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considered a revision of the Tariff would that those who, on the eve of a general be-thought only of gratifying a party spite and creating embarrassment to a future Ministry. On this subject we said in that

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'Protecting duties are in their nature and by the very principles on which they were originally founded, liable to revision, alteration, and even EXTINCTION. Our predecessors, when induced by motives of commercial or national policy to protect any individual branch of trade, never intended that the protection should last beyond the occasion. The go-cart would naturally be laid aside as soon as the child was strong enough to walk alone. We are aware that in some instances this wholesome rule was forgotten or neglected in others, powerful influences may have prolonged protection beyond its proper bounds: in all cases it is hard to hit the exact moment of transition, and still harder to accommodate existing interests and old habits to a change of system. But though protection has thus a natural tendency to last too long, that is no valid argument against its existence within proper limits, and certainly is rather an additional reason why any alteration rendered necessary by the alteration of times and circumstances should be made gradually, cautiously, and with nice discrimination.'

Can it be said with any colour of truth

election, published or countenanced such declarations as the foregoing, deceived the constituencies into a belief that they were pledged against any modification of the Tariff or any interference with protecting duties?

objection, indeed the only one specified, is As to the Poor Laws, Sir Richard's chief to the central Commission in London. Now it is remarkable enough that in our article of September, 1841, after suggesting some amendments in the practical details, we insisted on the advantage, indeed the necessity, of the central Commission; and as the subject is still of undiminished importance and interest, we are not sorry for an occasion to repeat our strong opinions on that point:

'Our readers know that we supported some of the leading principles of that measure on its first introduction; and that, though pained and grieved by many details of its operation during subsequent years, we have never joined in the violent reprobation of it which has been turned very generally against its authors. We knew that some change in the old practice was necessary-and believed that the Whigs had acted with courage and sincerity in applying what they thought the most efficacious remedy-and were willing to hope that they themselves would alter details wherever these were condemned by experience.

But, moreover, who in his senses would think of suddenly pulling down a of the details were unsightly or inconvenientmansion built only ten years ago, because some nion, as there notoriously are in the poor-law even if there were no grave differences of opicase, as to the extent of the inconvenience or deformity?....

We cordially agree (with the friends of the bill) on the question of what is called centralisation-that is, the existence of a central authority in the metropolis, to ensure a unity, or, at least, similarity, of principle and practice throughout the whole country. That the large class of individual and local cases ought to be and must be individually and locally determined, is unquestionable; and that the existing rules as to cases of extreme and sudden urgency are far too narrow, we are strongly inclined to believe; but who can be so unreasonable as to deny that some broad and general principles, founded on broad and general consideration and experience, ought to pervade the whole? Why should one county or one parish have one principle, and another another? Why should not that which is best and fittest and most beneficial be extended to all? We really cannot believe that any serious difference of opinion does or can exist on so selfevident a proposition; and accordingly we find that the strongest adversaries of the central Board would only replace it by an equally central authority under another name.'-Quarterly Review, No. cxxxvi.

We trust we shall be pardoned for the

apparent egotism of thus reproducing our | by jury-to the opinions I have professed and

uniformly acted on with regard to other branches of the jurisprudence of the country-I appeal to this as a proof that I have not been disposed to acquiesce in acknowledged evils, either from the mere superstitious reverence for ancient usages, or from the dread of labour or responsibility in the application of a remedy.'

own opinions, as we really do not know where else we could find so short and yet so full a refutation of Sir Richard Vyvyan's charges-such direct and tangible proof that before the formation of the present ministry-nay, before the dissolution that produced it, and during the elections-the His speech on Sir J. Yarde Buller's very measures which are now characterized as surprise, deception, and duplicity, were, motion on a want of confidence in the then by a portion at least of the Conservative government, May, 1840, is an answer, by party, contemplated as probable, and pub-anticipation, to some of the chief allegations licly recommended as expedient. of Sir Richard Vyvyan's letter, which has, indeed, the singular ill luck of containing nothing, absolutely nothing, that had not been refuted before it was written. One of the points on which, he says, that constituencies were fully justified' in expecting redress from Sir Robert Peel, was the new poor-law.' Now, we ask, whence could any such expectation have arisen, and how could it be fully justified?' The same charge had been made several years ago; and was thus indignantly refuted by Sir Robert in May, 1840:

But though these imputations are made against the Conservative party generally, they are pointed with peculiar zealousness, and with many personal insinuations, against Sir Robert Peel. If the member for Helstone had ventured to make his charges in the proper place and the proper presence, Sir Robert Peel would assuredly have saved us the trouble of taking any notice of them Whether he had treated them with the indignation which their injustice, or the ridicule which their absurdity deserved, he would have left us nothing to say. As it is, we need do no more than repeat the clear and explicit declarations which Sir Robert Peel himself has over and over again made in the face of the country. Indeed, after every possible allowance for what we may call the involuntary errors of temper, prejudice, and, perhaps, pique-we are still at a loss to understand how a writer of Sir Richard Vyvyan's position and information could be led to make assertions which we should have supposed every man who hears, and every man who reads, the proceedings of parliament, must know to be unfounded. Is it not notorious that Sir Robert Peel has, ever since he became the acknowledged leader of the Conservative party, stated, with perhaps more than necessary frankness, the system on which alone he would ever consent to conduct a government? and is not that system-from the highest principle down to the minutest detail—the same that he has promised and accomplished in all his recent measures?

