APRIL 11.

TAXES.

Mr. Pitt moved, "That an amount of the net produce of the taxes for the quarters ending 5th of January, 1784 and 1785; and of those ending 5th of April, 1784 and 1785, should be laid before the house." He took an opportunity of ‘observing, that the new taxes which had been laid on in the last session, afforded such a promise of being productive as he would here make the house feel perfectly satisfied in the choice that had been made of them.

MR. SHERIDAN took notice of the very great fallibility of general and loose calculations in matters of finance; and seemed to think the right honourable gentleman had relied too much on grounds that would, when examined minutely, be found to fail him. To multiply by four, Mr. Sheridan said, was certainly no very difficult mode of calculation; but he could not conceive that the last quarter's amount of the produce of the taxes could fairly be stated to be a criterion, by which it could be decided, with any tolerable degree of certainty, what the produce of the taxes would be upon the Midsummer and the Michaelmas quarters of the present year. He declared, he believed, that upon inquiry it would be found, that the whole year's produce of several of the right honourable gentleman's taxes of the last session had been paid in the course of the last quarter, which would naturally cause the amount of that quarter's produce to swell in its size, and exceed in a pretty considerable degree the produce of the preceding quarters. The taxes he alluded to, were, he said, the hat license tax, the house tax, the game licenses and deputations, and several other of last year's taxes, that were to be paid in a round sum once every year. From the manner in which the right honourable gentleman had stated his computation of the probable amount of the whole produce of the four quarters of the present year's taxes, the house might possibly be deceived into a belief, that there was not any deficiency in the produce of the right honourable gentleman's taxes of the last year; and that they would really bring the sum for which they had been given, viz., £900,000. This, however, he had good reason to believe, was by no means likely to turn out to be the fact; on the contrary, he was induced to imagine, that the produce would fall short of £900,000 in the gross sum of £400,000. The right honourable gentleman, he observed, had stated, that £190,000 was to be deducted from three millions and sixty-six

thousand pounds, the amount of the produce of the taxes for the quarter ending April 5, 1785, the produce of the taxes of the last session for that quarter. Admitting, therefore, for the sake of argument, £190.000 would be the produce of the other quarters on the same account, still the aggregate would fall considerably short of £900,000. But he must go farther, and contend, that so large a sum as £190,000 was not likely to be produced by the taxes of 1785, upon each of the two quarters to come; and that, for the reason he had already stated, viz., because the whole year's amount of several of the taxes of the last year had been paid in the course of the past quarter. As the right honourable gentleman had declared the house could not have too much information on the subject before them, Mr. Sheridan said, he should move for an account of the produce of all the taxes of the last year, by which alone the house could determine how far their amount fell short of the sum for which they had been given; and how far the insinuation, that the right honourable gentleman's taxes were more unexceptionable and efficient than those of other financiers was founded.

The question was put and agreed to.

APRIL 20.

TAX ON COTTONS, COTTON-STUFFS, &c.

A motion was made by Mr. Pitt, for leave to bring in a bill, “to explain and amend an act passed in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of his present Majesty, for imposing a duty, by excise, on certain cotton manufactures, and to repeal so much of the said bill as imposed a duty on plain cottons and fustians.” Mr. Fox seconded the motion. The Earl of Surrey moved an amendment for the repeal of the act altogether. Mr. Pitt having, in his speech, thrown out an imputation on the evidence of the Manchester manufacturers,

MR. SHERIDAN rose, not, he said, to vilify the right honourable gentleman, but to declare, that the right honourable gentleman had most unjustly cast aspersions on the Manchester manufacturers, who, by no means, merited such treatment; on the contrary, their evidence was unquestionably founded, and the whole of their conduct had been most laudable. Mr. Sheridan stated, that he had spent part of the summer in Lancashire, and been a witness to the infinite pains the manufacturers had taken to keep their numerous workmen quiet, and to preserve the peace of the country. He rose principally, Mr. Sheridan said,

to impress more strongly the idea suggested by his right honourable friend, viz., the reprobation of the doctrine of giving that to prejudice, which had been refused to reason. Such doctrine was the way to raise clamour, and to throw the whole country into confusion. It was pointing out a mode of obtaining the repeal of a tax, that could not but be attended with the most mischievous consequences; and therefore, to obviate it, and to prove to the world, that whatever might be the rule of conduct adopted and followed by his Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer, as an individual, the house of commons did not act by so strange a rule. He should move an amendment, which was, to insert after the word that, a few lines, the purpose of which amounted to a resolution, "that it appeared to the committee, that the manufacturers of Manchester would be so much aggrieved and injured, if the tax on fustians, cottons, and cottonstuffs, &c., &c., imposed by an act of the last year, were suffered to continue, that the manufacture would be materially detrimented, and, perhaps, entirely ruined; therefore it was the opinion of the committee, that leave be given to bring in a bill to explain and amend," &c., &c. Mr. Sheridan moved this amendment regularly.

he say

Mr. Rolle charged Mr. Sheridan with having made un inflammatory speech, with a view to excite alarm and discontent in the country. He said, he would not say who it was that went down to Lancashire to stir up the manufacturers, to set them against the taxes, and to promote tumult and discontent. Neither would who it was that distributed, or caused to be distributed, seditious and inflammatory handbills, and had them circulated all round the country; but the fact was so; and if he could bring the proof home to the party he suspected, he would take the proper steps to have his head stuck upon Temple-bar. Mr. Rolle charged Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Fox with having shifted their ground. The first of them had seconded the motion, and declared he approved highly of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's conduct, and now the right honourable gentleman had said, he would vote against the motion he promised to second; this was, in his opinion, abandoning and deserting ground, once taken, in a most shameful manner.

