many errors, but he believed that in the Committee it might be made not only unobjectionable, but popular.

Mr. Palk, Mr. Scully, and Mr. Humberston also spoke against the Bill. Sir M. Peto supported it, though he wished to see it altered in Committee. Sir W. Miles gave a conditional approval.

Mr. Edwin James opposed the Bill because it was unjust towards a large number of persons, the licensed victuallers, who had invested a large capital upon a monopoly created, not by themselves, but by restrictions imposed upon them by the Legislature.

The wine-houses established under the Bill would, he contended, become public-houses without magisterial control.

Mr. Villiers observed that Mr. James had taken a straightforward course. He had appeared as the advocate of the licensed victuallers. A Committee of that House had reported that the system of licences was faulty-that it afforded no real security to the community. The present Bill provided securities and gave larger scope to the vigilance of the police, as recommended by the Committee, whereas those who opposed the Bill argued that it relaxed some of the existing restrictions. In their invectives against drunkenness, they overlooked the amount of wine drunk in public-houses, and were alarmed at small potations being permitted in eating-houses. He described the mode in which licences were now given by magistrates, which, he observed, had nothing to do with police or good order. While the Bill would supply a great convenience-a want that was almost a necessity-he believed it would provide the VOL. CII.

strongest securities against disorder and abuse.

Mr. Henley remarked that, so far from this Bill carrying out the recommendations of the Committee to which Mr. Villiers referred, every part of it was in contradiction to and in conflict with them, and he pointed out some of these contradictions. If there was one point strongly established before the Committee, it was that the having two kinds of houses was in effect a competition to tempt people to do what they ought not to do, and this Bill was going to set up a third, in the very teeth of the recommendations of the Committee. Mr. Henley examined the securities provided by the Bill, condemning the manner in which it dealt with the magistrates, and the perpetual blister of the police. His objections went, he said, to the whole framework of the Bill, which it was almost impossible to alter in Committee.

Mr. Buxton said the brewers had nothing to do with the opposition to this Bill; they had, one and all, refused to take any part in the agitation against it. Having, however, considered the Bill studiously, he had been driven reluctantly to the conclusion that he ought to oppose it, on the ground that it would strongly tend to promote intoxication. Admitting that a free trade in wine was a necessary corollary of the commercial treaty, he suggested the withdrawal of this Bill, and the introduction of another containing a scheme of precautions founded upon principles which he indicated.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer observed, that many objections urged in the debate related [F]

to matters of detail, which were proper for consideration in the Committee. One set of objections he answered by stating, that the refreshment houses for which licences would be required were houses kept open for the purpose of selling refreshments to be consumed on the premises. It had been admitted, he remarked, that it was the duty of the Government to submit to the House the unsatisfactory state of the law on the subject of the sale of wine. Did the House mean to stand by the present licence system? The Government had offered a measure, which they asked the House to read a second time, reserving the details for the Committee. The real question was, whether the Bill was likely to cause a great increase of intemperance. After stating that he had received, from distinguished friends of the cause of temperance, assurances that they were in favour of the Bill, and adverting to the various opinions upon the subject of alcoholic drinks, he showed that the present system of licensing was full of defects and anomalies. This Bill was intended to give an opening to the consumption of the lighter wines of France, and to unite the two operations of eating and drinking, which the effect of the existing system was to disunite.

The House then divided, when there appeared-For the second reading, 267; against it, 193majority, 74.

The Bill underwent a good deal of discussion, and was modified in many of its details; but ultimately passed through the two Houses and became law.

That portion of the Budget which altered or removed duties upon various articles in the Customs' tariff,

was adopted without much controversy. The avowed opponents of Free Trade, indeed, in the House of Commons, among whom Mr. Bentinck and Mr. Newdegate were the most prominent, repeated their confident, though unavailing, protests against the removal of the last remnants of the protective system. The bulk of the Conservative party, however, did not resist the measures proposed. On behalf of some of the interests affected by the Budget, a stand was made by their representatives, who argued that their case formed, on special grounds, an exception to the doctrines of Free Trade.