'I have been distinctly accused of having maintained silence on the subject of the poorlaw, for the express purpose of gaining support at the late general election, on account of the unpopularity of the law, and the clamour directed against it. I have disdained to notice these and all similar accusations of the public press, false and malignant as they may be, in any other place than the House of Commons. I supported the poor-law in parliament, when brought for ward by a government which I opposed. . . . I shall continue to support the law; aud in saying this, am I making a tardy declaration in its favour? Am I justly chargeable with having declined my share of the responsibility attaching to it, or with having sought to profit, for party purposes, by the tacit encouragement of a cry against it? My own election was among the earliest at the general elections of 1837. I had to address my constituents in the open air upon the hustings. Then was the time for reserve about the poor-law, if I had wished to set the example of encouraging agitation for election purposes. Here is the speech which I delivered on that occasion. In the course of it I was interrupted by a cry, "Did you not support the

Read his address to the electors of Tam-poor-law ?" This was my answer. "There is worth in 1834-5:

Now, I say at once that I will not accept power on the condition of declaring myself an apostate from the principles on which I have heretofore acted; at the same time, I never will admit that I have been, either before or after the Reform Bill, the defender of abuses, or the enemy of judicious reforms. I appeal with confidence in denial of the charge to the active part I took in the great question of the currency-in the consolidation and amendment of the criminal law-in the revisal of the whole system of trial

no question of public concern from which I wish to shrink; and I tell you frankly that I did support the poor-law; and further than that, I admit that my opinion of its leading enactments and provisions is not changed."—Speech, pp.

40, 41.

Still more distinct, if that be possible, is Sir Robert Peel's prophetic vindication of his alteration of the scale of corn-duties. In the same speech of May, 1840, he says—

'On the great question of the corn-laws my

opinions remain unchanged. I adhere to those which I expressed in the discussion of last year. I did not then profess, nor do I now profess, an unchangeable adherence to the details of the existing law, a positive refusal, under any circumstance, to alter any figure of the scale which regulates the duty on foreign corn.'-pp. 47, 48.

These opinions he repeated early in the session of 1841, and again more fully in the debate on the Address (28th August, 1841), -a solemn occasion, which decided the fate of the Whig ministry, and the accession of Sir Robert himself to office. He then repeated his opinion on the corn-law question, and stated the grounds on which only he could accept the confidence of parliament, in these words:

he justified, in common fairness, in allowing Sir Robert Peel to suppose that he had his concurrence in the great task he was about, on the strength of that night's majority, to undertake? Suppose any considerable number of gentlemen had acted as Sir Richard Vyvyan has done-look to the consequences:-Sir Robert Peel would then have been betrayed into accepting office from which he must have been speedily expelled, by his own supporters, and on a point which he had openly and explicitly, and in the presence and amidst the acclamations of all those supporters, made the sine quâ non of his acceptance.

These are not merely personal questions -they involve the characters of public men and the strength and stability of the Previous to the late dissolution of parliament government to a degree that justifies, we I said, and I now repeat it, that I think the think, the notice we have taken of them; sliding scale a preferable method of settling the but we admit that a more substantial and duty. I then said, I would not pledge myself to important question still remains for discusthe details of the existing law, but that I would sion-not whether Sir Robert Peel's measreserve to myself the unfettered power of conures have displeased this member or disapsidering and AMENDING those details. I hold that same language now. I still prefer the pointed that constituency (of real displeasprinciple of a graduated duty, but if you ask ure or disappointment we have seen very me whether I bind myself to the maintenance slight symptoms), but whether, on a large of the existing law in all its details, and whether and general consideration of the state of that is the condition on which the landed interest the country, they were wise in their pringives me their support, I say that, ON THAT CON- ciple, just in their application, and likely to DITION I CANNOT ACCEPT THEIR SUPPORT.'-Speech, be successful in their result. 27th August, 1841.

And this remarkable declaration, strongly enforced by many illustrative details, was followed by that celebrated division in which 362 Conservative Representativesincluding Sir Richard Vyvyan himself-accepted Sir Robert Peel's conditions, and called him by the unexpected majority of 91 to execute as minister, inter alia, the amendment of the Corn-Laws, to which he had so emphatically alluded.

