The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-26 00:00:00

this explanation concerning the Chinese indemnity to be
made by my right hon. friend, but, as the right hon.
gentleman requested me to say something on the subject, I
can state conscientiously that, in my belief, this is not an
over-estimate of the money which will be received from
China during the present financial year. (Hear, hear.) The
hon. baronet (Sir S. Northcoto) spoke of the gloomy pros-
pects of the country in reference to its import and export
trade, telling us that it was not right to calculate upon a full.
Exchequer, seeing the decline which had taken place in our
exports and imports. He stated very, accurately the amount
of our exports in the first two months of the present year,
and said that during that period they fell short of the ex-
poi ts for the corresponding months of 1860 by £3,370,000,
or 16 per cent. But we have now a return made up to the
close of the month of March, making three months, and I
find that there is a remarkable recovery in this third month.
(Hear, hear.) Although there is still a decrease in the value
of our exports during the first three months of this year as
core pared with' 1860, the comparison is not now so unfavour-
able as before. Instead of a falling off of £3,370,000, or 1G
per cent., as in the first two months of the year, the diminu-
tion for the three months is £2,612,000, or 9 per cent. (hear,
hear) ; the total value of exports being £'27,669,000 in 1861
against £30,481,000 in 1860. There is also this satisfactory
statement to be made besides—that last march, as compared.
with March, 1860, shows an increase in the declared value
of our capoi'ts of £557,000. (Hear, hear.) There can be
no doubt that at the commencement of this year there was
not that activity of' trade which we could desire. Various
causes had contributed to that result—the severity of the
winter prolonged far into this year, the state of affairs in
the united States, and the falling off of our trade with Bri-
tish India, contributed to it; but there was a marked re-
covery in the last month, and it is not fair to assume that
that diminution of our exports which the hon. baronet.
truly stated took place during the first two months of the
year is to be a criterion of what the exports will be during
the whole of the year. (Cheers.) In the first two months
of 1860 a much larger proportion of the imports of th
year took place than is usual. In that year they were
21 per cent. of the imports of the whole year, while ii
former years the average of those two months was only
19 per cent. (Hear, hear.) So that it is not altogether
fair to compare the imports of the first two months o
this year with the imports of the first two months of
last year, which were out of the usual proportions. (Hear.
hear.) Ido not find anything in the shipping returns to
justify gloomy forebodings as to the trade of the present
year. They show an increase in the first three months or
the present year both of British and foreign tonnage as
compared withlB6o. The total tonnage entered and cleared
outwards with cargoes in the first three months of 1861 is
4,299,027 tons as against 3,914,643 tong in the same time in
1860. The British tonnage was 2,533,511 tons for 1861, and
2,450,150 tons for 1860. So that there is an increase this
year both of ail shipping freighted with cargoes in and out
and of British shipping in particular. (Hear.) These are
reasons for not taking a gloomy view of the probable re-
ceipts from our various sources of revenue for the coming
year. (Hear.) Ido not deny that a flourishing state of
trade is the general forerunner of a full Exchequer. I quite
admit that it is fair not to take too sanguine a view of the
probable yield of our various taxes if we ace reason for sup-
posing that our great brenches of industry may be affected
withinjtuihoeursly. Majesty'sßu But all
Government,
mconsiderations
h thehav ehadight
departments
concerned in drawing up the estimates of the probable yield
of the taxes for the present financial year. (Cheer's.) With
regard to the various alternatives, there is one which I ee
not think any hon. gentleman has proposed, and that is that
the Government, having a charge of £69,000,000 to provide
for, should ask the House of Commons to.give them some-
thing like £72,000,000 for the purpose. (Hear.) What.
would the House of Commons have said to such a proposal!
Could we honestly—to use a vulgar phrase—have sweated
down the surplus, and have come here with a lame story
that there was no surplus, so as to save ourselves the trouble
and difficulty of repealing taxes, which appears to me much
more embarrassing than putting them on. The Government
would do nothing of the kind ; but, honestly believing that
the present taxes if all renewed would give a surplus of reve-
nue over expenditure, they have proposed a budget founded
on thoselprinciples embodying such remissions as on the whole
they believed to be most beneficial to the country. (Hear.) If
we had come down here to propose a 10d. income-tax, the re-
newel of the tea and sugar duties, and the keeping on of all
the existing taxes, the right hon. gentleman the member
for Bucks would have told us that he could be no party to
trusting the G overmnent in which hehad no great confidence
with so large a surplus. (Hear.) He would have said what
he said when my right hon. friend the Secretary for India
brought- in a budget which showed something like
£1,000,000 surplus. The right hon. gentleman then said :
—"The Government are in possession of a surplus revenue
of £1,000,000, and that is a surplus which no Government
ought to ask the house to provide over and above the neces-
sary expenditure of the year; " and he went on to say that
they ought "to consider whether it would be most for the
advantage of the country that the excise on paper should be
repealed or that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be
left in possession of a surplus which they had no security
that he would discreetly use." (Hear, hear.) When my
right hon. friend had a surplus of £1,000,000 the right hon.
