mise of its present owner, the property of another, just as much as the income arising from an estate or from an annuity for life or years. In short, we cannot look to income, as liable to a different valuation in every specific case; nor as a property fairly to be deemed an object of taxation, with a reference to a longer interest than the life of its possessor: Tanquam Sit proprium cui-quam, puncto quod mobilis horæ Nunc prece, nunc pretio, nunc vi, nunc sorte supremâ, Permutet dominos et cedat in altera jura. And therefore it is, that by this bill, in all cases indiscriminately (and if it were not indiscriminately it would be unjustly), the accruing income of the year is made liable, for the year, to a deduction in a rated proportion which equally affects all. Such then, my lords, is the plan before us; establishing a system of supply, essentially important in the present struggle, essentially beneficial on the eventual return of peace, and such as will hereafter induce all nations to pause, before they bring upon us the necessity of engaging in war with them. I must once more repeat, my lords, that this measure has been accomplished by the union of opinions respecting the nature of the French hostility; by the affectionate and grateful attachment which is felt by all for a sovereign who is justly considered as the father of his people; and by the confidence which is reposed in the councils of that sovereign, and in the wisdom of parliament; or, in other words, by the general conviction of men's minds, under which (as a noble marquis pointedly expressed himself on the first day of the session) "all opposition is dead and buried." I may add, without any want of candour, that the public opinion is unequivocally marked, when public men, in a period of unexampled anxiety, can retire into obscurity without exciting, in a great and enlightened empire, even a whisper of public regret. My lords, I have repeatedly stood in this place, during the last five years, a foreboder of increasing difficulties and dangers; nor shall I ever be disposed to flatter either your lordships or myself, or the country at large. But I now look for wards, and with good hopes, to the cheering approach of better prospects. And at this hour, if we could consider ourselves merely as a maritime state, singly opposed to France and to the naval powers who are so unfortunate as to be compelled to act with France, and to submit to be called her allies, the contest would be at an end. For what object of contest could there be between naval antagonists; the one of which has lost to the other, all its commerce, all its colonies, all its external possessions, all its seas, and nearly all its fleets; a loss including, when the Spanish and Dutch prizes are added to the list, above threescore ships of the line, and more than double that number of frigates? I cannot hesitate to say, that a naval power, so circumstanced, and so blocked up in all its coasts and ports, is defeated and beaten. Her inhabitants may collect in crowds upon the shore, and call hard names, and use opprobrious language, but they are beaten, and have ceased to be a maritime people for a long period of time. So far as our insular interests are in question, the war is brought to a predicament, in which a man may place his maps before him, and rack his information and ingenuity to find new ob. jects of conquest and acquisition. But in stating this, let me not be understood to give, or to convey, any opinion relative, either to the weakness or stability of the monstrous government which has established itself in France. It would be presumption to say what may be the permanence of a power, which seizes and appropriates, without scruple or remorse, the resources of other nations. No man can foretel how long a lawless horde of robbers and murderers may subsist by pillage and by crimes, before they are overtaken by human or divine justice. But one truth at least is obvious and certain. So long as the French leaders shall appear to have no means of existence, but in prolonging the miseries and calamities which they have caused, and whilst they retain the appetite and power of mischief and destruction, it would be madness and folly, on our part, to suppose that we can revert in safety to the blessings of peace. We ought not to hope for peace, so long as the revolutionizing system maintains its activity. That activity is still exerting itself, with all the agonies of fatigued but insatiate malignity, and amidst scenes of depopulation, bankruptcy, discontent and revolt. So far as the mere safety of these islands is in question, we are safe in our own courage and resources; but in looking towards the wished-for period of pacification, we must never forget, that the security of Europe is essential to the security of the British empire. We cannot separate them. Permit me, my lords, before I sit down, to advert to a circumstance, which, if left unexplained, might subject me to the imputation of speaking with an illiberal warmth and prejudice. On the present and on other occasions, I have used harsh language respecting the French as a nation; and surely they have been, during nine years, the most detestable people that ever disgraced the globe on which we live, and breathe, and have our being. They have been, and still continue to be, the scourge and pest of afflicted humanity. But I wish, once for all, to be understood not to speak of the French such as I saw and knew them twelve years ago; nor of the French such as I hope, one day, again to see them. I speak of them as they are, a credulous, subjugated, irreligious, immoral, and cruel people; blind instruments of the corruptions, caprices, and crimes of a few desperate regicides. I speak of them as they are, and will continue so to speak of them on every occasion that may present itself; because I feel and know, that we cannot be too often and too strongly impressed with a true opinion of our enemy, and