MR. LABOUCHERE said, that as to the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the shipping interest, he thought he was a little deficient in candour in his statements on that subject. He would have led the House to suppose that since the navigation laws were repeal light-dues, or in any other matter in which the shipping interest was concerned. Now he (Mr. Labouchere) would go with the right hon. Gentleman in every measure that he proposed for the relief of the shipping interest with the utmost cordiality; but when he proposed to relieve them of 100,000l. of light-dues, he could not help reminding him that since the repeal of the navigation laws, the late Government, in concurrence with the Trinity House, had relieved them of light-dues to a much greater amount than that. Owing to the measures taken by the late Government in concurrence with the Trinity House, the proposed should meet with the approbation | setting town against country; and against of the country, setting up, as it did, the that they had to fight. country against the town. If the right hon. Gentleman had wished to place our finances on a simple footing, what could have been more easy than to have repealed the house tax, and to have added one per cent to the property tax, which would have been more than would have been required. He objected, also, to the proposed exemp-ed, nothing had been done in the matter of tion of the land of Ireland from the income tax. He had always called for justice to Ireland; but he was not one of those who would give equality of rights to that country without also calling upon her to bear her fair share of the public burdens, and he thought that no system of taxation that might be adopted would be satisfactory to the country until Ireland was placed on the same footing as England. If the Irish claimed equality of rights, they should also be proud to claim equality of taxation. He thought that the first question to be decided was, whether they should double the house tax. Then with respect to the income tax, the House should decide whe-light-dues paid by the coasting trade had ther it was to be a permanent part of the revenue of the country, for if it was, they must immediately have a Committee to decide upon the mode in which it should be levied, and whether they would be jus: tified in agreeing to the exemptions proposed by the Government. He should propose that a tax of 1 per cent on the descent of real property should be added to the house tax. He could not help regretting that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have fallen short of the principles which he had himself enunciated. SIR B. HALL wished to state the course which he should feel it his duty to take when the House went into Committee of Ways and Means. When he sat on the other side of the House he moved, when the continuance of the income tax was proposed last year, that it should be extended to Ireland on the same footing as it was now levied in England. That Motion did not receive the support of the then Government, but it was generally supported by the then Opposition, who now occupied the Ministerial benches. When, therefore, the House went into Committee, he should take the opportunity of again proposing the Resolution which he had moved last year. With regard to doubling the house tax instead of imposing other taxes, he agreed with the remark of his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose, that the Ministerial proposition was one been reduced to one-fourth of what they originally were. He had no desire to make any observations on the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, for he felt that the attention of the House was exhausted by the great and complicated questions that had been raised; and any observations upon them would come with much better effect after the propositions of Her Majesty's Ministers had received the deliberate consideration which they deserved. There was, however, one point upon which he felt so strongly that he must say a single word—the point alluded to by his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Goulburn). He said it in no spirit of taunting, but he could not help thinking that the right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had not considered that part of his Budget by which he proposed to extend the income tax to Irish funded property only, exempting the land of Ireland, and the professional incomes of Ireland-that was, to select for taxation a particular class of property, and that the one which rested on the pledged faith of the country. He was convinced that the right hon. Gentleman had not studied this part of the subject. He could not have read the opinions of Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, Lord Henry Petty, and of every financier who ever held high office in this country, or he would have seen how grossly such a proposal violated the principes of public faith; and he was sure that the right hon. Gentleman would be the last man to propose that, for a miserable and paltry sum of 60,000l. per annum, this country should allow a stain to rest for a moment on the national honour. He (Mr. Labouchere) must give up every opinion he had derived from the great men to whom he had referred, if he did not believe that the proposed plan to tax property in the Irish funds, to the exclusion of all other kinds of property in that country, was utterly at variance with every principle upon which the good faith of the country, and the public security in it, rested. MR. CAYLEY said, that he believed the sentiments of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon this point had been entirely misunderstood. He was sure that no one who read his speech would come to the conclusion that he wished to tax the Irish funds