Mr. Fox said, with regard to the empty threat of having heads stuck upon Temple Bar, he knew not of any act which made circulating handbills a capital offence; but he was ignorant of any such fact, if the honourable gentleman had alluded to him. His honourable friend, so far from having made an inflammatory speech, tending to alarm the country, and create discontents and clamour against the taxes, had done the direct contrary; his whole speech, and the amendment he had moved, had obviously been calculated to guard against alarms, and to prevent clamour from arising against other taxes, in consequence of the repeal of the tax on fustians. With regard to the charge of having shifted his

ground, he had not shifted any ground; he had said, he approved of the motion, He did so still; and approved of letting the tax remain on the printed cottons. but a point of order having since been started, which struck him to be well founded, he must necessarily vote accordingly. If the honourable gentleman called that shifting his ground, to that accusation he begged leave to plead guilty. With regard to what the honourable gentleman had said, he would not speak; he presumed the honourable gentleman was too much a man of honour to assert what he knew he could not prove.

MR. SHERIDAN rose to say, that his right honourable friend must certainly have mistaken the honourable gentleman, because the honourable gentleman had said nothing but what was a defence of his argument; for what was his argument, but an argument to prevent the public from being misled, and thence alarmed? With this view, he had moved an amendment, declaring the reasons for which the house agreed to repeal the tax on fustians. The charge of making inflammatory speeches lay at the door of the right honourable gentleman opposite to him, if it lay any where, because the right honourable gentleman had said, he repealed the tax on account of the prejudices of the manufacturers, and not because it was burthensome and oppressive. Mr. Sheridan declared he did not think it necessary to make any reply to what the honourable gentleman had not said; and with regard to the handbills, he really knew nothing about them; but he could easily conjecture why the honourable gentleman was so sore about publications. The handbills were not the compositions that hurt him; but compositions less prosaic, but more popular, he was afraid, had made him so sore. [Here a general laugh.]* Mr. Sheridan said, he was aware that the honourable gentleman had suspected that he was either the author of those compositions, or some way or other concerned in them; he did assure him, upon his honour, he was not, nor had he ever seen a line of them till they were in print in the newspaper.

Mr. Rolle said, he held the author of the compositions alluded to, be he whom he would, in sovereign contempt, as well as his works; but as the cap fitted the honourable gentleman and his right honourable friend, they were welcome to wear it. He saw he had touched a sore place. With regard to there being no act to prevent the circulating of seditious handbills, for the sake of creating discontent in the country, if there was no such act, there ought to be one; and if he knew the author, as a member of parliament, he declared he would take the

Mr. Sheridan alluded to a popular satire, entitled, "Critiques on the Rolliad."

proper steps to have him punished. He persisted in charging Mr. Fox with having shifted his ground, and said no man living should make him abandon his ground either in that house or out of it.

Mr. Sheridan again replied, and said, while the honourable gentleman talked at random, he should take no notice of it; but if he charged him with being concerned in circulating any seditious handbills, he would answer him both there and elsewhere very plainly and very coarsely. Mr. Sheridan having said this, touched upon his amendment, which several gentlemen pressed him to give up, to which he consented.

The amendments were disposed of, and the original motion passed.

MAY 9.

TAX ON FEMALE SERVANTS.

MR. SHERIDAN rose, not, he said, to make any very ludicrous remarks on the proposed tax on female servants, though he could not but imagine, if it were persisted in, it would occasion more ridicule than all the cheerfulness of the right honourable gentleman would be able to cope with. He rose to state, that he was seriously of opinion, that it was a most unwise tax, and a tax that the public would never be easy under. Indeed the right honourable gentleman, in opening it, had fallen into an egregious error, and applied a principle to it that by no means could be supported, as a principle equally applicable to the proposed increase and gradation of increase of a tax on male servants, and to the intended tax on female servants. The keeping of a number of male servants was indisputably a luxury; and the making those who chose to keep a number pay in proportion to it, was perfectly fair and reasonable; but the case was far otherwise with female servants. It did not follow, because a family kept any number above two or three, that they were more opulent, and more able to pay taxes, than those who kept only one or two. In many cases, where three or four female servants were kept, the sole reason was the great number of children the family had, and which necessarily required that more servants should be kept to look after them. Mr. Sheridan said, what he chiefly rose for was to point out, that in arguing upon the money to be raised to pay the interest of the four millions to be funded, the right honourable gentleman had allowed for £240,000,