duties, and thereby give an impulse to trade. Mr. Blackburne and Mr. Beach spoke against the Government measures. Sir F. Baring said he had never been hostile to commercial treaties, and had no objection to a bargain with France; but he did object to our excluding ourselves from taking the same course with another country. While we made a commercial treaty with France we sacrificed the possibility of negotiating such a treaty with Spain. He proceeded to consider the advantages expected from the treaty, and showed that while reductions of duty had augmented the consumption of tea and sugar, the same effect had not followed in the case of wine and spirits. But there were political reasons, it was said, for the treaty; then why not form commercial treaties with other Powers? He was desirous of being on the most friendly terms with France; but, in regard to Italy, although England wished Italy to be free, prosperous, and independent of other countries, he did not read that to be the policy of France, and he did not desire that we should connect ourselves with that policy. After some remarks upon the tariff, the stamp duties, and the paper duty, he called the attention of the House seriously to the state in which the finances of the country would be left if the Budget was passed. It was proposed, he observed, to continue the income-tax for one year more; but what did the House suppose would be the deficiency in 1861-62? Taking the expenditure to be the same as now, the deficiency would be 12,500,000l. at least. But then, it would be said, there would be the income tax at 10d., and the war duties on tea and sugar again continued. This, however, would not do; there would still be a deficiency of 1,500,000l. or 2,000.000l., and new taxes would be indispensable. Mr. Bright observed that the speech which the House had just heard was that of a mind which clung very much to the past, and entertained doubts with regard to the future. Every part of it held up some hobgoblin to prevent them from pursuing the course which, from 1842, had proved most wise. There was but one opinion expressed in the country with respect to the general propositions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the motion, which was a fair one, went to defeat the whole scheme, to reject the budget and the treaty, and to overthrow the Government. The result of this would be a new Budget, indirect taxes, and, at the same time, an estrangement from France, which he thought would be very unfortunate. It had been objected to the treaty, that the advantage was all on the side of France; but he contended that, on the face of the treaty, concession for concession, the French gave to us at least five times as much as we gave to them; and that when the treaty came into force, our trade with France, which was now almost nil, would rank her with some of our best customers. phantom of an argument had been raised on the subject of coal, but this question, with regard to the navy of France, was a mere bagatelle. The whole of the coal required by the French navy was only 150,000 tons. He excused the Emperor of the French on the ground that he had to deal with an obstinate Protectionist party, there being "Chowlers" in France A as well as in England. But the treaty, he observed, was but a part of the proposition of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who proposed to reduce and simplify the tariff, and to abolish the hated excise upon paper, and he asked the opponents of the Budget whether Id., or 2d., or 3d. in the pound Income-tax was too much to pay for the great good which the country would receive from it. The scheme carried out the policy of Sir Robert Peel; the effects of that policy had been seen and felt, and no one now denied that it was a wise one. But, although he spoke thus in favour of the treaty, the Budget, and the relaxations of the tarifi, he was not unmindful of one great blot in the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; he alluded to the frightful, the scandalous expenditure. He ridiculed the notion that there was any ground for apprehensions of evil designs by France, and asked why it was that, with professiors of perfect amity on our part, and a commercial treaty, there should be so vast an increase in our estimates. It was, he said, a wonderful inconsistency, or a great and fatal hypocrisy, and somebody must be guilty of an immorality, the dark ness of which he wanted words to describe. Mr. Whiteside, after a reply, seasoned with sarcasm, to Mr. Bright, discussed the treaty, which he termed a partial and one-sided instrument. He especially condemned the article binding England not to impose a duty on the exportation of coal, which deprived the House, he said, of its legisla. tive authority in the matter. He returned to the speech of Mr. Bright, upon which he expended a good deal of satirical declamation, and then attacked the financial scheme of the Government-the reduction of the wine duties, the repeal of the paper duty, and the income-tax, upon the demoralizing and mischievous effects of which he vehemently insisted, declaring the doubling of it to be an immoral proposition, calculated to corrupt society. The treaty, in his opinion, ought to be reconsidered, and the budget, under the circumstances of the country, he regarded as unwise and inexpedient. Mr. Cardwell observed that the motion demurred