Mr. S. Fitzgerald, after noticing the silence maintained by the Government during this debate upon topics which required and demanded explanation, proceeded to discuss the financial statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, he contended, had not dealt fairly and candidly with the House. He pointed out examples of what he considered to be unfair and deceptive statements, and questioned the accuracy of Mr. Gladstone's estimates of the expenditure for the current year, and his anticipations of the revenue. He could not understand the grounds upon which he had calculated that he would receive the sum of 750,000l. from China, inferring from papers which he read, and from the stipulations of the Treaty of Tien-tsin, that not one farthing of this sum could come to the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. With regard to the paper duty, he denied that the House was pledged to its repeal either by its resolution or by the Bill of last year; but it was deeply and solemnly pledged to repeal the income-tax and the tea and sugar war duties, and, if there was a real surplus of revenue, it should, he contended, be applied to the remission of duties that would relieve the great bulk of the people.

Mr. M. Gibson said the calculations of the revenue in the Budget had been honestly made, founded upon estimates of the probable yield of the revenue by men of experience and judgment. He complained that none of the opponents of the Budget had suggested any substitute. The Government had done what they had been told it was their duty

to do; they had provided adequately for the public service, they had been alive to the necessity of upholding the public credit, and they had proposed a remission of taxation that would, in their opinion, be most beneficial to the general interests of the country. With respect to the 750,000l. expected from China, Lord Elgin and Baron Gros had told the Government that a sum of about 1,000,000l. would be paid during the financial year, which would be paid rateably to the Government and to the merchants, and, basing their opinion upon the statements of the only persons who were fit to guide them, the Government considered that at least 750,000l. would be received by the British Exchequer. He read returns of trade in order to show that there was no ground for indulging gloomy anticipations; and said that, believing that they had a surplus of revenue, the Government were bound to propose some remission of taxation, and were they to pass over the paper duty? Were they to ignore all that had taken place with reference to this tax, and consider that the House was not in earnest last year? He contended that, if there was a remission of taxation, it would be impossible to overlook the paper duty, and that the Government had taken a bold, consistent, and honourable course. It had been said that the repeal of this duty would benefit only cheap newspapers; but he insisted that it was a landed as well as a commercial question-that the agricultural interest would experience a relief by the removal of a tax which checked the ex

pansion of the manufacture of paper.

Mr. Moffat had very great doubts as to the accuracy of the estimates in the Budget, and whether there was a surplus of revenue. He dwelt with much force upon the glaring failure of the small taxes upon commercial operations imposed last year, as affording ground for the doubts he had expressed, and suggested other reasons for questioning the existence of a surplus. Of the 750,000l. expected from China, he believed, if justice was done, not 100,000l. would find its way into the Exchequer. If taxation was to be remitted, it was, he said, the duty of the Government to prove that there was a surplus. Mr. Whiteside, after noticing the ingenuity displayed in the Budget in the contrivance of a machinery to get rid of the paper duty, and to exhibit an imaginary surplus, urged the injury which the Irish distillers had sustained by what he termed the rash project of the Chancellor of the Exchequer regarding the spirit duties. As to the duty on paper, Mr. Gibson had relied upon an abstract resolution. But the House was oppressed with abstract resolutions; there had been one on the subject of reform. Supposing the existence of a surplus, the income-tax had been stigmatized by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as an immoral tax, which could not be said of the paper duty; why, then, should the former be retained and the latter remitted? So with the war duties on tea and sugar-reason and humanity recommended their repeal rather than that of the paper duty. He adopted the character of the

Budget given by Mr. Baring, that it was not an honest Budget; he trusted that this sentence would be acted upon by the House, and he was confident that the decision would be approved by the country.

Mr. Haliburton denounced in very strong language the manner in which the poor were imposed upon by delusions and falsehoods. on the subject of the expenditure necessary for the defence of the country. He asked whether any person could imagine that the tea and sugar duties and the paper duty stood on the same footing. To call this duty a tax upon knowledge, he said, was cant.

Mr. Osborne remarked that the Budget, like all Budgets, dealt in anticipations. The Chancellor of the Exchequer estimated his revenue at 71,823,000l., and his expenditure at 69,900,0007., which left a surplus of 1,923,0007. Did the House believe the statements of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or those of persons who had not his means of information? He believed there was a surplus of 1,923,000l. Then, ought there to be any remission of taxation? No Chancellor of the Exchequer would be able, with such a surplus, not to remit any taxes. Then, what taxes? The first ought to be the income-tax. What next? Let the House look at the position into which the question of the paper duty had got. The honour of the House of Commons was, in his opinion, pledged upon this question; he should take the first opportunity to settle it, and should give his support to the Government in their proposal to repeal the paper duty.

