first instance. manner as you are taxing every other class of the community, the quality of whose incomes and the nature of whose estates in respect or duration are the same? If you are, you are doing what is just; otherwise not. Viewed in that light, the whole question is explained. You may tax the English or the Irish fundholder if the quality of his income or the nature of his estate is the same as that which you are taxing in the hands of any other person. But if they differ, then I agree you have no right to tax them. The question resolves itself, therefore, into this: Whether you are justified in making a difference between precarious and certain incomes? If you are justified, you must put the fundholder either in the one class or the other. No one would say you must put him into the class of precarious incomes; and, consequently, you must put him into the class of incomes derived from certain sources, and you must tax him with all the exemptions which that class may claim. I am sorry to have troubled the House at this length; but when the public faith with the public creditor was said to be broken, it is but right that we should look at this question, not in a party view, but fairly and honestly, in order that we may see whether we are dealing with the fundholder in an unjust or in an inequitable manner, or in a way which would amount to a breach of the national faith. For the reasons I have given, I think I may say you are clearly not; and with confidence, therefore, I ask the verdict of the House in favour of the principle of the proposition of my right hon. Friend. holder; and now let us look at the case of | ask yourselves amounts to this, and this the English fundholder. Have we broken only: Are you taxing him in the same faith with the public creditor who is a holder of funds in England? If we have, it must be on one or two grounds-either upon the ground of a Parliamentary contract, or upon the ground of moral, equitable, or legal obligation. I ask my right hon. Friend (Mr. Gladstone), with all his wonderful astuteness of mind, to say whether there is a flaw in the argument I am now addressing to the House? Do you put it on Parliamentary contract? You did in the What was that contract? That you should never impose any tax on the public creditor. But what have you done since you first imposed a property and income tax? You have taxed him since then 31., 51., and 81. per cent, and yet your Parliamentary contract remains. I do not complain of your putting a tax upon him; but you cannot say we are breaking a Parliamentray contract for the first time when it was broken the very first time that this tax was imposed. Then, if you put it on any ground at all, you must put it on the ground of moral or equitable obligation. But if you put it on that ground, you put it on one which is universal in its application-applicable alike to all holders of stock, in all times and in all places. Yet what have you done? You tax the larger creditor, who has as much right to claim the benefit of your national engagement as he who has less than 150l. a year; and you let loose the smaller creditor because he has not got so large an income. If there is a national engagement upon you not to tax the national creditor at all, what right have you to tax the larger creditor, and to let the smaller one go free? But is that all? No. You have entered into different contracts with the different fundholders; you contract with one for 37. per cent, and with another at a much higher rate of interest. Now what is the effect of that contract when you proceed to tax him? Why, it is this: you tax in the one case interest alone, and in the other case capital as well, because every time you demand 7d. from the holder of terminable annuities you are taxing a part of his capital. Both these cases may probably be justified upon other grounds; but I will defy even my right hon. Friend (Mr. Gladstone) to justify this mode of dealing with the national creditor upon the ground of national engagement. If that be so, how ought we to deal with the Irish or English fundholder? My opinion is that the question you have to Such are the propositions which have been submitted to the House by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I have stated the principles on which we proceeded. I have pointed out the objects we had in view, and the just results of those principles. I challenge you to show either that those principles are unsound, or that our objects are otherwise than beneficial to the whole of the community; and although I do not see the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Sir Charles Wood) in his place, I must take leave to add that notwithstanding the tone of self-constituted superiority which he assumed the other night, I will defy him or any of his supporters to prove that the propositions of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer are propositions which are shaking and impairing the "Certare ingenio; contendere nobilitate; credit of this country, or tarnishing, as portraying equally his past career and his he said, the good name of the nation. present position?When the right hon. Baronet told us that my right hon. Friend need not be ashamed to follow the example of the Administrations of Mr. Pitt and of Lord Liverpool, My right hon. Friend has attained that and amend his Budget in the Christmas position, and who will grudge it to him? recess, Sir, if there were any necessity for I will not speak disparagingly-God my right hon. Friend to amend his Budget, forbid I should!