merston's printed circular to the different Governments of Europe. There was nothing in the state of our foreign relations to sustain the Government in its present course any more than in our colonial system. The warehousing system owed its origin to existing prohibitions, and its increase and permanence depended upon their maintenance. He strongly objected to the proposal of admitting a foreign-built ship to British registry. It was essential to keep up the number and efficiency of our private building yards, which would speedily decrease in number were such a proposal to be adopted. The proposed measure was, in every point of view, dangerous and gratuitous, and was urged forward against the sense of the country. He was as little anxious as Earl Grey was to raise anew questions which might array class against class; but, if such questions were raised, it was not he, but the Government, that must bear the responsibility. It was a mistake on the part of the noble Earl to think that the vote of that night would settle such questions. The noble Lord then addressed an eloquent and impressive remonstrance to the Duke of Wellington, and concluded by expressing the alarm which he felt at the multiform dangers which would be entailed upon the country by the success of & measure which, under menace, their Lordships were called upon to sanction. The Marquis of Lansdowne briefly replied, indignantly repudiating the insinuation that any indirect or unfair means whatever had been used by the Government for the purpose of getting support to the Bill. The House then divided on the motion for the The result of this division was regarded at the time as of great political importance. Much uncertainty and speculation had before prevailed as to the relative state of parties in the House of Lords, and the fate of the Govern ment was generally supposed to depend upon the decision as to the second reading of this Bill. The opposition, however, though little expectation was now entertained of its success, was renewed on the motion for the third reading. Lord Ellenborough commenced the debate, observing that he could not refrain from touching upon the measures which it would be absolutely necessary to adopt for the security of British shipping under the new system. It was only fair that the shipowner should now be relieved from all duties on timber. Government should promptly introduce measures for the examination of masters and mates before their appointment, and for their trial upon the loss of ships; also for the establishment of a fund for the support of worn-out seamen, similar in principle though not in extent to that now existing for seamen of the Royal Navy at Greenwich Hospital: also a measure for the registry of ships; the present system being totally erroneous and deceptive. Earl Granville offered some brief explanations with regard to these suggestions. He agreed with Lord Ellenborough as to the reduction of the timber duty; and as to the new registration, he was not prepared to say he saw any great objection to it. As to the merchant seamen's fund, the attempt made last year was opposed and defeated by the shipowners themselves; the subject nevertheless deserved the best consideration, and he thought that such a measure must some time or other pass. It was intended to bring in a Bill to improve the discipline of the mercantile navy. The Earl of Winchilsea regretted that this Bill had been carried by the votes of the Bishops; whom he warned that if the day ever arrived when measures of a secular character injurious to the best interests of the country should be carried by their votes, England would again wish to see the House of Convocation restored, and the Bishops represented in that House by a few chosen from themselves to state their opinions only on religious matters. Lord Stanley felt that the whole responsibility of the measure rested with the Ministers; and should satisfy himself with saying "noncontent," and with registering his protest against so dangerous a measure. Lord Brougham saw some explanation of the extraordinary phenomenon of this Bill's passing, in the sudden appearance on the floor of the House of diplomatic characters from all quarters, at a time when the affairs of Europe were more critical than they had been for many a year. The Marquis of Lansdowne remarked on the extraordinary progress of a most unexpected nature, which this Bill had produced in the opinions of Conservative Peers. In a short half-hour they had heard one noble Lord expressing doubts how far it might be fit that a class of members intimately connected with the constitution and privileges of their House should continue to sit in it; another disposed to inquire into the propriety of voting by proxy; and a third doubting if diplomatists were capable of judging on commercial questions (Cries of "No, no!")well then, expressing an opinion that though they were so capable, they should be deprived of the right. But such considerations ought not to be entertained. As to the Bill, he believed that its general and ultimate effect would be to increase our shipping and multiply our sailors. The opposition Peers now withdrew in a body, and the Bill was read a third time. On the question "that the Bill do now