The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-18 00:00:00

THE SUN LONDON, FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 18, 1842

cent., but for the sake of argument, and to show the
I absurdity of this graduated scale I will suppose it
to be I*o per cent., which was the old pro-
perty-tax. Supposing the tax, then, 10. per cent.,
and that the man with 1,0001. a year pays 10 per cent.,
instead of the. man of 2,000/. paying 10 per cent., just
'double the amount of tax paid by the man of 1,000/ a
year, which is his fair proportion, the man of 2,0001 a
year, under the graduated scale, would be called
upon to pay 20 per cent., the man of 3,000/.
a year 30 per cent. ; and that is what the
advocates for a graduated scale call a fair
proportion. Now, my Lords, can such an assess-
ment as that be considered just or fair ? to what
( must it lead ? I beg your Lordships to carry out
the principle to every case, and to recollect that it
ceases to be just, unless you follow out that pro-
portion, and go as far as that proportion will lead you.
The rate is increased in proportion to the income. Very
well ; suppose that to be just. The man of 1.,000/ a
year income will have to pay 10 per cent, on his in-
come. The man of 2,0001. a year, that is double the
former income, what is he to pay ? Why, not a double
tax at the same rate, but he must pay a double rate. That
is, the man of 1,000/. a year pays 10 per cent. ; the man
of 2,0001. a year pays 20 per cent.; and the man pos-
sessed of 5,0001. a year must pay 50 per cent.. The
greater each man's income, the greater criminal he is
considered—the more he is to be punished. The man
of large income is the greater prey, and therefore the
more to be hunted down. Then, of course the man of
10,000/. is to pay at a tenfold rate, because he has
ten times a greater income than the man of 1,0001. a year.
And what would be the consequence of this plan ? Why,
that you take the whole income together. The whole
10,0001. is gone at once. There is no escaping from this
condition ; because you do not escape from this by say-
ing .that you do not intend to go on exactly at the same
proportion. Well, at what proportion do you mean to
proceed. After all, it was only postponing the evil hour.
It is only postponing the point to which you must come
sooner or later. The man with 4,0001. a year will be
made to pay, by the rule which you mean to apply, not
3 per cent., but 6 per cent. More than he would other-
wise have to pay. The man with 4,0001. a year
is to pay 16 per cent. of his income, and the
man worth 8,000/. a year is only to pay 12 per cent:
and so on. When at this rate you get up to the amount
of 50,000/ or 60,000/. a-year, the man possessed of such
an income will have to pay half of it, and the mun
possessed of 100,0001 a-year will have to pay even one-
fourth of his income. That is the inevitable consequence.
But why make a rate stop at a particular point and•go
' no further ? If the man of 2,000/. a-year pays 20 per
cent. while the man of 1,000/. a-year pays only 10 per
cent., has not the man of 2,0001. a-year a right to com-
plain if the man of 6,0001. a-year does not pay four times
as much as he does, he having paid twice as much as the
man of 1,000/. a-year ? And has he :not a right
to complain, if the man of 10,000/. a-year does not pay
ten times as much, because he pays twice as much as
he that has 1,0001. a-year, for no reason whatever but
because his income is double that of .the
latter ? Now, I hope you see the absurdities
of this plan, when it comes to be consi-
dered—for surely if • the principle of proportion
be any recommendation at all the increase of the
income ought to be the measure of the rate, and the rate
should increase in proportion to the income. Why stop
short with the man of 2,000/., or 3,0001., or 4,000/.
a-year ? Why not carry the principle to its extremity ?
For one reason—because you find that you cannot
in point of practice, and for another reason, because
you cannot in point of argument; because the effect
of argument would be to expose the absurdities, the
gross and revolting absurdities, of the whole scheme.
But then permit me to say that you have no right to
pick and choose, or to lay down a principle, and
recommend a plan, unless you are prepared to follow
it out, and its consequences. You must not go so far
as is convenient, and stop short when you find your-
self coming towards the absurdities. You may as well
allow a person, who reasons illogically, to escape from
the conclnsion of his argument—such a person may
say I never said that 2 and 2 make 5; but your answer
would be, but tken you have said that from
which it follows—now it clearly follows that 2
and 2. make. 5 from the tenor of your argument, and
I will not allow you to reject the conansion,
for I mean to show by that that your premises have
been incorrect. But, my Lords, is this mode of taxation
this graduated scale adopted in other de-
-15 ss of our finances ? Are people made,
penmen..
be nthche, trteialen optrheeele•sedssvhoethlavae
departments, to. pay a greater rate be-
under these
cause they
The rich and the poor pay
do not pay the same
moderate inclitantle
to
totally opposite foundation.
c?
amount, and they are in effect diffeflitly rated, and
the same rates of duty ; true they' ,
legitimately so;. but the rate is the same. Then those
who maintain that there ought to be a graduated scale
for making an income tax, mean neither wort, nor less
than that the public income shall be raised from- per-
tain classes of the community, not from the cominuts4
at large. It being very fundamentally, and as I have
always supposed, the generally admitted doctrine on
taxation, that all classes ought to bear their proportion
of the public burdens, according to the respective ability
of each class ; that a large share ought to be borne by
the rich, a moderate share by the middle class, and a very
small share by the poor; but that the pooresteiass, those
living by their daily labour, ought to pay no tax except
as a matter of choice-ra tax that compels the people to pay
for necessaries, being, by all experience, found contrary
to every principle of justice and sound poliey.—(Hear,
bear.) My Lords, speaking in the presence in which I
have the honour to stand, when I talk of the universality
of the admission, as the deduction front itil! preceding
experience, that a tax on the necessaries of life is a creel
injustice, and a gross absnrdity,—(Cheers from the Bad
of Radnor.) I ought, perhaps, to make one exception,
being reminded by the cheers of eiy .Noble Friend near
me, of a tax on a . certain commodity which shall
now be nameles. (Laughter, - and hear, hear.)
