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,
can state conscientiously that, in my belief, this is not au
over-estimate of the money which will be received front
China during the present financial year. (Hear, hear.) The
hon. baronet. (Sir S. Northcote) spoke of the glcomy pros-
pccts 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. Ho 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-
ports for the corresponding months, of 1860 by £8,370,000,
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
con pared with 1860, the comparison is not new ee teet'aVour-
able as before. Instead of a falling off of £3,7040'00; oe 16
per cent., as in the first two months of the year, the diminu-
don 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 exports of £557,000. (Hear, hear.) There can he
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 t hat 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 cf oar 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 he 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 in
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 proporiti7 ns to
proportions.
t.u(rHear,
hear.) Ido not find anything in the shipping
justify gloomy forebodings as to the trade of the present
year. They show an increase in the first three months of
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 tons in the same time in
1860. The British tonnage was 2,533,511 tons for 1861, and
2,450,1.50 tons for 1860. So that there is an increase this
year both of all 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 see reason for sup-,
posing that our great brancheseef industry may be affected
injuriously. But all these considerations have had weight
with her Majesty's Government, and with the departments
concerned in drawing up the estimates of the probable yield
of the taxes for the present financial year. (Cheers.) With
regard to the various alternatives, there is one which I do
not think any hon. gentleman has proposed, and that is that
the Government, having a charge of £69,009,000 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, peas t 3 eave ourselves the trouble
and difficulty of repealing talcs, et hich appears to me much
more embarrassing than putting them on. The Government
would do nothing of the kind ; but, honestly believing that
the present t aeee if allrenewed 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. (Hoar.) If
we had come down here to propose a 10d. income-tax, the re-
newal 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 Governmentin 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 :
sr" 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 repeal of the paper duties. (Hear, hear.) The
tea duty was then 2s. ld., the sugar duties were high, and
yet the right hon. gentleman thought the surplus ought to
be applied to the repeal of taxes he eloquently described as
taxes on knowledge and on trade, and against which he, in
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
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 net 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 Commove were not meant to
be a guide to it? (Hear, hear.) It was impossible for the
Government, if they intended to propisse any remission of
taxes, to pars over the paper duties. (Cheers.) If hon. gene
tlemen will place themselves in our position, they ragst 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, he
knows that thel milts of that repeal will be se apparent in
the country—that the extension of manufacture, the increase
in the employmnt of lal,our, and the b 3 neflcial influence
upon the general commerce of the country prod ttezd I,:, that
repeal will bo 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 n-t to be regarded in that light—(hear)--and I
cannot help thinking that if the 0 overnment 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. (Mar, 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
4 nil?. Antv frl wermnsa the remi ion of some other stem of
the taxation of the country. 'l:he 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
rtehfee r
He necu
se teo
orf es
ee
ma 1
mtehnes p,
by
pye
ar
conclusion that it
sdhuat py e,
andof iupon
ne et-ht
aa xt
q,
Majority of 0, came to the deliberate .
hon. friend the Chan-
lished. When, moreover, my right
question tiino np
pEe
xd
ci ohne tq
ut he
ra t
btrho eu
gl ahttt e
fro
rzwma
rp ods t t
hshould
gbeet albaos
t-
ese
e-allsormoofretheex
isne sdsi ion,re ct thaex statedt
et
ahaeterht
ae t
ni nat
me neddueut
,to
addingm ake
thata" r e mhies se iho
enulodf
traexcotmhemreenpdeatlhoef abolition
uolfd thhee 1
tpkaepl
ye rt
ed up trieevseahs e bneeinfi
egi a
lt let eu
the
reductionpublieof h
but that,te t
if the
duties,
heuse should be pre
of Commonspreferredpared
the to
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, and
the Government, therefore, having a surplus at their dis-
posal, and being, as a consequence, bound by every Parlia-
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 been said, 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 for, some of which will
fall due in May, 1862. 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 country
more than is necessary for the requirements of the current
year, provision for charges which belong to a pericgi which
tt too np
roofv
iddeeb.t must be b e
cannot,regarded
extends beyond it. I may further observe that the redemp-
tion
saimdeorunauteolfna
1 rai
aa
nlmya reipguuet
rrpmo wither a-
reference to
amount, and
taxation which ron wish the country
por-
tion of the industry of thareaningclahwtti,l'enper, youp
when that annual taxation is very
any degree of propriety and ask its
I a:
inoecu nt of debt ne
ease
stiat:bo suPortaboral
of taxation, in order that a certain
when your expenditure aha be f` I may
be
reduced. Such a courseas
well as your xation does not go
but M.Hiatt '
no ir would hke to add
beyond moderate bounds, . _ r
1.9 k 70,000,000 of tout') IeTIOCI 91. tb.(3 PIIrPQM a oural
enditure