pass," the Bishop of Oxford proposed to add a clause by way of rider, which was not read to the House but which provided that "The said privileges shall not extend to the ships of Spain, or to foreign ships exporting the produce of the West Indian colonies of Spain, or to the ships of, or to foreign ships exporting the produce of, Brazil, until Her Majesty shall declare, by orders in Council, that the Governments of Spain and Brazil have respectively given to Her Majesty full satisfaction as to the fulfilment of the treaties into which they have entered with Her Majesty for the suppression of the slave trade." In support of this, the Right Reverend Prelate argued that Brazil is the great mart of slaves; that the object of this Bill was to quicken trade, to make Brazil a better customer by increasing her imports and exports; and that the necessary consequence would be the increased demand for slave labour and the increased activity of the slave trade. The proposed clause afforded the only means remaining of influencing the Government of Brazil. We had a casus belli against Brazil for breach of treaties regarding the slave trade, and should be justified in blockading the whole line of the Brazilian coast; but we abstained, because the Government was powerless to carry out its own worthy designs. A few Portuguese slave traders at Rio were supreme throughout the land: as mortgagees of almost every slave-cultivated estate, they controlled the elections at their will. In such a state of things, we should enable those who were really anxious to fulfil the treaties to point to our exclusion of their produce, and our refusal to grant them the privileges of other nations. Lord Howden reminded the House that there was now in existence-suspended only to give foreign nations time to conform themselves to its terms-a Brazilian decree, charging a differential duty of one-third on the ships of all nations which did not treat Brazilian ships on a footing of perfect equality. To pass this clause would therefore be the very way to make true those prognostications of evil to our commerce which had been heard. The commercial marine of Brazil was entirely employed on its own coasts, or, unfortunately, on the coast of Africa; none of it came to this country: so that Brazilians would escape, and our own shipping suffer. Lord Denman said he would vote for this amendment, or indeed any amendment of his right reverend friend having this object in view. He saw but two parties, the infamous slave trader, and the wretched suffering slave; they had nothing to do in order to suppress the slave trade but to make their demonstration powerfully. The Earl of Warwick refused to support an amendment brought forward at the eleventh hour, which if brought forward at a former stage might have stood some chance of support. The Marquis of Lansdowne urged that the moral influence of this country must ever rest on its commercial influence; if we deprived ourselves of the one, the other must cease. No man had laboured more assiduously to accomplish the extirpation of the slave trade than the Secretary for Foreign Affairs; he thought this amendment would only weaken his hands. On a division, the amendment was rejected by 23 to 9, and thus this important Bill received the final sanction of Parliament, and very shortly afterwards obtained the Royal Assent, its operation being fixed to commence on the 1st of January, 1850. Although the principles of free trade thus obtained a final triumph in the abolition of the Navigation Laws, it will already have appeared evident that the adherents of protection still formed a powerful and numerous party in both Houses of Parliament. In the House of Commons, Mr. Disraeli, since the lamented decease of Lord George Bentinck, had become their leader and chief spokesman, and he lost no opportunity of enforcing the claims of the agricultural classes to compensation and relief, under the loss of the lately-repealed protecting duties. But the most formal and im dens." portant demonstration made in the portionment of the public burcourse of this session, on behalf of the landed interest, was a resolution proposed by Mr. Disraeli, and discussed for three successive nights, on the subject of local taxation. Deeming the owners of real property to be unduly charged with these burthens, that honourable Member conceived the idea of alleviating their difficulties by throwing a portion of the rates at present assessed upon their property into the general taxation of the country. The following were the terms in which his resolution was couched. "That the whole of the local taxation of the country, for national purposes, falls mainly, if not exclusively, on real property; and bears with undue severity on the occupiers of land, in a manner injurious to the agricultural interests of the country, and otherwise highly impolitic and unjust. That the hardship of this apportionment is greatly aggravated by the fact that more than one-third of the whole revenue derived from the Excise is levied upon agricultural produce, exposed, by the recent changes in the law, to direct competion with the untaxed produce of foreign countries; the home producer being thus subjected to a burden of taxation, which, by greatly