to the exclusion of any other kind of property. He understood him to state distinctly that the land and all other property in Ireland were just as amenable to the income tax as any property in this country, but that he would not at this moment impose any increase of taxation upon that part of the property of Ireland which had lately suffered so grievous a calamity. Nor had he heard anything in the lucid statement of his right hon. Friend which was calculated to raise the question of country against town. He had heard many Budgets, but never one more comprehensive and impartial. He meant to deal with all the interests that had been suffering for the last two or three years in what was called the spirit of recent legislation.' With respect to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Montrose, he must observe that he and others who acted with him were favourable to direct taxation until it came to be applied to themselves. Nobody was more favourable to the total repeal of the malt tax than he (Mr. Cayley); but the power of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was limited. He believed that the full benefit of the repeal of that tax would not be felt until the whole was repealed; but he must remind his hon. Friend (Mr. Hume) that he had always opposed propositions for the total repeal. Indeed, not to confine the observations to him, he might remark, that the year before he first brought forward the question of the repeal of the malt tax in the last Parliament, the hon. Mem bers for the West Riding (Mr. Cobden) and for Manchester (Mr. Bright) had proposed it; and yet when he introduced his Motion one of these hon. Gentlemen absented himself, and the other opposed it. He trusted that the propositions that his right hon. Friend had made would receive the impartial consideration of the House. Although not committing himself to an unreserved approbation of the whole of them, he begged, on the part of his constituents, to tender to the right hon. Gentleman his thanks for what he conceived to be the best Budget that he had ever heard, One MR. JAMES WILSON said, he wished to put a question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to one part of his statement. The only proposition that he had made with respect to the West Indian interest was, that sugar should be permitted to be refined in bond. Now, when that question was discussed two or three years ago, two methods were proposed on which the refining was to be carried on. was, that the refiners should be permitted either to refine in bond, or to refine sugar on which the duty had been paid; and the other was, that they should be obliged to refine in bond. Now the right hon. Gentleman did not state which of these two methods he intended to adopt; and as it was of the greatest possible importance to those concerned in sugar refineries to know this as early as possible, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would now state the course he proposed to pursue. With regard to the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge, with respect to the extension of the income tax to Ireland, he must observe that he hoped the House would not depart from the principles on which they had hitherto acted with respect to this tax. MR. FITZROY said, that he understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the beginning of his speech, when referring to the burdens of which he was going to relieve the shipping interest, to allude to the duties on marine insurances, at the same time stating that it would be perhaps more convenient to the House that he should mention, in a subsequent part of his speech, the amount of revenue which he was prepared to sacrifice. He thought, however, that the right hon. Gentleman omitted to state the amount of the sacrifice under that head; and he should be obliged to him if he would now inform the House whether the duties on marine insurance were included in the 100,000, which he thought that it would be far more just to proposed to take off the shipping interest. add the amount of it to the income tax and He wished also for some further explana- to make it all one impost, than to propose tion with respect to the amount of revenue it in a separate form. When these queswhich the Chancellor of the Exchequer tions should come before them for discuswas prepared to abandon; for, while he sion, he believed that the majority of opinunderstood him to say that the reduction ions out of doors would be found to agree on the malt tax would amount to two mil- with his own. lions and a half per annum, he also understood him to say that the only loss on this head during the year ending the 10th of October next would be one million, which he should have to pay in drawbacks. He did not understand him to include any part of the remaining million and a half that would be sacrificed. Did none of that, however, come into account in the financial year ending the 5th of April next? ces. COLONEL SIBTHORP owed it as a duty to his country to say that he could not approve of the measures brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman. He (Colonel Sibthorp) was in favour of protection to all British interests; but there was one interest in particular which had been declared by the right hon. Gentleman to be in a state of great suffering, but of which no notice was now taken. With regard to the malt tax, if only half of it were remitted, they would have all the same difficulties and vexatious proceedings that were complained of at present. He had heard from the right hon. Gentleman that poorrates were diminished. Why were they so low as they were at present? Because the farmers had stepped forward and given protection and relief to the labouring class, in order to keep them from the parish. He, for