The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-22 00:00:00

MARC El 22, 1842

nue was 51,800,000/., and the cost of collect ing,it was 4,280,0001.,
or more than eight per cent. on the gross amount. In 1806
the revenue was more than six millions greater than in 1840,
'set the collection of it in 1840 amounted to more than a mil-
lion and a half than in 1806. What was the necessity of
paying so much tnore now than at that period? The Right
Hon. Baronet had intimated that the revenue officers were
then to some extent pa:d by fees, but then it should be re-
collected that they were paid in paper money, depreciated,
ae:etttniss to the authority of the Right Hon. Baronet (Sir J.
Graham), nit Iles,. than 35 per cent. Looking at the mer-
chants, manufacturers, 'shopkeepers, and tradesmen of all de-
scriptions, he contended that the. condition of all these classes
had materially deteriorated. The condition of his constituents
?Vas deteriorated to the extent of 60 per cent. The property
Invanted in manufactures was depreciated in value. The Hon.
Member for Salford had stated that a building for a manu-
factory which coat 120,0001. had been sold for less than
30,0001. Why should the; throw the weight of the taxes on
this suffering portion of the community ? He thought the
chief burden ought to be borne by those who had obtained for
themselves peculiar privileges, the landholdera, the West India
tnerionoliats, as a sort of co-operators with the landholders, and
those Who derived their incomes from the public revenue of the
country. He ..ot 041 propose that, instead of imposing this tax,
they should make a dc. action. not only from the incomes of
thane who occupied the Treasury benches, but he would go
far above them, and descend to a certain extent below them,
and compel them to make a sacrifice, as well as the other classes
of the community. He then read an extract from the pamphlet
of the Right Hon. Baronet (Sir J. Gesharn), advising the
farmers to submit to a free trade in corn, but with a condition
that there should Ise a remission of other monopolies, and a
large reduction of taaation, as the operation of Mr. Peel's Bill
had given a bonus to particular classes of 311 per cent.
lie (Mr. Williams) was thus fortified by the authority of the
Right Hon. Baronet, now one of her Majesty's Government.
But much less than a tax of 30 per cent., or the incomes de-
rived from land or from the public Exchequer would free the
country from its ernharressments. It would be a great service
to the Government if the Right Hon. Baronet would instil
this pamphlet into them; but he was afraid the Right Hon.
Baronet had outlived those excellent principles. The Right
lion. Baronet at the head of the Government declined the other
night to state the probable amount of the revenue on corn.
He (Mr. W.) found it estimated in theßanlser's Circular at
2,000,0001., which he thought too high ; still it would give
it
ems
in idea of it. But he was now going to point out some
in which retrenchment might be profitably practised. Tho
dead weight amounted to 4,640,0001., the pensions charged on
the Consolidated Fund 620,000/., while in 1829 the latter were
but 320,000/. He was astonished that so great an increase
should have been permitted in time of peace. Then let the
Right Hon. Baronet do one act of justice—let him
make real property subject to the probate duty that
personal property paid; let him also reduce the expenditure
and the scale of 1836, and he would have 4,000,000/. Let the
property of such men as the Duke of Cleveland, the Duke of
Norfolk, and the Marquis of Hertford, be not subject to the tax
that was imposed upon the inheritance of the 50/. accumulated
by the industry and penury of the hard working man. A property
tax he we uld support to three times the present sum if it were
necessary ; but for the reasons he and other Hon. Gentlemen
had that night stated, he would oppose an income tax.—( Cries
of Question," amidst which the Hon. Gentleman sat down
rather abruptly. )
Sir G. GREY said, the Hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed
anxious to come to a division. At this he was not surprised;
but he was surprised that, on a question of such great import-
ance, that on a question so vitally affecting the interests of at
least two kingdoms of the empire—England and Scotland—
such remarkable silence should prevail amongst those who were
anxious to testify, by their votes, the confidence they felt in the
measure of the Right Hon. Baronet—( Loud cheers from the
Ministerial side)—could testify that confidence, by their votes,
while they shrunk from the obloquy—(Loud cries of " Bear,
hear," on the Opposition benches)—and the unpopularity of
arguing the measure proposed, or of venturing to state in that
House that the measure would be acceptable to the constituents
which returned them to Parliament.—(Cheers.) But while
that remarkable silence had been broken, he believed only by
the Hon. and Learned Gentleman, the Member for Horsham—
(No, no, on the Ministerial benches)—he did not mean to allude
to Hon. Members on the Treasury benches, but to those
who sat behind them ; and he believed that almost the only one
of those Hon. Members who hail addressed the House that
evening, was'ctlie Hon. Member for Horsham, who had ex-
pressed his willingness to make a sacrifice of his personal in-
terest for the public good. —(Laughter. ) Another Hon.
Gentleman, the worthy Alderman (Alderman Thompson),
said, that he was ready to adopt the proposal of the Right Hon.
Baronet, and that our war in Affghanistan, and our commercial
embarrassments justified the measure; but when that Hon.
Member came to the details of the proposal, he pulled out of
his pocket unimpeachable and incontrovertible documents to
show the great injustice of the tax in question, and the ine-
quality with which it would press upon various classes of the
community. He knew rot whether the remarkable silence ob-
served by Hon. Gentlemen opposite was part of the discipline
which had been imposed upon them by the Right Hon. Baronet
—(Loud cries of " Hear," from the Opposition benches)—who
required of them their votes on condition that they should not
mar his measures by their speeches.—( Hear, hear.) He per-
ceived expressions of dissent from that statement; but then he
said there ought to be some reason given to the House why,
upon a question of the greatest importance brought before it
since the Reform Act, Hon. Gentlemen who had recently
been so profuse in their expressions of confidence in the Right
Hon. Baronet, and in their assurances that the measures he
would propose to Parliament would be entirely acceptable to
their constituents, would not then get up and say they were
sure that. tile measures he had proposed were of the character
which they had led their constituents to anticipate.—( Hear,
hear.) He was glad to see the Right Hon. Gentleman oppo-
site reading " Hansard," and he hoped the Hon. Gentleman
had well studied the debate which had taken place in 1816
with regard to a repeal of the income tax. That might, indeed,
account in some measure for their silence upon the present oc-
casion. They would find ample evidence that the Right
Honourable Baronet was now acting in perfect con-
sistency with his conduct at that time. They would find '
that he had voted in support of the income tax which the Go-
vernment itself had pledged itself should last only during the
continuance of the war. The country at that time smarting
under the infliction of the tax—au infliction which they had
borne with heroic fortitude so long as a necessity for it existed
in the mighty struggle in which this country was then engaged
—not for any point of honour, or any object of conquest, but
for the national existence—the country, after having submitted
to the income tax, and continued the war for years, which they
brought at length to a happy and glorious termination in the
fields of Waterloo, could bear that tax no longer, and, in spite
of the Government of the day, supported by the Right Hon.
Baronet, they declared that it was a tax which should be re-
served exclusively for time of war—not a war in Affghanistan,
but a European war ; for it was in that sense by every one who
had read the history of the last half century that it was named
a war tax. Other taxes to the amount of many millions had since
been repealed ; arid the Right lion. Baronet now came forward
with the proposal of an income tax, in order to enable him
to place our finances in a proper and fitting condition.—
(Cheers front the Ministerial benches.) He would give Hon.
Gentlemen the benefit of that cheer; he was happy to find
that they had reserved their votes for their cheers.—( Hear,
hear.) No one was more ready to admit than he was that
the deficiencies which now existed in the revenue to meet the