-of the right hon. Gentlehe need not seek for precedents in such man, the Member for Halifax-his power olden times-he would find a precedent in and ability are admitted; but, without a late Chancellor of the Exchequer, who in disparaging him, I think I may say the the course of one year amended and re- Budget of my right hon. Friend may bear amended his Budget, three and even four comparison with any of his. The best times; and that Chancellor of the Exche-judges in the country will declare, as I quer was the right hon. Baronet the Mem- believe they have declared, that by his ber for Halifax (Sir Charles Wood). Now, Budget he has put himself on a level with my right hon. Friend will find no necessity, the boldest and at the same time with the as I believe, to alter his Budget in any most prudent financiers whom the country material point. I think you will find has ever seen. They will tell you, at any that the miscalculation to which the right rate, that in the greatest emporium of comhon. Baronet has adverted are his own, merce in the globe, these plans of his have and not my right hon Friend's. I think reflected on him, in the judgment of those you will find that, although the measure is best capable of judging on the subject, a large and comprehensive one-so large of the highest credit. They will tell you, and so comprehensive, indeed, that the as you have been reminded to-night, that right hon. Baronet opposite seemed to wish he has disproved by his propositions the him to divide it into two halves, making common fallacy which the world runs away one of them his Budget for 1853, and the with, that a man of genius cannot be other half, I suppose, the Budget for 1854 essentially and practically a man of busi-yet that Budget is not so large nor so ness. And, whatever may be the result of comprehensive but that my right hon, this debate-whatever may be the fate Friend will show to this House-and I of the present Government-whatever may trust that he will at least have the oppor- be the effect of that ill-assorted alliance tunity of doing so that he can do in one which I see before me-the country will year what one Chancellor of the Exche- see, I firmly believe, that my right hon. quer would do in two. But here I must Friend has earned for himself a reputation ask-and I would not have gone into the as extensive as the Empire for which he is subject at all unless it had been for the so greatly legislating, and a gratitude as disparaging tone which, I think, was some- permanent as the honest generosity of a what improperly made use of-I must thankful, enlightened, and reflecting comask, whence is it that these extraordi- munity. nary attacks are made against my right hon. Friend? What is the reason, what is the cause, that he is to be assailed at every point, when he has made two financial statements in one year, which have both met with the approbation of this House, and I believe also with the approbation of the country? Is it that you are jealous of his success? Is it because he has laboured hard and long-contending with genius against rank and power and the ablest statesmen--until he has attained the highest eminence which an honourable ambition may ever aspire to-the leadership and guidance of the Commons of England? Is it because he has verified in himself the dignified description of a great philosophical poet of antiquity, MR. GOULBURN said, he was sure that his right hon. Friend who had just sat down would not impute to him that he rose with any feeling of "self-constituted superiority" to criticise the Budget which was the subject of that evening's debate. His right hon. Friend would do him injustice, also, if he supposed him to envy the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or to be jealous of the credit to be derived by him from the course which he had thought it his duty to pursue. He (Mr. Goulburn) rose to oppose the Budget, not from any factious or hostile feeling, which had been imputed on the other side of the House to those who took a different view on this subject from themselves, but in rigid adherence to a principle on which he had always acted when administering | ceeded on the basis of having first se1404 the finances of the country, and which he cured by a skilful management of the rehad steadily maintained whenever he had ceipts and expenditure of the country a been in Opposition. That principle was large available balance, out of which they the maintenance of a surplus revenue-a could afford to make reductions. They principle which he believed to be founded did not, in the first place, create a defion the highest sense of national interest, ciency, and then call upon Parliament to and from which he was not prepared to make it up by fresh taxation. That was depart, either in deference to the opinions the broad distinction between the course of his right hon. Friend-greatly as he pursued by the present Government and respected them-or in deference to the that by those who had preceded them. talents of the right hon. Gentleman the And, although the right hon. Gentleman Chancellor of the Exchequer. He thought had said that the sense entertained of the he should be able to satisfy the Committee, Budget out of doors had been manifested that, able as was the speech of his right by the acclamations with which the Chanhon. Friend the Home Secretary, he had cellor of the Exchequer had been received omitted that point in the consideration of in the City, he greatly doubted whether the Budget, upon which, of all others, it that applause would be repeated two years was most essential that the Committee hence, when by the calculation now before should come to a correct conclusion. The the Committee, there would be no surplus right hon. Gentleman, at the outset of his revenue; and he doubted still more, when speech, laid down the principles on which the deficiency would have to be made up he said the Budget was framed. He told by loans or fresh taxation, whether the them, in the first place, that it was framed applause which the right hon. Gentleman in strict conformity with the Votes of the had hitherto enjoyed would be continued House of Commons-with the view of to the future stages of his official career. maintaining and prudently extending the But the question before the Committee system of free trade or unrestricted com- involved higher considerations than the petition. He told