Mr. Thomas Duncombe, for example, wished to maintain the duty on manufactured corks. The corkcutters feared that, unless they had an ample supply of raw material, they would not be able to compete with foreign brethren of the craft. It so happened that Spain had prohibited the export of Catalonian cork, and thus restricted the supply of the finer qualities of raw material. The answer to Mr. Duncombe was that there would be no justice in levying a duty on corks imported from France or Morocco, because Spain levied a prohibitory duty on the export of cork from Catalonia. There was here an obvious difficulty, with which the House sympathized. But it was not prepared to prevent the Government from carrying out its treaty engagements with France. Mr. Duncombe, therefore, submitted his motion in a new form. He proposed to abolish the duty on the produce only of countries from which the export of cork is free Mr. Gladstone was willing to restrict the Resolution to "the produce or manufactures of or imported from France, or Algeria."

With this concession Mr. Duncombe was not satisfied. He therefore pressed his amendment to a division, but was defeated by 191 to 118. The Chancellor of the Exchequer then moved and carried the amendment which he had suggested. Upon the article of silk, Sir Joseph Paxton moved an amendment, to the effect that the duties on silk manufactures should not be reduced, unless Englishmanufactured silks and ribbons were admitted into France upon equal terms. Upon this there arose a debate, in which the oftenrepeated arguments of Free Trade and Protection were again revived. Finally, the amendment was negatived by 190 to 68. A further attempt was made by Mr. Newdegate to postpone the time at which the alteration of the silk duty should take effect, to October, 1861. But this was also rejected on a division, by 179 to 51. The other reductions in the tariff were ultimately agreed to.

The increase in the rate of the Income-tax, however necessary to cover the other remissions in the Revenue, was naturally one of the most unpopular features in the Budget, and that which afforded to the opponents of the Chancellor of the Exchequer the most plausible arguments against his financial scheme. The strong expressions of disapprobation which Mr. Gladstone himself had in former years used against the permanence of this tax were brought up against him with considerable effect. But the favour with which the Budget, as a whole, was regarded out of doors, and the support given to it by the commercial and manufacturing interest, carried the Chancellor of the Exchequer over this difficulty.

On the 23rd of March, the

right hon. gentleman moved, in Committee of the whole House, a Resolution, that there be paid for one year, commencing on the 6th of April, 1860, upon the annual value of property, except that chargeable under Schedule B of the Act 16 & 17 Vict., c. 34, the rate of 10d. in the pound, and for and in respect of the occupation of lands, tenements, &c., chargeable under Schedule B, the rate of 5d. in the pound in England, and 3d. in the pound in Scotland and Ireland. He observed that he had shown in his financial statement that the revenue, with the additions he had proposed, would leave a surplus of about 400,000l., and any reduction of the rate specified in the Resolution would convert the apparent surplus into a deficiency.

Sir Henry Willoughby moved to substitute 9d. for 10d. He dissented, he said, from the policy of the Budget by which revenue from taxes was thrown away, and the necessity for an increased Incometax arose from a deficiency created by the Government. He believed that if the expenditure were properly regulated, and the revenue were not, as it had been for years past, under-estimated, there would be no need for the increase of a tax which was unequal, unjust, and odious.

Lord W. Graham also opposed the Resolution.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer resisted the amendment, remarking that, if we had parted injudiciously with revenue, that

was

no reason for not making provision for the service of the year.

After some discussion, the amendment was negatived, on a division, by 187 to 132. Reso

lutions were at the same time agreed to for imposing small stampduties upon a variety of instruments used in commercial transactions, in pursuance of the propositions made in the financial

statement.

There was but little discussion afterwards upon the Income-tax in the House of Commons. On the Report being brought up, on the 30th March,

Colonel Dunne entered upon a -long argument to show that Ireland was unfairly taxed; that she paid more than she ought to pay to the Imperial treasury. He contended that the material improvement of Ireland had been overrated; that direct taxation was peculiarly objectionable in that country, which would derive no advantage from the remissions of duty to compensate for the additional Income-tax, which, in his opinion, should not be applied to Ireland. He moved to reduce the rate of the tax from 10d. to 9d.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer opposed the motion, urging, as before, the exigencies of the Exchequer. The amendment being negatived, Mr. W. Williams moved to exempt incomes under 150l. Sir H. Willoughby urged the unequal pressure of the tax upon small incomes, and asked whether the Government contemplated the appointment of a Committee to inquire into its inequalities. Mr. Hubbard also asked questions as to the future policy of the Government respecting it. Mr. Roebuck complained of the severity with which it pressed on the poorer class of the gentry. After several more speeches had been made,

