Star.
London, England, 1811-06-25 00:00:00

vaiamtdangs.
Mr. PR ENDEROASTwouId wish to put a ques-
tion to &nine Hon. Members, whom he then saw in
their place% Ha read from a newspaper, rociedings
of the Missionary Sudety, at a public dinner. To
these resolutions were signed the names of Mr. Wil-
beribrce, Mr. Minstar, Mr. Grant, and Mr. H.
Thornton. The part, to which his attention was par-
ticularly directed, wne that resolution by which
is £250 was to be gitte, to pay persons for reading
the Scriptme in the mgrizet-places of the populous
cities in Asia." He wished to know, did those Gen-
tlemen avow such A resolution ?
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER
spoke to order.
The SPEAKER said, that it was certainly quite
new in the proceedings of Parliament, for Members to
be questioned in that House about what passed at ta-
vern dinners.
Mr. PRENDERGAST said, that this paper would
go to India, and .rnigitt do a great deal of mischief
there. It appeared to him a matter of such public
importance, that he newt, iii4ol3lo way or other, brinj
it before Parliament.
PROitilliV TAX.
Sir THOMAS TURTON would not have eons,
forward at so late a Zalaonf the Session, had be
not been prevented by t business from bring.
ing forward the present Modon earlier; and he brought
it now forward, that the Right Hon. Gentleman
(Mr. Percival) oppositi might take the subject into
consideration during the fecesa. He had no objec-
tion to the quantum of the Property Tax, but to the
quality of the people on whom the Tax was partly
raised. A person enjoying a Freehold of 0200 a
year, and an annuitant of 8200 were precisely on the
same footing, though the annuitant could only re-
ceive ten years purchase for his annuity, while the
freehold could be sold for thirty years purchase. '
Was there any equality in levying the same amount
of tax on a property worth only 82000, which was
levied on a property worth £6OOO. In going to ether
classes the same inequality would be found. The offi-
cers of excise, whose income was net worth a farthing.
if brought to salt in the market, received of their al-
lowance of only £62 or £64, after deduction of
Property Tax. He then stated the hardships of al-
lowing Assessors to harass poor people with inquiries
about their weekly wages, particularly as those wages
fluctuated from SO to 30 and 70 shillings a week.—
He wished therefore that the Right Honourable Gen-
tleman should introduce a graduated scale of taxation.
If the tax Was unjust, it was the duty of a great States-
man to look it in the face. It was his duty to put the
higher and the lower ranks on the same footing. He
concluded with moving that the House should, early
in the next Session of Parliament, take the Act of the
46th Geo. 111. into their consideration.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER
could see no advantage in agreeing to the present
motion. It could not in any wise influence the dis-
cussion which might take place in another Session,
and it might have the effect of implying, that Parlia-
ment was bound to give some relief. He, for one,
thought that no relief could be given, and he there-
fore thought it improper to hold out to the country
any thing like an expectation of it. The Property
Tax was infinitely preferable to the two Taxes which
had preceded it, the Triple Assessment Tax and
the Income Tax • but this Tax would suffer a great
diminution if the alterations of the Honourable Ba-
ronet were acceded to ; arid he would ask, what other
Tax could be found to supply its place A higher-
rate of taxation on the few possessed of great in-
comes Would in no degree supply the deficiency oc-
casioned by the diminution of the burden on the lower
classes, for it was on the great number of the lower
classes that a productive tax could alone be raised.
The graduated scale of the Hon. Baronet appeared to
him a levelling system : it was as much as saying
that within a certain limit property ought to be un-
touched, but that a man could do very well without
the remainder beyond that limit. Now in this country
all property was liable to similar contribution ; and
the protection of the property of tke higher ranks was
necessary for the interests' even of the lower ranks.
What other resource then could supply the place of
the Property Tax, which, he would venture to say,
was the least burdensome of all taxes that could be
imposed. If it was a tax on the annual profits of pro-
perty, then the tax on an annuity was very properly
the same as that on a fee simple. If the tax was
merely for one year, then it might be proper perhaps,
to levy more on the one description of property than
the other ; but it was to be observed that the tax was
to subsist during the war ; and that as the possessor
of a fee had no other fund from which to pay the tax
but the income of the fee, and as he could not be per.
petually bringing his property to market, he would
be under the necessity of gradually mortgaging the
future income of his estate, so that in a few years he
would be very much outstripped by the annuitant.
Mr. W. SMITH admitted that the tax as it stood
at present was free from many of the objections
which attached to it in its original state. It had been
matter of astonishment to him that, as it first stood,
any Minister should have ventured to propose such a
tax for the endurance of a free people, or that it could
have been pressed down their throats without military
force. The rigid inquisition into the private fortunes
of individuals had been even more offensive than its
inequality ; now, however, it was certainly less objec-
tionable. In its original state it was almost exactly
the tax which the revolutionary tribunal proposed to
impose in London, provided they conquered it, as had
been shewn in one of the daily prints at that time.
But even to the tax as it existed at present, he thought
:he Honourable Baronet's objections well founded.
—He wished that a pledge should be given this
session that the House would reconsider the principle
of this tax, allowing at the same time that it was im-
possible to relieve the lower classes in any way that
~could not produce a defalcation in the amount of this
particular tax.
Sir THOMAS TURTON said, that the observa-
tions he intended to have made in reply had been, in
a great measure, anticipated by the last speaker.—
At present the tax was proportioned not to the ability,
but to the inability of those who paid it. Adverting
to the remarks of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on
his observation that the people of this country had
become somewhat sanguinary from the long conti-
nuance of the' war, he stated that he only meant
by this that from the late successes the people had
been buoyed up with the idea of being a great mili-
tary power, and of being enabled to contend with

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