And now, my Lords, there being no doubt that t 1 1./P(
should affect all income more or less, but income in pros
portion to its amount, and not by any graduating wile,
the rate of tax varying with the Income, let us just for
a moment consider what the inevitable consespences of
such an income are; how deeply interested the eonintitiniiy
is in shaking itself loose from it at the earliest possibleitio.
meat after necessity has required the Government and the
Legislature to impose it; and, above all—and it is with
a practical view that I call your Lordships' attention to
this now—above all, how much it is the Interests of the
community, and how greatly it is the duty of the Go-
vernment, if it be possible to modify that tax, so as to
vary its rate, not according to the amount of income,
of which I have already spoiken, and which leads to the
most monstrous absurdities, as well as being it-
self only , confiscation in disguiSe not to
vary the ' rate
.in proportion to the rate
of income, but to vary the rate according to the
kind, which is manifestly a proposition of a totally dif-
ferent nature. I took the liberty of observing a little
while ago, that many of those who are much enamoured
with the graduated scale, rest their predilection far it
upon its supposed firmness. They assume, like the
Abbe, the thing to be proved ; they assume that they
can tax income equally. They next assume, like
the Abbe, certain supposi.ions, and then they draw
from those suppositions certain inferences which are as
fanciful and suppositious as themselves ; for they say,
having got a means of. obtaintng the incomes of indi-
viduals, and having levied a tax for all those incomes,
you have got an equal distribution tax on incomes, and
all classes bear the burden according to their power of
paying it. Now, I believe, there never was a greater
fallacy than this. I believe it to be fallacious—to be as-
sumption—to be supposition—to be fancy from
beginning to end ; I believe it to be contrary
to all experience ; I know that the experience of
the former property tax was quite different,
It is always most important to keep this in view, with
the object of preventing this most odious, this most
hateful tax, to which every part of the community, the
more they bring their minds to consider it, must
always fuel the • greatest antipathy. The more the
necessity, therefore, of making up your minds
not to let it continue one. year, ;one day, or one hour
longer than the said necessity which now justifies its im-
position. But it is also necessary to keep' in view the
different objections which exist against this impost
with respect to its inequality upon different
kinds of income, with a view to prevent, by all
possible means in your power; that inequality.
But if I am told to wait until the, measure
is 'franied, and until it is framed and digested in a bill,
and having passed the other House of Parliament, has
reached your Lordships, my, answer is this,
`° That it will be too late. They who are
against any tax at all—and.who do not see, as clearly
as I see—the necessity, in the present state of the coun-
try, for any new tax—they would say, " Wait until the
Bill 'comes up, and then throw it out." But my
firm belief is that the tax is necessary. More's
the pity. My firm belief is, that there are no means of
avoiding it. The existence of the country demands the
filling up of the lamentable deficiency which now exists.
Then I have no other choices for, let it come up from the
other Ilouse in whatever objectionable shape, I must
take it altogether, or reject it altogether. We cannot
If an income tax
reaches us from the other House, and is
make the slightest alteration in it. We cannot alter an
" and " or an " or.
framed on anything like the same model as
that upon which the former income tax was framed,
then will it contain not only many money clauses; but
many clauses besides of another description, affecting`not
Everything relating to the machinery of the tax—all
that relates to the punishments and penalties connected
only the pecuniary interests, but the rights of the people.
with it—all that relates to the duties of those, engaged in
levying it—all that regards the judicial or quasi-judicial
part ;
of n
the
and upon will
ai
part and parcel of the mea-
sure portions of . the Bill we
aotiortmhese
should be incapable of ofThring any amendment unless
we chose to reject the Bill atogether. Is it fitting that
'we shoUld be placed in that position ? Is it reasonable
that this house should not have the power of exercising
its discretion upon matters eminently .affecting the ju-
dicial itiuctions of this very House itself ? I
do l
shall be placed in such a
situation.lot thinke
pwu.eblic service requires an imme-
diate supply, arid, however objectionable the
course taken in raising it may be considered; however
contrary it may be to all law; however subversive of all
right and of all law, the provisions of the Bill may be, at
your peril reject it—at your peril alter it —at
your peril, amend it—and at your peril remove
any one blunder, however gross and however ob-
vious on the face of it—any one of , those clauses,
however important the clause may be, at 3 our peril,
touch it. And for why ? Because the public credit is
at stake ; because the revenue of the country is at stake,
and because delay may be fatal. We knor not, we can-
not tell, how many important interests such a step might
affect •, and therefore we cannot touch those clauses
My Lords, from hence I would draw this practical
conclusion, to which I beseech the attention
of her Majesty's Government, and particularly that of
my Noble Friend on the Woolsack, who I am sure must