with a true sense of our danger. But, God forbid that I should apply such expressions to the nation which I saw, composed of a brave and generous nobility, and a goodtempered and ingenious people; even then, however, following false lights, and tending towards the precipice down which they have since fallen. It is among the bitter misfortunes of that nobility, and of the other respectable classes, forced into exile and laden with distresses of many kinds, to feel ashamed of the country which gave them birth, and to carry about with them the sentiment, that the very name of a Frenchman will, for ages to come, sound gratingly to the ears of mankind. The contrast, my lords, is obvious, and offers itself to our attention. I see it with complacency and with pride. It is a pardonable pride, and of a good and moral tendency. Englishmen derive, from their consciousness of being Englishmen, an elevation of mind, which, both to the present race and to posterity, will operate as an incessant encouragement to national virtue and to right exertions. "Vera gloria radices agit, atque etiam propagatur." The Earl of Darnley said, that the pre sent measure was one which their lordships were called upon by the most powerful motives to sanction, as, exclusively of the great and salutary principle on which it proceeded, it was calculated in every point of view to defeat the designs, and ruin the power of the enemy. The Duke of Bedford said, that the bill turned upon two great and leading principles. The first of the two principles was, how far it was wise and expedient to raise a great portion of the supplies within the year, rather than by the usual way of loan? It was impossible to discuss this principle by arguments drawn from experience or comparative effect, because it was a mere speculative question, and therefore could not be treated in the same manner as that which had stood the test of trial in repeated instances ever since the establishment of the funding system. There was, however, the constant and uniform practice of our ancestors against it; nay more, there was the practice of the present minister himself, who had, during five years of expensive war, followed the ancient plan of raising the supplies by loans. If, then, we were now to adopt the mode recommended by this bill, it would be an admission that the author of it had been for that space of time in the wrong, and that the present was preferable to that which he had hitherto pursued. No noble lord, he believed, would support it as positively good; but would merely argue for it as expedient, and adapted to our present circumstances; but yet it would not be difficult to prove that, even comparatively, it was a more injurious mode of raising the supplies than that which had been so long pursued. The second principle of the bill was, whether, if the propriety of raising a great part of the supplies within the year were admitted, a tax on income was the desirable means? This was a question of material importance in the view in which the measures of the last year were considered; for, as by raising seven millions within the year, it was contended that the general principle of raising the supplies within the year was recognised, it might hereafter be contended that, by adopting the present bill, they recognised the principle of taxing income. Now, nothing could be more injurious to the state, than to assume this as a principle recognised, and to act upon it. It had been the general practice of taxation, to levy as great a portion as possible of the sum wanted upon articles | a three-hundredth part. If the tax should of luxury and of consumption; and, so continue so long as to make it inconvelong as that practice could be continued, nient for a person to discharge it by disit would never be considered as materially posing of a part of his capital, then in its unjust in its operation, though one des- effect, it will have all the consequences cription might for the moment be more of a permanent tax; in which case it will immediately touched than others; and not only prove more injurious to indivialthough the whole community might not duals, but to the general welfare of the pay towards it in equal proportions, still, state; for there is a most essential disas it was optional, it could not be deemed tinction between taking a sum from the fundamentally wrong. If therefore it was public upon articles as they are consumed, abandoned, it was a confession that we and taking a sum from the means by which could not go on in the most equitable produce is to be obtained. The latter course of taxation. This, then, must be strikes directly at the vital principle of all considered as a forced contribution. If national prosperity, for it operates as a the sum could be raised by a tax on con- check upon improvement. At a time sumption, every body must acknowledge when every writer upon political economy that it would be a preferable mode. But is of opinion, that tithe operates as a geif the state of the country was such that neral check to the advancement of agria forced contribution must be the means culture, and the melioration of the counof supporting the government, then it be- try, we are about to adopt a measure came their lordships to consider well, which will establish a new tithe over the whether the general principle of taxation, whole kingdom; and that which in its which required that every man should partial operation is deemed to be so injupay in proportion to the protection he rious, we are about to generalize and exreceived, which protection was commen- tend to all the arts and manufactures, as surate with his property, was acted upon well as to add it to the existing tithe upon in this bill. In his mind the criterion was agriculture. Now, when it is agreed on extremely erroneous. In one case it would all hands that the tithe which is derived be a tax, as it professed to be, upon in- from annual profits ought to be converted