one, had always objected to the income tax, because it was properly a war tax, and ought not to be imposed in time of peace. But though he disapproved of the right hon. Gentleman's proposals, yet, comparing one Government with another, he must say that the late Government was worth nothing; while it still remained to be proved whether the present Government was wholly worthless, and he was therefore willing to give it his support as The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER said, the hon. Gentleman had entirely misunderstood the observations he had made upon the tax on marine insuranWhat he had stated was, that the shipping interest had made representations to the Government of the burdens which pressed upon them; and, having treated upon some of these burdens, he came to that of the tax upon marine insurances and charter-parties, and he said that this was a subject which bore upon the general finances of the country, and that therefore he should not now advert to it. In those preliminary observations which he had made he had not entered into details, and in a subsequent portion of his remarks he said that the Government would then confine themselves to those measures only which they were prepared to pass; that the whole question of stamp duties and probate duties had undergone consid- far as he could. eration; but, as the Government were not MR. CLAY said, the right hon. Gentiethen prepared to recommend any but prac-man had not given the House the details tical measures, he should not advert to them more particularly. With regard to the malt duty, he had stated that the Treasury would be called upon to repay, by way of drawback, 1,000,000l. to the maltsters, and that therefore there would be a loss to the revenue to that amount in the course of the first year, 1853; and then he calculated that the loss arising from the reduction of revenue in the following year would be 1,700,000l., which made up the amount mentioned by him in his original statement. MR. MACGREGOR regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had proposed so long a period as five years for effecting the reduction of the tea duties to a shilling duty. With regard to the house duty, he of those measures which he had proposed SIR J. DUKE expressed his thanks to the right hon. Gentleman for the interest he had evinced for the welfare of the shipping interest, by giving them that attention to which they were so justly entitled. He wished to ascertain from the right hon. | tax, he was strongly of opinion that this Gentleman, whether it was the intention of would lead to but a trifling loss of revenue. the Government to make any alteration in On the subject of the hop duty, he would the poor-law settlement and removal, which not now pledge himself as to moving any was a question of great importance affect- Amendment on the Ministerial proposition, ing the city of London, where the inhabi- feeling bound in the first instance to contants were subject to a very heavy tax for sult his constituents. For the plan in gethe support of casual poor? neral he again begged to thank Her Majesty's Government. MR. HUDSON could not withhold an expression of the gratification with which he had heard the statement of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the shipping interest, which would be hailed by his constituents with much pleasure. He rejoiced at the right hon. Gentleman's statement, that the shipping interest would be put now upon a fair footing to compete with foreign countries, and he hoped nothing would prevent the carrying out of the measures contemplated. The timber duties formed another grievance, which he hoped ere long to see redressed. MR. ALCOCK begged to tender his thanks to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for his proposal to repeal one-half of the malt tax. He thought that the whole of that tax ought to be done away with; but he was willing to accept the right hon. Gentleman's proposition by way of instalment. With respect to the tea duties, he, for one, was perfectly satisfied with the proposed reduction. He regretted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not made up his mind to carry out the income tax to the fullest extent possible, so that every man in the country might be taxed, be his income what it might. Resolution put, and agreed to. 66 A second Resolution, That a sum not exceeding 2,000,000l. be granted to Her Majesty for defraying a like amount of supplies voted for the service of the year 1852 and the preceding year, was then put from the chair, and agreed to. MR. LABOUCHERE inquired whether the right hon. Gentleman would lay on the table on Monday the precise terms of the Resolutions on which his measures were to be founded. The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHE- The House adjourned at a quarter after BUSINESS OF THE DAY. EARL GRANVILLE, who had a Motion on the notice-paper relating to the recordMR. FREWEN felt bound heartily to ing of Votes in Committee, said he felt he thank the right hon. Gentleman the Chan- ought to make some explanation and apocellor of the Exchequer for the very able logy to the House for not immediately statement he had put before them, and for postponing that Motion until another day, a plan which he believed would, in various seeing that there was a Motion upon the ways, be beneficial to his constituents. He paper immediately following his, having wished particularly to call attention to one reference to the commercial legislation of subject in which a great proportion of his the country. If he had expected that constituents were interested-he meant there was to be either a general acquiesthe heavy dues at present levied on ship- cence or a general debate upon the subject ping in the shape of passing tolls. He