We shall begin by the simplest part of the question, the direct taxation. Sir Richard Vyvyan denounces the Income Tax as a most obnoxious tax,' 'a war-tax levied during peace,' an inquisitorial impost,' 'an intolerable burthen; but we must here again ask Sir Richard why he did not state these objections vivâ voce in parliament? His excuse in the case of the ores does not apply here-namely, that he wished to avoid the appearance of dissensionfor he exhibited his dissent by one or two votes. But even now, why does he not indicate what other line of policy, what other form of taxation, he would have recommended? On ordinary occasions it. might be unreasonable to ask an individual ac-member who opposes a ministerial measure to propose a substitute; but when a gentleman thinks himself entitled to advise the Crown and the country on their most vital interests, and to propose a new administration on principles entirely different from those which have hitherto directed our pub

Need we, or indeed could we, add any argument to give strength to this statement and this fact? Sir Robert Peel declared boldly, almost arrogantly, the conditions on which alone he would accept the support of his party-those conditions were cepted that support was given with unexpected enthusiasm-and now Sir Richard Vyvyan-himself a party to the voteturns round upon us and upon himself, and with the most perfect coolness seems to forget that this remarkable scene-the most remarkable of our times-had ever hap-lic councils, we think that we have some pened! If there has been duplicity and deception, it is Sir Richard himself who must answer for it. Ought he not-with such opinions as he now professes-to have said in his place, 'I cannot vote with Sir Robert Peel upon his conditions?' Was

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reason to complain that he has not given us even a hint of what those new principles may be; and particularly, that, censuring so harshly what the actual minister has done, the minister in pelto does not vouchsafe us a glimpse of any other possible ex

may venture to say that the sum proposed to be levied by the Income Tax will not much, if at all, exceed the expenses, past, present, and future, of these wars, every one of which has been inflicted on us as well as on the objects of our hostility, by the impolicy, the injustice, and the incapacity of the late ministry.

trication from the difficulties which he ad-) China we still have ;-and we think we mits and even exaggerates. The only hint that tends that way is his statement that the deficit was 'altogether occasioned by the voluntary reduction of productive taxes' (p. 16). Does this imply that the best mode of reducing the deficiency would be the re-imposition of the repealed taxes?-a proposition which, extravagant as it appears, Sir Robert Peel had, as we have seen, patiently examined, and proved both by reasoning and experience to be inadequate and impracticable.

But we do not, as we have already said, rest the defence of the Income Tax on any such narrow and, as it were, technical excuse. The country accepted it as Sir Robert Peel offered it, as a great resource in a great emergency, as effecting, and as being the only measure capable of effecting, the combined purpose of liquidating our financial difficulties and contributing to commercial relief. The re-enactment of repealed taxation was out of the question-the utter failure of the per centage on the customs and the excise proved that those duties on articles of consumption had reached their limit, and that any further pressure could only produce further retrogradation; but, on the other hand, Mr. Baring's per centage on the assessed taxes had exhibited the phenomenon not merely of realising the estimated amount, but of a substantial increase of the revenue itself. Now the assessed taxes are very analogous to income tax-they are in fact the representative-though in some respects an inadequate and partial one-of income. Sir Robert Peel therefore concluded, most judiciously we think, that he had in the advance of the assessed taxes a practical argument in favour of a tax upon income;

an

But Sir Richard Vyvyan is here again lamentably misinformed on the fundamental facts of his case-the deficit was not altogether occasioned by the voluntary reduction of productive taxes.' It is true that there had been a successive and, as we have always thought, an improvident reduction of taxation, but we can hardly call it 'voluntary' on the part of the late ministers, for they were, in fact, bullied into it by a coercion which they had not the honest courage to resist. Nor was that reduction, even if it could be called voluntary,' altogether' the cause of the deficiency-the reductions would not of themselves have had such fatal results, but they were unhappily concomitant with sudden and rapidly increasing expenditure abroad and at home. The neglect of the Whig ministry to equalise the revenue and expenditure was indefensible; but it does not justify Sir Richard's misstatement of the fact, nor his forgetting that Mr. Baring did, in 1840, make an effort to meet the deficiency by the additional per centage on the excise, customs, and assessed taxes, and other sources, to the total amount of 2,200,000l., which, though inadequate to the object, exceeded the recent reductions, to which alone Sir Richard is pleased to attribute the deficiency. We the rather insist on this mis-statement because it is connected with that other very Even the objectionable character of the important mistake-that the Income Tax tax affords on this occasion some recomis a WAR-TAX, which it is the determined mendation to its adoption. We are called will of the nation at large should not be upon to meet a difficulty which, though levied during peace.' We know not where sharp, may, we trust, be short. The impoSir Richard has found the record of this sition of taxes on general objects, whether determination of the nation at large that the of production or consumption, cannot fail Income Tax should not be levied during to disturb in some degree commercial inpeace; not certainly in any expression of terests-and after they have been, as it popular feeling during the progress of the were, amalgamated with the system, the measure through parliament. We admit, remission of them has a similar effect; it is, however, that, with Lord Brougham, we therefore, highly impolitic to lay on permastrongly incline to that opinion; but Lord nent taxes for a temporary emergencyBrougham did not forget, as Sir Richard but an Income Tax stands alone-its influVyvyan has done all along, that we have ence on trade and the markets is so circuitbeen waging four distant and very expen- ous and so slight as to be almost impercepWar in Canada and war in Sy-tible, particularly at so small a per centage ria we have had-war in India and war in 'as 7d. in the pound. It, therefore, can be