them, in the second popularity of the Chancellor of the Excheplace, that the Budget dealt with the dis-quer. It was not even whether they ought tressed interests in a manner which, while to relieve a certain class of consumers in affording them relief, would not in any the country from a portion of the duty way controvert the principle which had which they at present paid on their beer; or been generally laid down for the guidance whether the consumer or the brewer would of that House; and he stated, as a third receive the largest portion of the proposed principle, that its object was to apply equal benefit. The question before the Comtaxation to every class of the commu-mittee involved the stability of their finannity. The right hon. Gentleman objected cial system. The question was, whether to those who thought fit to oppose the their finances were in that state that they Budget in parts; that objection, how-could afford to part with 2,500,000%. of ever, would not apply to him, because he productive duties which might pressobjected to the main principle on which it he did not deny it, for all taxes did so was founded. The right hon. Gentleman press-in a certain degree upon the getook credit to the Government for having neral consumers of the country, but the in this transaction followed the example of pressure of which was, of all the taxes those who on previous occasions introduced to which they were subjected, the least what were called free-trade measures, and oppressive? And what was the time at he asked triumphantly, "How did you which this work out your free-trade measures? measure was propounded? "You took off," he said, "large Customs to the defences of the country-not with They had been latterly employed in adding and Excise Duties, and thereby professed a view to hostile operations, but with to give relief to the suffering interests of the view of placing the country in that the community; and," said he, "we now condition of safety in which every great propose to reduce large Excise and Cus-nation ought to stand. But had the Go tom Duties in order to give relief to cer- vernment forgotten, that if there was one deliberately and calmly to subject the country, at the end of the next financial year, to the risk of a deficiency to an extent which it was impossible beforehand to calculate, because it was impossible to know what convulsions might arise in foreign countries, what seasons might prevail in this, or what accidents might occur in the interim to affect the revenue on which he so confidently relied? The their finances? If they were to go on | 400,000l., while, in fact, it was only creating deficiencies-if they were to enter 360,000l., making thereby an additional the service of each year with the confident deficiency of 40,000l. Then, again, if expectation that at its close they would be they took into consideration the loss which involved in a debt, they would not only would be entailed by the proposed alterraise up obstacles to the adequate defence ation in the income tax-partly by the of the country hereafter, but would inflict reduction of the rate in two of the schea blow on public credit, for which no amount dules, and partly by the large increase of military force could compensate. The of persons over whom it was to be spread Budget of the right hon. Gentleman proceed- hereafter, which must entail a large ined on the supposition that at the end of the crease of establishment, they could not but next financial year he would have a surplus allow another 150,000l. or 200,000l. to be of 400,0001., and that only derived from a deducted from the estimated surplus. And, diminution of the balance in the Exchequer. if this were so, was it not clear that, havBut letting that circumstance pass, with a ing in his possession a real surplus to the surplus so small it was natural and reason-extent of about 1,500,000l., he proposed able that the Committee should look closely at the items out of which it arose; and, although with respect to the items individually there might be little difference of opinion as to the estimates which the right hon. Gentleman had made, yet, in a surplus which was assumed originally to be so small, minute differences made the whole distinction as to whether, at the end of the year, there would be a surplus or a deficiency. The right hon. Gentle-right hon. Gentleman who last spoke had man the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not explain in his speech why he assumed the loss from the malt duty during the first year at only 1,000,000l., nor why he confined the loss to be sustained to the 1,000,000l. which was to be repaid as drawback. Surely the Committee had a right to expect an explanation on these points; and, in default of these explanations, they had a right to assume that the loss from these sources would be greater than the sum at which the right hon. Gentleman had placed it. He (Mr. Goulburn) had had some experience of calculations with respect to repayment of duty; he had also seen others more skilful than himself placed in similar situations; and he had never yet known an instance in which the estimate of a Chancellor of the Exchequer with respect to drawbacks for stock in hand, had not been falsified by the ultimate result. He had no doubt, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman would find that, however he might have been guided by persons skilful in such matters, there were elements of loss not taken into account which would affect his estimated surplus. There was also a trifling difference in the calculation which the right hon. Gentleman and he had made with regard to the Tea Duties, to the amount of about 50,000l. He had likewise assumed the repayments on public works at a sum of said that it was a proof of the courage of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to propose to do in one year what you timid counsellors had been afraid to do in two. He gave the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer