Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

man,

66

was meant to attach upon expenditure in general. Where was the injustice of this?" Why," says the right honourable gentleby taxing the expenditure of a man whose income is derived from the funds, you do in fact tax his property in the funds." If this was a valid objection, it ought not only to induce the house to reject this measure, but to repeal every tax that ever was laid on; because it was impossible to suggest a tax which would not be paid by people having money in the funds. Every tax imposed upon consumption, of course must be defrayed by people having property in the funds; but it was absurd to say that was a tax upon the funds. If this objection was never made to taxes which were in their nature perpetual, it ap→ peared to him singular that it should now, for the first time, be made to a tax which was merely temporary.

The next objection of the right honourable gentleman was, that a tax upon commercial income was not just; for, said he, a man's landed property is his own, but the income he derives from commerce is partly derived from his industry. This was not a time to enter into a minute discussion of these arguments, but surely the right honourable gentleman did not mean to contend that commercial gains were not a fair object of taxation. Those gains were derived under the protection of the laws of the country, and consequently ought to contribute proportionably to support them. He did not, however, mean to contend that many distinctions ought not to be made, and in the committee modifications would undoubtedly be proposed. As to persons who employed great capitals, in proportion to their annual gains, they would be less affected than persons of landed property; but all that could be inferred from this was, that it was a recommendation of the criterion. Perhaps this criterion, as far as it affected the lower classes, did not make distinctions enough. It would be recollected, that the particular reason he assigned for making this tax lower upon houses than upon the other articles was, that it should not fall too heavily upon that species of income arising from retail trade. The right honourable gentleman had next censured the mode of appeal given in this case. Some alterations might

also be made upon this subject; but still he thought that mode of correcting the operation of the tax might be useful. The right honourable gentleman himself had admitted, that it might with propriety be applied to landed property; and, on the other hand, he (Mr, Pitt) was willing to admit, that as far as it related to the lower class of retail dealers, some modification was necessary. These were the general objections which had been made to the plan, and he should now leave them to the consideration of the house, with the observations he had made upon them.

He was aware that there were many who thought that, rather than take this visible criterion of ascertaining property, it would be better to lay a general tax upon property. Undoubtedly, if they could find the means of taxing property equally, without compelling improper disclosure, it would be a most desirable object; but as that could not be done without being open to stronger objections than the present plan, it became necessary that some visible criterion should be found. If that were the case, could any criterion be found more general in its nature than the assessed taxes? The persons immediately affected by this tax amounted to 800,000, and through them extended to about 4,000,000 of persons. By this plan a great number of poor persons would be wholly excluded, and above half of the number before-mentioned would contribute very little.

The committee upon this bill might, and he had no doubt would, make many amendments in favour of shop-keepers; but all this would be consistent with the principle of the bill. The committee might, if they thought proper, make au alteration in the scale proposed; without any dereliction of the principle of the bill. Many mitigations were, undoubtedly necessary; but if the utmost inference that could be drawn from this was, that the exemptions should be carried farther than was proposed in the committee of ways and means, how did that affect the general principle of the measure, when they had the means of obviating in the committee the only objections that had been made against it? Without going now into those details, which he wished to reserve for a future period, he should only say, that if it was admitted

that great exertions ought to be made, and that a large part of the supplies ought to be raised within the year, and if the only objection to this criterion was, that it would bear hard upon the lower orders of retail dealers, and it appeared to be within their power to obviate this objection; then, upon what ground could they hesitate, unless they had changed their opinions; unless, instead of making preparations for war, they were determined to begin by begging for peace from a haughty and insulting enemy ? If they were not determined to give up every means of exertion, had they any option but to go into a committee upon this bill, to remedy the inconveniencies that might result from it, if passed in its present shape? What was the conduct which the gentlemen on the other side wished the house to adopt? It was to reject this measure at once, and thereby to declare that they would make no efforts to raise the supplies within the year. If the house adopted this advice, it would be proclaiming to France and to the world, their repentance for having dared to stand up in defence of their laws, their religion, and of every thing that was valuable to them as Englishmen. It would be humbling themselves before a haughty adversary; and, when they had no means of defence, imploring mercy and forgiveness from an enemy from whom we had to expect neither.