of what he might now describe as the glordid not know whether the right hon. Gen-ious termination of an experiment which tleman was acquainted with the system of had been going on for six years in regard taxes on shipping established in France, to our commercial legislation, he should which he thought well worthy of being immediately have taken the course of postadopted in this country. Every ship which poning his Motion to another day. That went into a French harbour knew what it did not appear, however, to be the case. had to pay for harbour dues, whilst it had The noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Dernothing to pay for lights. This was aby) had decided on taking a different matter in which improved regulations were loudly called for, as many of our harbours were in a disgraceful state. With regard to the proposal to take off half the malt course; he had declined either to agree in the words of the Resolution which was moved by his Colleagues in the other House, or to the form of words adopted entirely subversive did they appear to him (the Earl of Radnor), of the principles which had been sanctioned by their Lordships' House, and exactly contrary to the understanding given out by Her Majesty's Government on the subject of free trade or unrestricted competition, that he had come up to town to take his seat in their Lordships' House that day, for the purpose of moving an Amendment. Since he had come into the House, he had been given to understand that another noble Lord had given notice of his intention to move an Amendment, in order that the matter should be discussed. He could assure his noble Friend (Earl Granville) that whatever power he possessed should be exercised in securing an ample discussion of the Resolution. by those same Colleagues, and a great ma- | inside its walls again; but when he saw jority of their supporters, in that House: the terms of the Resolution that was proand he had proposed words, as it appeared posed to be moved by his noble Friend, so to him (Earl Granville), totally unmeaning as a declaration from a House which, by its repeated votes upon the corn laws, the sugar duties, and the repeal of the navigation laws, had given its fullest sanction to the existing legislation on those subjects. His noble Friend (the Marquess of Clanricarde), who had been one of the earliest and most consistent. supporters of free trade having, perhaps, a desire to have unanimity in that House, and also to show a spirit of conciliation to the furthest possible extent; and influenced, perhaps, by a feeling that those words, although they had little meaning in themselves, obtained some value from a former declaration of the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) bound the House firmly and unreservedly to the commercial system which had been established -had consented to adopt those words, and had also concurred in deprecating any great discussion on that question. The House appeared also to come to a sort of understanding, although a hurried one, that there should not, at all events, be any division on the subject; and there was also a general impression that no very great discussion would take place. This being the position of the question, and as rose for the purpose of moving the folit assumed an aspect of such little import-lowing Resolution:ance, he was unwilling to withdraw from the orders a question, the consideration and settlement of which would prove of great utility in adding to the value and credit of their Lordships' Committees. But the slightest intimation from either side of the House would induce him to deviate from that determination, and postpone it to a future day. The EARL of RADNOR said, he understood his noble Friend (Earl Granville) to say that he would either withdraw his Motion, or postpone it till a future occasion, if he was given to understand that some debate would arise on the Resolution in the paper respecting the commercial legislation of the country. His noble Friend had also alluded to an understanding which he supposed to have taken place in their Lordships' House on a former occasion with regard to that Resolution. He (the Earl of Radnor) begged to say he was no party to that understanding, and he did not feel himself bound by it. It was now some years since he had been in that House, and a few days ago he should have said there was no chance of his putting his foot EARL GRANVILLE said, after what had fallen from the noble Earl, he did not think he should be justified in pressing on his Motion; and he should, therefore, postpone it until to-morrow. COMMERCIAL LEGISLATION-FREE TRADE. The MARQUESS of CLANRICARDE "That this House, thankfully acknowledging the general prosperity, and deeply sensible of the evils attending frequent changes in the financial policy of the country, adheres to the commercial system recently established, and would view with regret any renewed attempt to disturb its operation or impede its further progress." It certainly would be unpardonable in him to trespass at any great length on their Lordships' attention, after the general understanding which had been come to among noble Lords on a previous occasion, that there should not be a division on the question. But at the same time, as objections had been taken to the course which he had felt it his duty in rather difficult circumstances to adopt, he hoped their Lordships would allow him for a short time to endeavour to meet these objections. In the first place, it had been objected that it was perfectly unnecessary that any Motion whatever should be made on the subject in that House; and in the next place, he now understood that the original Motion which he had intended to propose to their Lordships was about to be moved as an Amendment by his noble |