credit for that degree of courage. He (Mr. Goulburn) and his right hon. Friends certainly had not had the courage to spend money which they had not. They had not had the courage to risk the safety of the country at the expense of gratifying any claimants for the remission of taxation, when they knew that that remission could only end in injury to public credit, and in a sacrifice of the best interests of the country. The right hon. Gentleman had that courage. Not content with a deficiency in one year, he assured the Committee that he was also prepared to be in a deficiency in the year ensuing. This might be courage, but his admiration of it was not such as to induce him to abandon the principles for which he had contended, and to consent to a state of things which he had always held to be dangerous and inexpedient. He saw many hon. Gentlemen opposite who had fought with him the battle against continued annual deficiencies. In the period before 1842, they had struggled together in support of national credit, and they felt the severity of the pressure which was occasioned by defici encies that had occurred during a series renness-whether on the contrary it was of antecedent years. Surely, those hon. not the description of land which had Gentlemen could not now view with tranquil least suffered, nay, it had not suffered at feelings the prospect before them. They all from the alteration of the Corn Duties. must remember that they only recovered When his right hon. Friend, therefore, supfrom the position to which he alluded by posed that the malt tax ought to be enthe imposition of taxation heavy in its tirely repealed in order to relieve certain amount-intolerable, indeed, if it had not lands growing barley from barrenness, he been accompanied by remissions which the had been a false prophet, and no man, he magnitude of the impositions enabled the was sure, would be more ready to acknowGovernment to make. To such a position ledge the fact. The land in this country they would again be reduced if the Com- that had suffered least with regard to the mittee did not now interfere to prevent the price of the article which it produced was Chancellor of the Exchequer from making that very land in favour of which the Goaway with that which he had in hand, and vernment were now prepared to sacrifice which he might retain without injury to more than the whole surplus revenue, and any interest that required relief. He did that not to confer the benefit of removing not deny to right hon. Gentlemen opposite the whole of the duty, and with it the the merit of alleviating the burdens to restrictions and penalties, but to take which the shipping interest was subjected, off a modicum of duty not felt by the nor did he complain of the reduction of consumer, and which would be of no bethe tea duties, or of the manner in which nefit to those whose land was the pecuthe Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed liar subject of the measure. The right to effect that reduction. Those measures, hon. Gentleman who last spoke had with a surplus revenue of 1,600,000l., fell claimed great credit for the Government on within the limits of the right hon. Gentle- account of the manner in which they had man's power, and did not endanger the dealt with the three afflicted interestscredit of the country. He admitted that the colonial, the shipping, and the agricultea was a safe subject for a reduction of tural. He (Mr. Goulburn) had heard with duty, and that that reduction, carried on to satisfaction that the Government proposed its utmost extent, as was proposed, might to admit the sugar of the Colonies to reultimately be the means of affording in-finement in bond, and he presumed they creased employment to the shipping interest of the country, additional comfort to the lower classes of the community, and might-as had been proved in the case of coffee and of sugar-replace the revenue which it was proposed to sacrifice. It might perhaps be stated that the re-if only particular classes of sugar were adpeal of the malt tax, as stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, might benefit to a certain degree the producer of barley. The right hon. Gentleman had quoted a speech of his (Mr. Goulburn's) right hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham) made at a long antecedent period, when he was arguing against a continuance of the Corn Laws. [Several Hon. MEMBERS: For a continuance of the Corn Laws.] Well, for a continuance of the Corn Laws. His right hon. Friend stated, that if the Corn Laws were repealed, barley land would be then stricken with barrenness. If that prophecy had come true it might be a good argument, if the revenue admitted of the reduction, for taking off the whole duty on malt; but he would appeal to any Gentleman opposite whether barley land had been stricken with bar would recommend that optional measure of refinement which was submitted in the course of last year to the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, and which he negatived because he said it would necessarily create a loss to the revenue; for it was clear that mitted to refinement in bond, and others were excluded, the duty would be lost upon the inferior sugars, and nothing would be gained upon the higher qualities. If the right hon. Gentleman (Sir C. Wood) was correct in that statement, and he was sure he must be so, then he (Mr. Goulburn) asked why had the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer not made a calculation of that, which was no small loss in the Budget? If he was to lose duty by a measure of relief to the Colonial interest, that was surely another ground why they should look with jealousy to the diminution of the existing surplus. Whatever injury classes might sustain, either from ill-imposed taxation or from other causes affecting their interests, he sincerely believed there was no cause from which they could suffer more than from a course taken by the House of Com |