The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-30 00:00:00

disappointment and distrust which you will create in the
country. (Cheers.) I must do the right hon. gentleman
the justice to say that on ether occasions, when he has him-
self so strongly and so passionately advocated the remission
of these war duties—when he has said that they affected the
happiness of millions of homes, he was influenced by proper
feelings. To-night, however, he has taken refuge in sophis-
tical evasions. He has intimated to us that there is a mode
by -which the war duties on tea and sugar may be remitted.
" You may retrench," says the right hon. gentleman,
"your expenditure." This country, as we were told by an
hon. member the other night, is suffering froth profligate ex-
penditure, and if the right hon. gentleman did not himself
use the phrase he cheered the epithet, and afterwards, in
his reply, enlarged and expatiated n,n the sentiment. Now,
it is right to ask for a frank declaration from the right hon.
gentleman on this subject. We heard a great deal last year
about a gigantic innovation, but to my mind there is no in •
novation so gigantic as a Chancellor of the Exchequer de-
nouncing as profligate the expenditure for which he is sup-
plying at the same time the ways and means. (Cheers.) I
think the Chancellor of the Exchequer owes to the house on
this subject an explanation which he has avoided giving to-
night. If he believes the expenditure to be impolitic, to use
the mildest term, on what principle can he vindicate his
sitting on that bench ? (Cheers.) I have asked men of all
parties, the simple and plain, and men of refined intelligence,
for an explanation, but they have all been perplexed by a
mystery of conduct that is unparalleled in the history of
this country. (Hear, hear.) But the right hon. gentleman
does more. He insinuates that the Government, as well as
himself, are recommending and pursuing an expenditure
that is contrary to their conviction of public necessity. It
is some one or other, some unknown but irresistible force,
that urges them on. Sometimes it appears to be the coun-
try, sometimes the house, but never the Ministry. (Cheers.)
Now, is it the fact that the country is ungovernable and
irrational on this point ? The Chancellor of the Exchequer
has given this explanation more than once. He wrote some
months ago to some one who complained to him of the in-
come-tax, and said "It is your fault. You go about agitat-
ing the country, and you must pay for it." Now is that true?
Are there any public meetings in favour of expenditure ?
I believe there is in the country a calm confidence and con-
viction that any Government which calls upon the country
for sacrifices ought to be supported. Perhaps the right hon.
, gentleman may refer to the volunteer movement as au evi-
dence of the national irrationality. I should, however, draw
from that noble ebullition of patriotis u an indication of a
very different character. (Hear, hear.) I should recog-
nise in that movement a desire on their part to assist the
Government in placing the country in the commanding
position it ought t 3 occupy with as littlo cost and pressure
upon the industrious part of the community as possible.
(Hear.) It is neither just nor true, therefore, to say that it
is an irrational country that has forced on this expenditure.
Well, is it the house ? Let us look to the facts. At the
end of the year 1859 the right hon. gentleman the member
for Stroud, who has addressed us to-night with such sus-
tained and varied ability on the whole of this financial ques-
tion—(hear)—brought before the house a proposition for an
address to the Crown, I think, that considerable sums
should be laid out in providing for the necessary defence of
the country. The Government disapproved that proposi-
tion, and on a division defeated the right hon. gentleman
by a large majority. Next year the Government, after
more extended observation, arrived at the conclusion that
the right hon. gentleman was right, and they brought for-
ward a proposal for fortifications on a large scale. The
Government then carried the scheme that they had rejected
by a majority. Well, it is not the country or the house
that forces on this profligate expenditure. Who is it, then?
It is not difficult to point out the author of the expendi;
Lure, and I believe that in acting as he has done he has been
governed by a high sense of duty, and that he does not
shrink from the responsibility of the course he has pursued.
No doubt it is the Prime Minister of England. (Hear,
hear.) In repeated speeches in this house, and in ad-
dresses to his countrymen out of doors, he has never con-
cealed his opinion that the present position of public
affairs was such that it was the duty of the Chief Minister
of the Crown to call on the country to make those exertions
and endure those sacrifices. (Cheers.) But the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, indulging in one of those unwise taunts
which he sometimes conveys, talked about the gossip in the
speech of the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Horsman) on the
subject of Cabinet divisions. Lord I Sir, we need not
maunder about in ante-chambers to discover differences in
the Cabinet—(cheers)—when we have a patriotic Minister
appealing to the spirit of the eountry, telling it that it must
be prepared to defend itself against aggressive ambition,
and to show Europe that we are determined to maintain
our rights, and when, at the same time, we find the Chan•
cellor of the Exchequer, whose duty it is to supply the
Ways and Means by which those exertions are to be sup-
ported, proposing votes with innuendo, and recommending
expenditure in a whispered invective. (Cheers.) Don't tell
me that there are not misunderstandings is the Cabinet--
that the right hon. gentlemen and noble lords who compose
it are all of the same opinion—when on that most important
subject, the expenditure of the country, which affects every
branch of policy, there is between two of the most eminent
Ministers of the Crown—ono the Prime Minister and the
other the Chancellor of the Exchequer, such difference and
discordancy. (Cheers.) There is only one other point I will
touch upon, and that is a subject which I think of late years
has been unnecessarily introduced into our debates; but
still it has been introduced, and I know enough of the
House of Commons to be convinced that, when a subject
has been introduced and touched upon by men of great in-
fluence and authority, and when it fills the public mind, it
is worse than useless to attempt to avoid it. That subject
is the influence upon the condition of the Government
which any vote in Committee of Ways and Means may
produce if contrary to some details of the measures which
they now have introduced to us. I think this is a subject
upon which it becomes the House of Commons to acquire
as accurate and as clear a conception of the public duty of
public men as they well can. Power is a possession which
ought not to be lightly accepted, and which, to my mind,
ought not to be lightly relinquished. (Hear.) To accept
or to relinquish it involves the fulfilment of a very grave
duty to our• Sovereign, whom we embarrass very often
by such conduct, and to our country, whose condition
must always to a certain degree be affected in such a case.
(Hear, hear.) If, indeed, the House of Commons, directly
or indirectly, expresses a want of confidence in an Adminis-
tration, my opinion is the sooner they quit the helm of
affairs the better, for though, under certain circumstances,
that may entail great public inconvenience, there is no pub-
lic inconvenience, as there can be no public injury, equal to
their continuing in a responsible position when they have
lost the 'confidence of those to whom they are responsible.
(Hear.) Generally speaking, a Minister must deeply reflect
before he relinquishes the trust which he bas accepted.
Nothing can be more unwise, nothing more pernicious to
himself—if that limited consideration is to have any influ-
ence—nothing can be wore generally injurious to public
men t ran that their country should find that in taking such
a course as either the acceptance or abdication of power
they are animated by private and personal motives, but par