come; in another, it would be a tax upon into principal, if it could be done without capital. A temporary tax upon income affecting the interests of those who demust in its nature be, in many instances, rive their income from it, you are about a tax upon capital. The present tax was to establish a more enlarged tithe, and said to be for three years. Thus, then, that in the heaviest way; for it not only a person possessed of 1,000l. a year, and proposes to take a tenth of every man's expending the whole of it, could not with- industry, but in many cases a tenth of out considerable inconvenience reduce the capital necessary to be employed in his expenditure to 900/.; whereas, by order to make that industry productive. taking from his capital 100l., he will di- In the mixed and uncertain tendency of minish his income but 51. a year for each the tax, the most striking inequalities will year, and with comparatively a trifling impede even its success as a measure of inconvenience, he will be thus enabled to finance, whereas, if it had been directed pay his tax. Persons, on the other hand, at capital, it would have been less comwho possess greater incomes than they plicated and less unequal. It is a pretty annually expend, convert their surplus general opinion that capital cannot be got into capital. In both cases, therefore, at nor ascertained; but if the principle be the tax takes from their capital, and not once admitted, that capital or property is from their income. Yet possessing this to be charged in proportion to the proclear character of being, in most instances, tection it derives from the government, a tax upon capital, it would not be diffi- surely it may be discovered. I do not cult to show how unequal it would be in feel it to be my duty, continued the noble its operation; for if the annuitant is duke, because I state my objections to obliged to have recourse to his capital, one tax, to suggest another in its stead; you take from him a fiftieth part of his but yet I think that a tax might be found property, as the average value of existing equal to the exigency of the moment, annuities cannot be said to be more than and not liable to any of the objections five years purchase. You take from the which are justly advanced against this bill stockholder little more than a two hun-I mean a tax upon successions, not dredth part, and from the land owner only merely collateral, but lineal.—This is not bill, but most of his arguments on that head seemed to have arisen from not having kept the real object of the bill, namely, a tax on income, distinct from considerations that apply solely to a tax on capital. All large taxes must be liable to the im my idea, but is the suggestion of a noble | great stress upon the inequalities of the friend of mine, whose abilities this House has often had occasion to witness, particularly on points of finance (the earl of Lauderdale). Having stated his objections to the principle of the bill, his grace went into an examination of its particular provisions, and concluded with remon-putation of inequality more or less, but as strating against the measure being injurious, impolitic, and unjust. The Lord Chancellor said, that the present bill was professedly a bill which had for its object the taxation of income, and the noble duke had said, it embraced two important principles, the one, the principle of raising a considerable part of the supplies of the year within the year; the other the principle of effecting that measure by the means of a tax on income. With regard to the first, the noble duke did not appear to have completely made up his mind: but he termed it a mere speculative question, and a mere speculative question it was, inasmuch as it was new in the practice of finance; but although former financiers had not taken such bold and comprehensive views of the possibility of successfully enforcing measures of finance of a far greater extent than had hitherto been attempted, it did not follow that the measure was not likely to be eminently successful, and it was agreed on all hands, that for a variety of important considerations, if a large portion of the supplies could be raised within the year, it was most desirable. It ought, however, to be recollected that the present chancellor of the exchequer, who had proposed the bill, was the very person who had advised and effectually supported the plan of annually setting aside a part of the supplies of the year for the useful purpose of applying it to the reduction of the national debt-a plan which had now been for some years continued, and from which the public had derived advantages so important that the country could not forget the gratitude that was due to the man whose genius had prompted him to carry into execution a design so noble and so useful. It was reasonable, therefore, to infer that the present measure of raising a tax amounting to ten millions upon income, would be found practicable. The noble duke, indeed, had told the House that a tax on capital directly would be far preferable; to which it was a sufficient answer to state the absolute impossibility of ascertaining what the capital of individuals respectively amounted to. The noble duke had laid much attention had been paid to avoid that effect, as ever was paid to any measure of finance. The noble duke had told the House that somebody or other had projected a tax that would answer the same end as the present bill, and be less felt, viz. a tax on all successions: but surely a very little reflection would serve to show that such a tax must be in its individual instances so enormous as to be ruinous to the last degree. Hitherto taxes on articles of consumption had been selected by ministers; and it was evident they were wise in so doing. The bill was read a third time, and passed. The King's Message relative to a Union with Ireland.] Jan. 22. Mr Secretary Dundas presented the following Message from his Majesty: "GEORGE