necessary expenditure of the country ought to be supplied ;
and he did not stand there to say that no additional taxes
should be imposed. He did not even say that if the measures
proposed by her Nlajesty's late Government were now to be
adopted there would be no necessity to impose fresh taxes
in order to mace up the financial deficiency. But the ques-
tion was, whether a tax which had been denounced in 1816
as the most odious, the most inquisitorial and intolerable
that human ingenuity could devise—a tax which the country
then only submitted to in consequence of the circumstances
in which we were placed—the question was, whether that
was a tax to which they should have recourse in con-
sequence of a deficiency in the revenue, which the Right
Honourable Baronet himself admitted to be but temporary ?
He regretted that he did not then see in his place the Right
lion. Gentleman the Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. C.
Wynn), who had been one of the most active denouncers of
the income tax in ISI6, and who had taunted the Chancellor
of the Exchequer of that day with speaking of the possibility
of exaggerating the evils of such a tax. He believed it was the
want of experience of the tax on the part of the present gene-
ration which induced the Right lion. Baronet to presume to
call upon the House to agree to such a proposal ; and strong
as he was in the support of a party so recently and deeply
pledged to him, whatever their own opinions might be, and
whatever might be the opinions of their constituents, he had no
doubt but that the Right Hon. Baronet would be supported by
a large majority. But he felt certain that after experience
had made known the nature of the tax—its odious and