Mr. Maguire said he should

confine himself to the subject of the paper duty. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated, on his responsibility, that there was a surplus, and the question was whether this was a time for the repeal of that duty. The paper manufacture was a most important one; it was in an embarrassed condition, and he contended that the House was bound by the promise made to the trade. He showed the pressure of the duty upon the manufacture of paper, which was almost crushed by it in Ireland. The abolition of the excise duty upon paper would be one of the greatest boons conferred upon the country, and the obligation upon Parliament to repeal it was strong.

Mr. Horsfall said he would assume that there was a surplus, and, considering its appropriation, they should look at the general taxation of the country, distinguishing between the ordinary taxation and the extraordinary, imposed to meet the extraordinary exigencies of the State; and he believed that honesty required that the latter should be the first removed.

Mr. Horsman remarked that it was a matter of great regret that the question of the paper duties and the difference with the House of Lords should have been brought on again. He was not prepared, he said, for the repetition of the acknowledged folly of last year, the repeal of the paper duties being now combined with an affront to the House of Lords. The several resolutions to be submitted to the Committee of Ways and Means were to be embodied, not, as last year, in separate Bills, but to be contained in one Bill, and sent to the

House of Lords in that new form, to deprive that House of the right of independent judgment, and to give them no power but of accepting or rejecting the financial policy of the Government as a whole. There were war taxes on tea and sugar, and these were to be retained; and if a penny war tax was taken off the tax on incomes, and a duty remitted that was not a war tax, instead of a boon conferred upon the country, a gross injustice was perpetuated. Adverting to our expenditure, in the present state of affairs abroad, he thought it extremely difficult to reduce it, and he put it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say whether any part of our military expenditure was unnecessary or avoidable; if so, how could he reconcile it with his duty to support it? Estimates were increasing throughout the continent of Europe. There was no use in disguising the fact; "We are arming against France was the universal cry all nations. Having dwelt very pointedly upon what he considered to be the aggressive policy of the Emperor of the French, which, he said, kept the world in arms, he observed that, taking the resolutions to be proposed to the House as a whole, there were two points for considerationfirst, as to whether there was a surplus of revenue; and secondly, the application of the surplus. The first resolution referred to the income-tax, and considering the nature of this tax, and the pledges given to the House regarding it, he hoped the Committee would not let it pass as a mere matter of form. With rerespect to the tea and sugar duties, there were high duties, he

of

observed, upon other articles consumed by the operative classes, and the Committee must have a better reason for continuing those high duties, which dimiminished the comforts of those classes, while the paper duties were remitted. On the subject of the resolution repealing these duties, he noticed the conflict of figures in which the question of a surplus was involved, indicating more than a doubt as to the existence of any excess of income over expenditure. In conclusion, he reiterated his objections to the form in which the resolutions were intended to be presented to the House of Lords, and expressed a hope that a majority of the House would still be found true to the principles it had adopted last year.

Mr. Bright complained that Mr. Horsman had endeavoured needlessly to revive a subject which it was obvious that there was no wish on the part of many members to have imported into the question before the House. As to his objection to the combination of the resolutions in one Bill, Mr. Horsman, he said, would find in the journals of Parliament, no further back than 1801, 1802, and 1803, that the House of Commons had repeatedly, and almost constantly, taken the very course the Chancellor of the Exchequer had recommended. On the question of a surplus, his creed was, he said, always to believe a Chancellor of the Exchequer when he admitted a surplus; he assumed, therefore, that the surplus was a real one; the question then was whether the remission of duties was judicious and fair to the various interests of the country.

The proposed remission went half to direct and half to indirect taxation; and he asked why there should be so much hostility to a particular remission, and whether it was worth while to assail a Chancellor of the Exchequer on this ground merely to gain a party triumph. It had been said that a preference should be given to tea and sugar; but those who said this did not know the real incidence of these taxes. He was as great an enemy to the tea and sugar duties as any one; he believed, however, that the remission of the paper duties would give a greater relief to the industrious classes than the reduction of the war duties on tea and sugar. Mr. Fitzgerald had asserted that this was a political Budget, framed to conciliate him (Mr. Bright); but, though he admitted it was his Budget, because he approved it, the question was whether, in adopting the policy he had recommended, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had gone beyond his duty. He believed it was a Budget just for the Parliament to pass, and which would be beneficent to the people; he therefore gave it his hearty support.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said it would be his duty to deal principally with the statements which impugned the figures he had submitted to the House; other matters which had been imported into the debate he should pretermit. At the same time, he could not help remarking upon the transposition of the constitutional duties of the Government and the House which had appeared on this occasion. The Government said they had a surplus of 2,000,000l., and