to no particular article in the treaty, nor to any proposition in the Budget, but raised the whole question of our financial policy in the fairest manner. He justified the course proposed by the Government by the success of the policy upon which it was founded, observing that, even where duties were altogether remitted, it was a mistake to suppose that no returns to the Exchequer were obtained by the remission. But returns to the Exchequer were not all the benefits conferred by the remission of taxation; it had trebled our foreign trade, added to the wealth of every class of the community, diminished the expense of pauperism, and extended social comforts. Mr. Newdegate called attention to the discordance between the treaty and the instructions for it, and to the relative position in which it placed Her Majesty and the Emperor of the French with reference to the rest of the world, the stipulations enabling the Emperor to represent all mankind. He condemned the financial plan of the Government-the reduction of duties upon luxuries, and the retention of those upon coffee, tea, sugar, and malt-articles of prime necessity to the people-and warned the House that 12,000,000l. would not represent the deficiency it would have to cope with in the year 1861-62, and this deficiency Mr. Bright, he said, threatened to fasten, by direct taxation, upon real property. Mr. Bright, in explanation, said that he had never made such a proposition. Mr. Osborne expressed his surprise and disappointment at the speech of Sir F. Baring, and at his criticisms upon the commercial treaty, which the more it was scrutinized, he said, the less it could be objected to by Free-traders. He denied that there had been any bargain with France; the treaty had not been a matter of bargain at the expense of free-trade; it had been made, not in opposition to, but in conformity with, the doctrines of free-trade. The charge of submission to France was all rhodomontade, and though the dowager sympathies of the country had been enlisted in the cause of coal, the apprehension was a mere bugbear, like that conjured up by the advocates of the corn-law. He defended strenuously the reduction of the duties on wines, which were luxuries, he observed, only because they were made so by exorbitant taxation, the diminution of which would be, in various ways, an enormous benefit to the country, in the improvement of morals as well as taste. He was not prepared to say that taking off the duty on paper at this time was quite prudent, but he liked the Budget so well that he would swallow this part of it. As to the income-tax, the additional 2d. was necessary, because, since 1858, 8,000,000l. had been added to the army and navy expenditure; but he anticipated that the treaty would. supply the means of dispensing with this tax. Mr. T. Baring observed, that if the treaty was not a bargain--that is, a contract imposing conditions on both parties-he did not see why we should have had recourse to a treaty at all. He contended that we were entitled to consider to what extent the treaty was an advantage to England, and he indicated certain points-the differ ential duties on shipping in particular — in relation to which, he thought, the correspondence showed that the interests of this country had not been well guarded. After remarking that the treaty appeared to him not calculated to insure feelings of amity between the two countries, and that he did not anticipate from its operation a permanent enlargement of our trade with France, he expressed his readiness to reduce duties if he felt it could be done with safety to our finances; but he argued that we could not dispense with indirect taxation; that it was hazardous to depend upon the income-tax, and impolitic to take off duties that did not press upon the industry of the country, or upon any class of the community. A high income-tax, he observed, affected the labourer, since it diminished the fund which provided him with employment; and though an easy engine to a minister, and a popular measure when taxes were reduced which could not be reimposed, it was pregnant with danger, and, in his opinion, it was not necessary (for reasons he stated) to have had recourse to it upon this occasion. He should vote against the Budget as it then was, and if he voted for the resolution he should do so solely to mark his sense of the danger of parting with duties when there was a deficiency in the Exchequer. Mr. Milner Gibson said he had heard with regret a person of such high authority in the commercial world as Mr. Baring condemn the policy and financial arrangements of the Government; but he recollected that Mr. Baring had been the uniform and persevering opponent of commercial reform. In answer to the objections to a commercial treaty he cited precedents and authority, observing that Lord Derby had actually been employed in negotiating such a treaty with France, and Lord Malmesbury had endeavoured to push the import of coal into France on condition that our duty upon her brandies should be reduced. Why, then, he asked, should the House refuse its sanction to this treaty? Sir F. Baring had objected to a commercial treaty with France because we did not at the same time conclude one with Spain. But this treaty was to be taken on its own merits. He believed that it would produce great political and commercial advantages, and he should be