce the income
tax, and he took the reduction of ld. in the pound as an
earnest of the necessity of getting rid of it at the earliest
opportunity. From the pledge the right hon. gentleman
gave in 1853, that the tax should terminate in 1860, he was
bound to take it off at the earliest period. The advocates
of the repeal of the paper duty raised the claptrap cry that
it was a tax on knowledge, but it was a duty very insigni-
ficant in amount. He admitted that there was at one time
a strong feeling in favour of the reduction of the duty in
that house, but the majority gradually dwindled down, till
at last it only amounted to nine. (Hear.) The country
would be suprised, after such a division, and after what had
occurred last year in another place, where a course was
pursued that gave the greatest satisfaction to the country,
at the decision which the Government bad arrived at. The
Prime Minister came down to the house, after the bill for
the repeal of the paper duty was thrown out in another
place, and expressed himself with great moderation on the
subject. The Chancellor of the Exchequer took a different
view from himsof the question, and spoke in strong terms,
and at least one of his colleagues participated in his views.
He (Mr. Malins) could understand, therefore, that there
had been a great contest between the right hen, gentleman
and some of his colleagues on the subject. The right hon.
gentleman seemed to have carried the day, and accordingly
the duty was to be taken of. At the same time, though he
regretted that the right hon. gentleman had selected this
particular duty for remission instead of the hop duty, yet,
as he had done so, and as the remission of the paper duty
would*get rid of a very troublesome question, he, -for his
part, would offer no further opposition to it. (Laughter.)
He hoped, considering the troublesome nature of the ques-
tion, and that the repeal of the duty would be satisfactory
to a large proportion of the community, that the house
would not stand in opposition to the Government.
Mr. NORRIS said the hon, and learned member for
Wallingford spoke of the paper duty as a very insignificant
tax—but he wished to state that every time the hon. and
learned gentleman gave a sovereign .to any education in-
stitution for the purchase of books 6s. Bd. of it—a sum with
which he was, no doubt, familiar—(a laugh)—went as a
tax to the Government. (Hear, hear.)
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER acknow-
ledged the great candour with which hon. members had
spoken of his financial statement. He wished to say a word
or two to what had fallen from several hon. members, and
among others from the noble lord the member for Stamford.
The noble lord misunderstood some expressions that fell
from him on the subject of the expenditure of the country,
and said he had no right to discredit the estimates, for
which he was responsible. Now, he had made no reference
to the present estimates. (Hear.) He spoke of the great
expenditure of the country in the past, and deprecated
large and unnecessary expenditure in the future. He had
spoken, in short, retrospectively and prospectively. (Hear.)
No one would be more ready than himself to acknowledge
that it would be cowardly and contemptible for a Minister,
especially a Minister of Finance, to attempt to shift from
himself the resn...ihnity or the estimates passed 'lacier his
auspices ; and certainly he had no such intention. (Hear,
hear.) The hon. member for Kendal had referred to the
debt incurred by Greece to the three protecting Powers.
He wished to say on the point that Greece was now ready
to pay the sum of £12,000 a-year to this country as interest
on the loan. (Hear, hear.) The Commissioners who had
reported on the subject stated, if he recollected rightly, that
Greece was now able to discharge in full her obligations to
the three Powers, and he confessed he thought it would be
for the benefit of that country if she were to pay her debts
rather than apply the money to some purposes to which he
feared it was applied. (Hear, hear.) In accepting the
quota of £12,000 from Greece, he begged to say that that
implied no surrender of our right to demand at any proper
time a larger payment of the amount she owed us. (Hear,
hear.) The hon. member for Dumfries spoke of our new
copper coinage, and complained that it was not so small as
that of France, The difference between the copper coinage
of the two countries was, however, very small, and the
mixture of the metal was almost exactly the same in both.
He wished to state to the house what he regarded as a
rather curious circumstance. The Mint had been hard at
work for a considerable time, and up to the last account
sent to him about 30,000,000 of pieces of copper money
had been sent out ; but the whole of that mass of copper
had been added to the circulation of the country with-
out a single old copper piece being returned. (Hear.)
As to the subject of the penny on packages inwards, he
could not defend the charge as it now worked, and admitted
there was evidence of the trouble and inconvenience caused
by it. Whether those inconveniences could be removed or
not he would not now give an opinion ; but, if they could
not, it might be desirable, when Parliament had the means,
to reconsider that subject with a view to the remission of
the tax. With respect to the comparison, that had been
made between the remission of the paper duties and that
upon tea and sugar, he must observe that, although those
were subjects in pari materia, they were not equal in ex-
tent of revenue. In giving up £670,000 upon paper, he
had given the extreme of what he thought was likely to be
the balance at his command, but the reduction of the duty
upon tea to Is. 2d. per lb., to say nothing of that upon
sugar, would, according to the estimates of the Customs,
entail a loss of £850,000. The hon. member for Norfolk
had made a remark which he (the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer) had heard without the least irritation, that he had
always been a bitter enemy to the agriculturists. But,
although he had not been angered by the observation, he
could not help feeling surprised that a member of Parlia-
ment should have made such a charge, especially as the
lapse of years might have been expected to allay all ex-
treme feelings, such as prevailed in former times. He
might differ from the hon. gentleman as to the best mode
of serving the agricultural interest, but he had a conscien-
tious belief that the removal of the paper duty would be of
the highest benefit to rural districts. (Hear, hear.) He
had been asked whether he had ever considered the possi-
bility of levying a penny tax upon railway tickets, which
one hon. gentleman seemed to think would prove a substi-
tute for the malt-tax and other duties. He had frequently
considered the subject, as he was daily receiving sugges-
tions of such a tax; but he could not see his way to deal
safely with them, and he could not but regard such a tax
as a most unjust ono. (Hear, hear.) Even if it were
adopted it would not produce one•sixth of the present
amount of the malt duties. In conclusion, he thanked the
committee for the patient hearing it had accorded him, and
especially the hon. and learned member for Wallingford,
whose candid declaration would, he trusted, be the har.
binger of a harmonious settlement of a vexed question,
(Hear, hear.)
Mr. BENTINCK assured the right hon. gentleman that
the remark which he had male, and to which the right
hon. gentleman had referred, was made without irritation ;
but when he expressed surprise that the lapse of time had
not allayed passions which existed at a particular time he
adopted a singular and untenable ground. He (Mr. Ben-
tinck) had ventured to say that it was impossible to expect
anything favourable to the agricultural interest from the
right hon. gentleman, whose public and financial career
since the period alluded to had been one of unvaried hos-
tility towards that interest. (" No I") Hon. gentlemen
might cry "No," but he would like them to justify their
denial by arguments.

Mr. CAIRD denied the right of the hon. gentleman to
constitute himself the sole representative of the agricultural
interest. As himself representing a constituency largelyin-
terested in agriculture, he felt bound to say that the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, following up the policy of the late
Sir R. Peel, had done more to promote agricultural pros-
perity than any one else. (Hear.) Even taking the price of
corn as a test, if the prices for 10 years before the abolition
of the protective duties were compared with the prices for
10 years succeeding, it would be found that there had been
very little difference; but the real benefit to the agricultu-
ral interest had been the enlargement of trade and the en-
couragement of every other kind of agricultural produce,
which had led to the present state of prosperity among that
class. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. BUTT reminded the committee that when a motion
was made, about 10 years ago, for a committee to inquire
iut9 the §iibicct 2f agricultural cli§trosi the ChauccU9r