enhancing the price, limits the demand for British produce, and to restrictions which injuriously interfere with the conduct of his trade and industry. That this House will resolve itself into a Committee to take into its serious consideration such measures as may remove the grievances of which the owners and occupiers of real property thus justly complain, and which may establish a more equitable ap Mr. Disraeli introduced his motion on the 8th of March, in a speech of great length, ingenuity, and rhetorical skill. He began by making two or three distinct disclaimers; he did not intend to enter into detailed proof of the distress among the agricultural districts-which was generally admitted, and pronounced even by Mr. Cobden himself to be severe and terrible; he would not inquire into the causes of that distress-appealing also on that head to Mr. Cobden, who admitted that the farmers had not been fairly dealt with; and he would not inquire into the policy of the recent changes in our commercial system-though he still retained the opinion that they must end in national degradation and a financial convulsion. He was not one of those who would recur to the past by appealing to the passions of a suffering class: wishing the reaction to be permanent, he should await the growth of conviction in the country, the effect of public discussion, private inquiry, failure in the prophecies of political economists, and sharp experience. What he insisted upon as his basis was, simply, that after the great changes of 1846, which so deeply affected the agricultural interests, those interests were entitled to an arrangement of taxation which should not press unjustly or unfairly upon them; and that the unjust and unfair apportionment of taxation should be removed and redistributed. A very few statistical details would prove their case. By the accounts of the parochial or rating year ending on Lady Day, 1848, a sum of not less than 10,000,000Z. sterling had been levied by direct. taxation on the real property of the country, under the heads of county rate, highway rate, church rate, and that variety of charges levied under the name of poor rate. To these, though not legally a local charge, might be added the land tax; making the whole 12,000,000l. sterling. That amount was levied on a rental of 67,000,000!. a year. The Income Tax returns showed that the property of England and Wales possessed by those having incomes above 150l. a year was of the annual value of 186,888,9581.: Sir Robert Peel had calculated the smaller incomes as representing property equal to one-fourth of that larger sum; making the total income of the country, under all heads, 249,000,000l. Now, why should this direct taxation of ten or twelve millions sterling be levied exclusively on a portion of the income of the country, little more than a fourth of the whole amount? Mr. Disraeli admitted that the possessors of house property in towns, the owners of railway property, and the great trading companies which supply the public with water and light were unduly burdened in the same way; and he called on them to support his proposition, by which they would now have an opportunity to get rid of the burden. Mr. Disraeli then proceeded to expose the confusion of terms which annexed the idea of locality to these taxes, whereas they were of a much wider and more comprehensive character; and he illustrated this argument by an ingenious exposition of the nature and objects of these so-called local rates, and the local causes of some of our general national taxation. The grievance and anomaly of these two forms of taxation had been long felt, and, VOL. XCI. as a remedy, a system of national rating had been recommended; but to this he objected. He would not resist an inquiry into the subject of the probate and legacy duties; for the result would show that a large proportion was paid by the land, or the property of the farmer; but this was beside the question as to the justice of throwing 12,000,000l. of taxes upon one-fourth of the property of the country; and if the House would go into Committee, he would offer a plan, which was founded in justice, to remedy this inequality. In a spirit of compromise and conciliation, he should propose, the system of local administration and the levy of rates remaining as at present, that the local districts should be responsible for one moiety, and that the other should be paid by the Consolidated Fund. Mr. Disraeli then described, in forcible terms, the treacherous manner in which the agricultural interest had been treated on the subject of the Malt Tax, the repeal of which he nevertheless persuaded them not to press for, but to be content with the measure he proposed-a measure founded in justice; and he concluded with an eloquent picture of the claims and wrongs of that interest, of the insults they had received, and the forbearance they had displayed. Mr. Hume expressed his great astonishment at the remedy proposed by Mr. Disraeli, whose speech was not in accordance with his resolutions, and whose proposition would impose upon the tenant farmers (of whom he had said nothing) an additional income tax of 6,000,000l. He showed that these rates were properly laid upon the land, which had been pur [E] |