sive wars.

and by exempting incomes under 1507. per annum from the operation of the tax, he spared the classes which are, at the moment, most in need of relief, and affected the easier and richer orders in the direct proportion of their means.

imposed in 1842, and may be remitted either at the end of three or five years, when its special purpose shall have been fulfilled, without any derangement of other interests-without affecting stock in hand -orders-bargains- buildings-speculations-or any of the variety of circumstances with which taxes on commodities are necessarily blended. The unpopular nature of the tax, also, suits it peculiarly for a temporary purpose, for the country, patient as it has been of its imposition as an urgency, will be very watchful to see that -agreeably to Lord Brougham's Resolutions and the Duke of Wellington's declaration-it be not continued one hour longer than shall be absolutely necessary.

of machinery for a temporary purpose. On
the whole, therefore, we are not surprised
at, and do most cordially join in,
ral concurrence-we had almost said satis-
the gene-
faction-with which the Income Tax has
been received.

Tariff there is little to be added to Sir With regard to the modifications of the Robert Peel's masterly exposition in the House of Commons of both its principles and details, which all who will read anything on the subject must have already read. general object, and a few words on some A short summary, however, of the articles that have been prominently criticised, will not, we trust, be considered suWe have already ventured to express our a tariff is to raise a custom revenue; but perfluous. The first and natural object of humble admiration of the disinterested pa- there has been engrafted on it, in England triotism of the members of both Houses of as in most other countries, the different and Parliament, who have accepted cheerfully almost opposite design of encouraging parand almost unanimously a burden which ticular articles-either of home manufacpresses in a peculiar degree on them-ture or the produce of some favoured counselves and the classes to which they be-try-by laying-even at the sacrifice of long, but from which the lower orders are revenue-prohibitory rates of duty on simiproportionably relieved. But even uponlar articles imported from other quarters. the wealthier classes the sacrifice will not, The extent to which the English Tariff we are satisfied, be in fact so great as the has been applied to the object of protection, nominal amount of the tax they may pay. Sir independently of revenue, is curiously shown Robert Peel stated, in the outset, his hope in the report of the Import Duties Commit-and he repeated, in his brilliant recapitu- tee, 1840. lation at the close of the session, that his total Customs revenue of 22,962,6107., seven It there appears that, of the hope was increased to confidence that to articles alone, out of 1150 articles compersons of moderate fortunes, who spend a prised in the Tariff, produce no less a sum large proportion of their incomes in the ne- than 19,148,6297., viz. :cessaries of life, the Income Tax, 3l. 16s. 4d. on every 1007., would be fully compen- Sugar sated by the decreased price of commodi- Tea ties influenced by the improvement of the Tobacco. tariff-we say influenced rather than produc- Rum, &c. ed, because we believe that the indirect Wine effect of the tariff will be still more benefi- | Timber cial than any direct lowering of prices. There is another circumstance which deserves a passing word. We stated in our article of October, 1839, on the Penny Post, that the postage duties were substantially an Income Tax-and so in the vast majority of cases they were: 1,600,000l. of that revenue has been abandoned; and, much as we disapproved that excessive reduction, and fully as all our prophecies and anticipations about it have been realised, we concur with Sir Robert Peel that the system should not be at present altered-but as this was 1,600,000l. | Cheese remitted to the income of the country, it may be considered as a set-off pro tanto against the new Income Tax. And, finally, the Income Tax has the great and peculiar

Corn..

. £4,827,018

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3,658,800

3,495,686

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2,615,443

1,849,709

1,603,194

1,098,779

£19,148,629

And that ten others produce
2,552,3017. viz. :—

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Coffee
Cotton Wool

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Silk
Butter
Currants.
Tallow
Seeds

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£779,114

416,257

247,362

213,077

189,291

182,000

145,323

Sheep's Wool.
Raisins

139,770

134,589

105,518

£2,552,301

£21,700,930

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merit of being collected at a moderate ex-So that seventeen articles out of 1150 propense, and requiring no permanent creation duced the enormous proportion of 21,700

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