glad, he said, to conclude such treaties with every country, but he would not refuse a treaty with France because he could not obtain one with Spain or Portugal. In order to remove a misapprehension regarding the 3rd article of the treaty, which was supposed to give fresh vitality to a system of differential duties injurious to British shipping, he explained the construction and meaning of the article, and stated that there were no differential duties on British shipping between England and France. In defending the provisions of the treaty he showed that the benefits conferred by it upon the agricultural class, in supplying articles which they were in the habit of consuming at a lower rate, would not be inconsiderable, while the poor-rate would be diminished by the demand for labour which the reductions of duty would create. There was, he observed, a great feeling against the income-tax; but 30,000,000l. expended upon our military and naval armaments obviously necessitated a high income-tax; and he contended that it was not out of proportion to our expenditure, being 36 per cent. upon 70,000,000Z., the same rate as when the tax was first introduced. He felt strongly that it would be most unfortunate if the House of Commons should throw out the French treaty, and put its reto upon the remissions of duty proposed by the Government on the ground that the income-tax was a little too high. Mr. Walpole observed, that the House was placed in considerable embarrassment by so many questions, upon which it was difficult to arrive at a definite issue in one debate, and that it would have been better to confine the Budget to the finances of the year, without mixing it with questions of high State policy. The motion of Mr. Du Cane confined the question to one single issue, and if he thought it would defeat the French treaty, the main provisions of which he deemed right, he would not vote for it; but he explained the grounds upon which he supported the motion. He condemned the reduction and remission of duties that did not press upon trade and industry, and asked upon what principle 1,000,000l. of paper duty could be given up when the only effect was the imposition of the ld. in the pound incometax? Every reason that could be assigned for the abolition of the Excise on paper might, he said, be urged with tenfold force against the continuance of the incometax, upon the objections to which he dwelt, contrasting them with the feebler objections to the paper duty. If he wanted another reason for supporting the motion, it would be that, next year, there would be a deficiency as great or greater than at present. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, after listening to the speech of Mr. Walpole, he could understand his premises apart from his conclusion, or his conclusion apart from his premises, but he could not discern the connection between the two. He was favourable to the main features of the Budget, favourable to the treaty with France, and favourable to the maintenance of the Government, yet he was about to vote for the motion of Mr. Du Cane. After noticing some of the topics discussed by Mr. Walpole and Mr. Baring, and making allusion to a speech of Sir J. Pakington at a recent hop-growers' meeting, denouncing the Budget, he passed to the general issue before the House, and the motion as it stood. The Budget, he observed, had been pronounced in that House ambitious, audacious, and a bold experiment upon the country; but Mr. Bright had given a different description of it. He had said truly that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could lay no claim to the merit of originality; he simply walked in the footsteps of those who had gone before him. What, he asked, was the motion? It declared that "it was not expedient to add to the existing deficiency by diminishing the ordinary revenue." Could this be reconciled with the treaty? In its terms it was aimed at the very life of the treaty. But much more than this. It was an opinion repudiating and condemning the mass of our commercial legislation for the last eighteen years. He reviewed the financial operations of 1842, 1845, and 1853, and insisted that the plan which the Government proposed corresponded with those measures, and that the effect of it would be to add to our resources, creating constantlygrowing funds by the remission of taxes. He admitted that it was impossible to expect a rapid return to a lower expenditure; but, being on a high level of expenditure, let us, he said, strengthen ourselves by pursuing the course which in former years has been found so efficacious. The stationary system of finance recommended by the motion would sacrifice the supply gained by past legislation, and provision must be made by new taxes. He was quite satisfied, he said, in conclusion, with the issue raised. If Parliament was to be reformed, the best security they could take was to show that they had done justice to all classes while the old system was in existence. Mr. Disraeli denied the similarity between the measure the Chancellor of the Exchequer had introduced and those he had referred to in 1842, 1845, and 1853. Of the Budget he would say that it aimed at too much, and provided too little. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had estimated his deficiency at 9,400,000l.; it would be a moderate estimate to add a million more to the army |