R. "His Majesty is persuaded that the unremitting industry, with which our enemies persevere in their avowed design of effecting the separation of Ireland from this kingdom, cannot fail to engage the particular attention of parliament, and his majesty recommends it to this House to consider of the most effectual means of counteracting, and finally defeating, this design; and he trusts, that a review of all the circumstances which have recently occurred (joined to the sentiment of mutual affection and common interests, will dispose the parliaments of both kingdoms to provide, in the manner which they shall judge most expedient, for settling such a complete and final adjustment as may best tend to improve and perpetuate a connexion, essential for their common secu. rity, and to augment and consolidate the strength, power, and resources, of the British empire. G. R." A similar Message was also presented to the Lords by lord Grenville. Debate in the Commons on the King's Message relative to a Union with Ireland.] Jan. 23. Mr. Secretary Dundas presented to the House, by his majesty's command, Copies and Extracts of Papers, containing secret Information, received by his majesty's government, relative to the proceedings of different persons and societies in Great Britain and Ireland, engaged in a treasonable conspiracy, and to the design carried on by our enemies, in concert with such persons and societies, for effecting the separation of Ireland from this kingdom, sealed up." On the order of the day for taking into consideration his Majesty's Message of yesterday, being read, Mr. Secretary Dundas said, he considered it unnecessary on the present occasion, to do more than simply move an ad. dress of thanks to his majesty for his gracious communication, and stating that the House would take the subject into their serious consideration. On a future opportunity, after the House had had leisure to reflect on the matter, and to peruse the documents now laid before them, it would be time enough to enter into any discussion. This course he was the more inclined to pursue, as it was not easy to conjecture the nature of the arguments which could be adduced in the present stage of the business. He should content himself, therefore, with moving, "That an humble Address be presented to his majesty, to return his majesty the thanks of this House, for his most gracious message; and to assure his majesty, that impressed with a deep sense of the magnitude of the objects to which his majesty is pleased to direct our attention, and anxious at all times, and particularly at the present crisis, to avail ourselves of every opportunity to improve and perpetuate the connexion between Great Britain and Ireland, so essential to their common security, and to promote the strength and prosperity of every part of the British empire, we shall not fail to enter on this consideration with all due dispatch, and with the diligence and attention which its transcendent importance demands. Mr. Sheridan rose and said;-I must declare candidly, Sir, that I am not of opinion, that nothing more is now necessary than to return our thanks, for his majesty's gracious communication. It is impossible to view a subject like this in so narrow a light. When we recollect that within no very long period, a solemn, entire, and "final adjustment" (mark the words) took place between Great Britain and Ireland, it does seem to be incumbent on those who come forward with a new proposal of adjustment, to show us that [VOL. XXXIV.] the last solemn and final adjustment has not answered the purposes for which it was intended. His majesty's ministers assume that the House is in possession of information to convince them that this adjustment has not been effectual. This does not appear to be the conclusion which they are entitled to draw, or the course which the House are authorized to pursue. Before any new plan of such magnitude and importance as that which is known to be in agitation, can be entertained, it ought to be made manifest, that some new contract is necessary, and that the solemn, entire, and final adjustment formerly ratified and concluded has not been attended with that security to the empire, which it was expected to produce. I am struck, too, with this consideration still more forcibly when I think of the declaration of the Irish parliament sanctioned by this House. The resolution deserves particular attention: it is" To represent to his majesty, that his subjects of Ireland are entitled to a free constitution; that the imperial crown of Ireland is inseparably annexed to the crown of Great Britain, on which connexion the happiness of both nations essentially depends; but that the kingdom of Ireland is a distinct dominion, having a parliament of her own, the sole legislature thereof. That there is no power whatsoever competent to make laws to bind this nation, except the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, upon which exclusive right of legislation we consider the very essence of our liberties to depend, a right which we claim as the birth-right of the people of Ireland, and which we are determined, in every situation of life, to assert and maintain." When I find a declaration so clear and forcible as this, solemnly adopted by the Irish parliament, communicated to this House, sanctioned and recorded by us; when I consider that this final adjustment has been recognized as the only solid basis of the connexion between the two countries, I feel myself justified in demanding some explanation why it is now to be abandoned, and what other final adjustment is to be proposed. It may be thought new and unusual to take up the subject in this enlarged view in this stage. The present, however, are times when slight forms ought not to interfere with substantial duties. My opinion is, that the question should be met in the very outset, and canvassed in the very first shape in which it appears, regardless of [P] |