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said it was impossible to venture upon a distinct indication

as to the views of the Government of what should be done in regard to the finances of 1861, not having a basis to work upon. As to the inequalities of the Income-tax, in the main, he admitted them. Gross inequalities existed in other taxes, which were veiled, whereas those of the Income-tax were patent; but there were inequalities peculiar to this tax. The Government, however, were not prepared to propose any inquiry into the subject, not thinking it to be their duty to submit, on their own responsibility, so gigantic a tax to the scrutiny of a Committee, unless they were conscientiously persuaded that it was in their power to propose a plan likely to issue in the removal or mitigation of the evil, and they did not see their way to that result. Nevertheless, they would not think it their duty to oppose such a proposal. With regard to the amendment moved by Mr. Williams, it would occasion a loss of not less than 600,000l., and he was afraid it would amount to more. He discussed at some length the general merits of the proposal.

Mr. Disraeli said, the whole subject of the Income-tax had been exhausted by a Committee which had sat for two years, and modifications had been made in it, recognizing the distinction between permanent and casual incomes. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer had denounced the tax as an immoral enormity, and called for its termination, and the Government of 1852 had been turned out of office because they did not deal with this tax properly. Yet, in spite of a kind of compact he had entered into with the country, and with 2,000,000l. at his disposal, the same Minister had ostenta

tiously applied it to other purposes. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had termed this a tax of gigantic proportions; but who made it so ? He had stigmatized the tax as immoral and intolerable, and proposed that steps should be taken for its gradual abolition, and now came forward, in 1860, virtually to double the tax. Upon a division, Mr. Williams' amendment was negatived by 174 to 24.

Of all the proposed financial changes, the repeal of the paperduty was that which was regarded with the least favour. Many, even among the usual supporters of the Government, doubted the policy of giving up so large an amount of revenue at a time when the resources of the Exchequer were likely to be much tried, both by the remission of other taxes, and the unusual demands of military and naval expenditure. The urgency of the demand for this particular fiscal relief was also much questioned. On the second reading of the Bill which Mr. Gladstone brought in to repeal the duty, the proposition was much opposed by the Conservative party, the lead being taken by Sir W. Miles, who objected to the repeal of this duty at the present time, and in the existing state of our finances. He could not consider the repeal of the paper-duty, he said, apart from a 10d. Income-tax, and he showed from calculations, founded mainly upon the figures contained in Mr. Gladstone's financial speech, that, by retaining this duty, which yielded 1,200,000l., and not imposing the additional ld. Income-tax, the surplus at the end of the year, which Mr. Glad stone had estimated at 464,000l., would still be not less than 429,000l. He discussed the alleged difficul

ties attending the collection of the duty, and the arguments urged in favour of its repeal, in particular, that the tax was detrimental to the spread of knowledge; contending that, though paper-makers and publishers might be benefited by its repeal, generally speaking, it would not be felt by consumers. He then called attention to the heavy pressure of the Income-tax -a tax which, he said, ought never to be imposed but in times of great emergency, especially upon persons receiving less than 150l. a year, who could not be benefited by the cheapening of French wines and French silks, and asked whether this was a time for augmenting so severe a burden for the mere purpose of taking off the paperduty. He moved as an amendment a Resolution, that, as it appeared that the repeal of the paper-duty would necessitate the addition of 1d. in the pound to the Property and Income-tax, it was the opinion of the House that such repeal was, under such circumstances, at the present moment inexpedient.

Mr. Stanhope, in supporting the amendment, urged strongly the impolicy of sacrificing so large a revenue for an object from which the community would derive but little advantage, the price of books and the circulation of literature being very little affected by the duty on paper. To the argument for the repeal of the duty, that it had been condemned by a Resolution of that House, he opposed the fact that the Income-tax had been condemned by Act of Parliament. Such an argument, if valid in one case, was equally so in the other. The question was whether, in order to take off a tax which might be burdensome to a small