member for Bucks thought that surplus ought to be ap-
plied to the repearof the paper duties. (Hear, hear.) The
tea duty was then 2s. Id., the sugar duties wore high, and
yet the right hon. gentleman thought the surplus ought to
be applied to the repeal of taxes he eloquently desoribed as
taxes on knowledge and on trade, and against which he, ha
fact, adopted all the arguments which have been made use
of in support of that repeal. (Cheers.) The resolution of
1850 was not an abstract resolution—(hear, hear)—it was
a resolution asking Ministers to make use of their surplus
for the repeal of the duty, and I hope we shall have from
the right hon. gentleman now some assistance of the sort
which I had the honour to receive from him in
.1850, for I
can conceive no alteration of circumstances which can
justify any change in his opinion, (Hear.) On the contrary,
all'the facts which have happened since that period have
strengthened the case of the paper duty, and have supplied
no reasons for further delay. (Hear.) Every hon. gentle-
man, then, I think, will candidly admit that we were bound
to propose some remission of taxation ; that we could not
propose to renew all the taxes. A penny remitted from the IT
income-tax would have left the £1,000,000 surplus which
the right honourable gentleman would not allow the Go-
vernment to retain in 1850. We could not stop short
there. 'Were we, then, to cast over the paper duty,
to ignore the past, and to assume that the House of •
Commons was not in earnest when it passed the second
and third readings of the bill last year. Honourable
members have told us that they voted for it, not caring
much whether the question were carried or not ; but,
was the Government to presume to suppose that the de-
liberate votes of the House of Commons were not meant to
be a guide to it ? (Hear, hear.) It was impossible for the
Government, if they intended to propose any remission of
taxes, to pass over the paper duties. (Cheers.) If hon. gen.
tlemen will place themselves in our position, they must ad-
mit that that was the right, consistent, honourable, and
bold course to pursue, and I believe it is the course which
this house will support. (Cheers.) The hon. baronet oppo-
site says we ought not to repeal the paper duty, because we
can't put it on again. But why can't you ? Because ho
knows that thcl enefits of that repeal will be so apparent in
the country—that the extension of manufacture, the increase
in the employment of labour, and the beneficial influence
upon the general commerce of the country produced by that
repeal will be such that no Minister would think it consis-
tent even with the interests of the public revenue to put it
on again. (Cheers.) The hon. baronet says that if you re-
mit the paper duty you take off a permanent source of
revenue, but the House of Commons declared by its vote
that it was tto be regarded in that light—(hear)—and I
cannot help thinking that if the Government had ignored
the resolution on the subject at which the representatives
of the people arrived, they would have been guilty of dis-
respect to this house, as well as forgetful of their constitu-
tional functions. (IL ar, hear.) I must add that I feel as-
tonished that hon. members opposite should suppose that
we, in recommending the repeal of this tax last session, did
so with so little consideration that we must now admit our-
selves to have been entirely in the wrong and ought to deem
it our duty to propose' the remission of some other item of
the taxation of the country. The hon. member for Somer-
setshire I may remind the house, last year raised the ques-
tion whether we were to impose an additional penny in the
share of income-tax, or in preference to
mmorepeal the paper
by s
majority of 63, came to the deliberate conclusion that it
paper,
duty, and upon that question the House of
"m
expedient that the latter post shoul
lished. When, mord be abo-
ceve.r my right hon. friend the Chan-
M as more
cellor of the Exchequer brought forward the Budget last
stated that he intended to make a remission of
• tax
ation to a certain amount, adding that he should
session, he
• indirect
recommend the abolition of the paper duties as being the
tax the repeal of which would be likely to prove beneficial to
the
reductionpubl ic , ; f
buto
if the
duties, House
h e
shouldofC be
prepared
preferredmonspata..
the o
give due weight to that opinion. The House of Commons,
however, with all the circumstances of the case before them
and all the statements of my right hon. friend fresh in their
minds, did not prefer the reduction of the duty on tea , p 4
the Government, therefore, having a surplus sbeaetnthseaiiid•
posal, and being, as a consequence, bound by every rii
mentary usage to give a remission of taxation, could not, I
contend, have acted otherwise than they have done in refer-
ence to this question. (Hear, hear.) It has
in-
deed, that we ought to have had regard to the Payment of
debt in laying our financial proposals before You ;that there
are Exchequer Bonds to be provided fur, some of which will
fall due in May, 1562. There are, however no Exchequer
,
bonds falling due this year, and I am not aware that it is
the practice of Parliament to make, by taxing the couutri-
more than is necessary for the requirements of the carrel'
year, provision for charges which belong to a period which
remgaatyd
extends beyond it. I
feud r
at further
er
Navinobs egr vseotioh
e refea t the redo:atli;
tion of debt must be
the amount of annual taxation which
you wish thenn
to provide. You cannot, when that annual taxation is very
considerable in amount, and when Vu absorb large por-
tion of the industry of the nation, COlrie to Parliament with
rConeetr—y
any degree dt propriety and ask its sanctiota increase
of taxation, in order that a certain amount nf o t
may be
reduced. Such a course might
perhaps, bo e fairly pursued
when your expenditure as well as your taxationdenb
does not go
beyond moderate bounds, but no Minister would like to add
to 470300,099 of too, teed for the purpose§ of Guava