inquisitorial process, of which the Right Honourable Ba-
ronet was so slow to tell them a process which
he had endeavoured to attribute to Lord Grenville and Lord

Lansdowne—a process which would be absolutely necessary in
order to entitle him to extract the tax from the pockets of the
people—he was certain that after a short experience the same
feeling against the tax would be engendered which had existed
in 1816, and that there would before long be a unanimous and

indignant demand for its abolition. What were the arguments
used in 1816 to induco the House to consent to a continuance of

the tax ? Why, they were precisely the same arguments whic
were addressed to the House in order to induce them to vote for

a similar measure. The House was told, as now that the tax was

not to be continued, anti that if it were not imposed, they should
tax the articles of consumption used by the poorer classes, and
impose burdens on the peopla more odious than the tax com-
plained of ; but at that time the country had expe-
rience of the tax, and they unhesitatingly adopted in preference
a tax upon the consumption of the country. When the House
was told at that time that the tax should be but temporary, and
should be levied in a less odious manner, they turned a deaf ear
to the promise, because they felt confident that no essential '
modification could take place in the machinery of the Bill if
the tax was to produce the amount of revenue which the Minis-

ters of that day anticipated from it. Did any one believe that
any modification could now be made in the machinery by which
the tax was to be extracted from the people? Did any one be-
lieve that it would be divested of that odious and inquisitorial
character which had its pressure so much felt on former occa-
sions, and which the people only submitted to, because they
were ready to make any sacrifice when the national honour
and glory were concerned, and the name and power of England
were in question, but which they would not submit to when any
other means were offered of meeting the demands of the country
and supply;ng the means of providing for its expenditure ?
As to the statement that it was proposed to levy the present
tax only for a limited period, he would remind the House, that
the statement had been formerly made, and the House did not
however, consent to its adoption. Then they were to have
Commissioners and other salaried officers, which he was sur-

prised to find did not call up the Hon. 31ember for Lincoln (Colo-
nel Sibthorp). It was important to know that those Corn-
mi sioners were to be appointed by the Right Hon. Baronet.
Whenever it might hereafter be proposed that the tax should
be repealed they would again he told that it was not advisable
to tax articles of consumption to the injury of the poorer
classes—they would be told that machinery for the tax already
existed, and that new machinery should be created for raising
any other tax ; and then, although he did not think that
would be an easy task after an experience of the
measure had been obtained, to continue to impose it;
he confessed that he saw no security in the general

odium which the tax would create, that-it would not be

permanent if they were now to adopt it.—(Hear, hear.) It
was not then his intention to go into any figures with regard to
the revenue and the expenditure of the country, as the House
had already ample details submitted to its consideration upon
that part of the question ; and as it had been placed before
them with more ability than he could pretend to.
The ground upon which he stood was, that no reason
had yet been shown for the imposition of such a tax—the
ground upon which he went was, that at the termication
of the late war the country had, with one voice, demanded that
the income tax should be removed. He admitted that other
taxes would be now necessary ; but when he spoke of that ne-
cessity, and when Hon. Gentlemen opposite cheered any allu-
sion to the causes which had created the financial deficiency, he
could not acquit them of an approval of these steps which had
led to that deficiency. Did not Hon. Gentlemen oosite
know that if the measures proposed last year by the late Go-
vernment had been adopted—( Hear, hear, and derisive cheers
from the Ministerial Benches)—could Hon. Gentlemen oppo-
site show that if the measures of the late Government had
been adopted, the same deficiency which new exists, would
have existed, and that it would be found necessary
to impose an income tax of 4,000,000/. a-year ?—( Hear. )
After the repetition of the speeches—the unanswered speeches
--and, as far as could be judged from the silence of Hon. Gen-