Upon these grounds, he hoped the house would read the bill a second time, and let it go into a conimittee.

[blocks in formation]

On a motion for the third reading of the bill for increasing the Assessed Taxes,

MR. PITT, at the close of the debate, (which had been adjourned from the preceding day) rose and expressed himself as follows:

After the great length of time that has been consumed in the debate, the house, I am sure, will not be surprised if I should

desire to avoid, as much as possible, the vast mass of extraneous matter that has been brought forward on the present occasion, and select from the numerous topics that present themselves to my view, such as bear directly on the subject under our immediate consideration. With this view I shall endeavour to guide the attention of the house through the various irrelevant and contradictory arguments that have been used, and fix it more exclusively on those leading and practical points, which alone can determine the question we are now called upon to decide. I should have thought it, Sir, unnecessary to enter at any length into this argument, after the admission made by the several gentlemen who most vehemently opposed this measure, if I did not find that the principle they conceded in name is afterwards recalled in substance, and treated as a matter foreign to their consideration, and wholly inapplicable to the case now before them. The principle I allude to is this, whether, in the present circunstances of this country, there is, or is not an occasion to make a great and unexampled exertion to defeat the projects of the enemy, and secure our own national independence and honour. The affirmative of this proposition has been uniformly admitted and openly avowed: unless, therefore, the house, iufluenced by what has been advanced in the course of this night's debate, should think proper expressly to retract that opinion, I have a right to take it as the fundamental point that will govern their determination. This is not an opinion hastily adopted, and lightly considered. It is the language which, after full deliberation and inquiry, the house, at the commencement of the session, presented at the foot of the throne. Such, at that time, was their opinion, and the facts on which it was founded have, in the interval which has elapsed, been neither weakened nor denied. So far from any thing having been advanced contrary to this position, in the course of this debate, the right honourable gentleman himself * has unequivocally admitted, that great military and financial exertion is indispensable in the present situation of the country,

* Mr. Fox.

Now having advanced so much, it was natural to expect he would disclose the nature of those exertions, the necessity of which he did not deny; and if he disapproved of the present mode of raising so considerable a part of the supplies within the year, that he would point out how that end might be obtained, by means less objectionable. The question, as now argued by the right honourable gentleman, is, whether, after a delay of six weeks since the first agitation of this subject, and two months since the issue of the negociation, from which period the necessity of the exertions he admits must be dated;-whether, after such a delay, all exertion should not be suspended on the part of the country, till the house should obtain the dismission of his Majesty's pre-, sent ministers, a radical parliamentary reform, and a total change of system. Such is the ground, if I followed the right honourable gentleman, and understood him right, on which he wishes the present question to be determined. In his opinion the guilt of the present administration is so enormous, their general and, particular misconduct so manifest and great, that all the faculties of government should be suspended till they are removed. Their removal alone, however, will not do, and he has no hopes, of security without a radical reform in parliament, and a total change of system; and, unless these latter points are conceded, he professes that he will not take any share in any new administration that may be formed. With a view of persuading the house to pursue these objects, much time and much eloquence have been consumed, to convince them that they had a regular, constitutional right to withhold the supplies, till the grievances, of which they might think proper to complain, were redressed. But time and eloquence appear to me to be wholly misemployed No one that I know of ever doubted of the validity of that doc trine. The true question now is, according to the right honourable gentleman's mode of reasoning, not whether they have a right under the constitution of withholding supplies till grievances were redressed, but whether the house and country look upon those things as grievances which the right honourable gentleman does; and whether they will make such an exercise of

« ElőzőTovább »