titularly by personal pique. (Hear, hear.) When a Mini-
ster finds that in a time of great public abstraction Lind
anxiety his foreign policy has not been challenged or criti-
eised--eertainly not by the Opposition; when he finds that
with regard to our internal affairs large claims have been
made upon the confidence of the representatives of the
people, and that they have not hesitated cordially and gene-
rously to vote every supply, though of an unprecedented
amount in time of peace, which they have been asked to
grant t) the Crown ; when that Minister cannot lay his
fingers upon a single public act of this session in which any
principle of importance is involved which the house and
those who formally oppose him here have successfully re-
sisted—it would be a very strange thing that a Minister so
favoured and supported should come forward to challenge
the most precious privilege of the House of Commons.
(Hear.) When a Minister is prepared to make a remission
of taxation it has ever been held to be the most precious
privilege of the House of Commons to give their advice as
to the mode in which that remission should be distributed.
(Hear, hear.) To say that a Minister should, because the

House of Commons differed from him on a point involving
the distribution of a surplus for the relief of their' constitu-
ents and the great body of the people—for him to take such
an occasion to quarrel with the house, or even to desert the
service of the Soverei= n, is in my mind a highly unconsti-
tutional proceeding. (Hear, hear.) It has always been laid
down by the most eminent writers, it has always been held
by our most eminent statesmen and orators, that if there be
an unquestioned privilege in this house it is that of advis-
ing the Minister with impunity as to the distribution of
any remission of taxes. (Hear, hear.) We heard last year
a great deal of an assault upon the privileges of the House
of Commons, upon which I will not now dwell, because
there will be other opportunities to treat that subject
if necessary. But there never was under these circum
et races an assault upon the privileges of the House of Com-
mons so great as would be perpetrated by that minister who
denied to us the privilege of advising how the surplus of

taxation should be distributed. (Hear.) But it may be
said, " This perhaps is an unfortunate occasion on which
to found the change either of a ministry or of a Parliament ;
but it may be an opportunity which a minister is justified
in taking if he finds himself embarrassed by a powerful and
aggressive opposition." But is that the position of the
noble lord ? (Hear.) Ido not mean to say that we who
sit on this side of the table may not have our own private
opinion of the manner in which we were expelled from those,
(the ministerial) benches. (Hear.) But no one has ever
heard a murmur from us on the suiject. (Hear.) !No one
has ever found us whimpering here over our personal losses
and grievances. (Hear.) On the contrary, I knew very
well (for I ventured to predict it) that-when the noble lord
moved the resolution which has been described but recently
by one of the most eminent and influential supporters of
the Government as a great mistake, it would lead him and

his friends into a plition of great embarrassment and

humiliation. (Hear.) I never hesitated fur a moment,
however, in giving to the noble lord when he took that

course, credit for the most honourable feelings. I thought
that he tnistcok the temper of the country, and would find

out he had mistaken it; but I had no doubt that in bring •

ing forward his resolution he acted iu all sincerity and in

no other spirit than that of a noble and a justifiable ambi-
tion. (Hear, and a laugh.) When the noble lord next
session had to relinquish his bill, no taunt reached him
from these benches, because I thought that noble lord ftrAcl
-the Ooverumeut iu taking the owe were actuated liy Kll-