NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE voluminous debate opened by Mr. Disraeli on Friday night closed on Monday night, with a majority of 286 for going into Committee of Ways and Means, against the minority of 206 who voted for his declaratory amendment ; a division differing very little from the numbers that had been calculated beforehand. The resolution which Mr. Disraeli moved as an amendment would have constituted a pledge, to have been enforced by the House of Commons, that income and expenditure should be so adjusted as to secure the country against the risk of a deficiency in 1858-'9 and 1859-'60, and to provide such a balance of revenue and charge in the year 1860 as might place it in the poWer of Parliament altogether to remit the Income-tax. This motion was moralized first by Mr. Disraeli, then by Mx. Gladstone, with an enormous display of figures, intended to prove that the plan proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer vrould involve the country in a deficiency for successive years, and would land him with an accumulated deficiency in 1860, when, in accordance with the existing law and the pledges of successive Ministries, the -Income-tax would terminate. This charge was accompanied by 'Another, that Sir George Cornewall Lewis had departed from the .pledge given by Mr. Gladstone in 1853, that the Income-tax .should be reduced in the year commencing on the 1st of April next :to the amount of 5d. By the existing law also the Tea-duties should be reduced, for the same year, from Is. 9d. to is. 3d., and the Sugar-duties, which are under a more varied scale, in a similar proportion; whereas the Chancellor of the Exchequer asks to reduce the Tea-duties by not more than 2d., and the Sugar-duties by a proportionately small amount. Thus, Mr. Disraeli, whose arguments were enforced with much greater eagerness by Mr. Gladstone, at once accused the Chancellor of the Exchequer of incurring an annual and accumulating deficiency, and of not reducing the -three classes of tax on income, tea, and sugar, to the lower points at which in 1853 they were fixed by Mr. Gladstone for the year 1857. In the course of two nights' debating, it was inevitable that a great variety of topics and illustrations should be introduced, but the pith of the whole accusation advanced against Ministers by the two Ex-Chancellors resolved itself into what we hive just stated. Presented in this condensed and naked form, The accusation is, that Ministers are incurring a deficiency for the present and for successive years, and at the same time that they are not reducing the gross amount of the taxes. Such a charge is a paradox, and it is not reconciled to itself by closer examination. It partly originated in the circumstance that Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, although they disclaimed it, had practically precipitated the Committee of Ways and Means on the mode of raising the revenue by taxes, before the Committee of Supply had decided on the amount wanted and the mode of expending it. Thus untowardly started, the debate divided itself into two main questions,—was the Chancellor of the Exchequer really reducing the amount of the taxes ; and were the taxes the best selected for the purpose ? This latter point turned exclusively upon the proposals for arresting the decline of duties on tea and sugar ; commodities of general consumption labouring at present under difficulties with respect to their produce and importation, that render them very questionable subjects for a continued weight of impost. By common consent, however, any proper debate upon the proposals with respect to tea and sugar was deferred, and the discussion of the two nights turned upon the Income-tax and the alleged deficiency. Ordinary Members were much mystified, even on the Tory side ; and Mr. Bentinek struck out an escape from so embarrassing a discussion by proposing the adjournment of the debate. This motion, however, although put to a division, was not seriously supported. When the discussion is regarded from a little distance, without the excitements and complications of the hour, it is seen that the question is very simple. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was most unquestionably proposing to repeal 9,000,0001. of Incometax ; but in doing so, he was providing more than enough by 891,000/. for the service of the current year. The deficiency was confessedly "prospective," and it turned entirely upon the presumption that the expenditure of the present year must continue. Now this is a question for the Committee of Supply, in which the expenditure itself would lie before the House of Commons. Nobody doubts that money enough would be raised ; the only question is, whether the Government means to spend more money than it is authorized to collect. Ministers have told us in general terms, that the outlay for the current year is in great part exceptional, being augmented by supplemental payments on account of the war, v/hile some of the other expenses to which the Government stands pledged are either necessary in themselves or are demanded by the public wants. These are points which we can judge only when the Estimates are developed. The occurrence of so large an expenditure, while ,we have in. view the abandonment of so large a part of the revenue in 1860 as the remaining 7,000,000/. of the Income-tax, constitutes an all-sufficing reason why the Members of the House of Commons should pay a most unusual and painstaking regard to the expenditure. The Estimates should be examined in every part, in order to ascertain that the proposed outlay is necessary,
or is at least advisable. H it is neither necessary nor advisable, the Government is liable to the charge of drifting into a deficiency, and the Estimates must be out down to the proper amounts. If the outlay is necessary, or desirable, we have had evidence in the past three or four years that the country is able to bear any charge consistent with its honour and its requirements ; and then the question would be that which we suggested last week—not whether the income of the state could be reduced in 1860 by the amount of the 7,000,0004, but whether the Income-tax is the proper form for a permanent impost. In either case, this balance of expenditure and income cannot possibly be judged until we have scanned the Estimates.
The Opposition took Ministers on another weak point—Sir John Bowring's sally against the Chinese. Lord Derby constituted himself counsel for the prosecution in the Howe of Lords and he had got up the ease with great completeness. His speech was an elaborate epitome of the Parliamentary papers,— exposing how the squabbles began about the registered native vessels of Hongkong ; how the Chinese intrigued ; how Sir John Bowling was watching for an opportunity to raise that question of official entrance into Canton which the Government at home had checked him in mooting ; how the attack upon the lorcha at last furnished him with the opportunity ; how he seized it, and set the Admiral bombarding the unwarlike though fierce people of Canton ; and how matters remain in a position as unsatisfactory for us tea-consuming people as they are for the Chinese hating the interference of outside barbarians. The reply of Lord Clarendon was, in brief, that the Chinese amounts are not to be trusted ; that the Chinese are a people incapable of fulfilling treaty stipulations ; and that the only effectual mode of controlling them is force. But there are various modes of appealing to that last arbiter. Lord Lyndhurst took up the ease of the lorcha, and made it the subject of a monographic inquiry. He showed that in an English court of law the ground occupied by the servants of our Government would be utterly untenable. Without expressly giving up the ease, Ministers shift the ground.
to the more general question of policy : but if they desired to revive a litigation as to the right of entering into Canton, there are two questions whieh they ought to have well settled before sanctioning the aggressive proceedings of Sir John Bowling. Was this the proper opportunity ? and if it was, was Sir John Bowring the right man to improve it With the exception of a few sarcasms at Sir John's anthological lueubrations, there does not appear to have been any disposition to press hard upon that amiable linguist ; but surely he has shown what might almost have been presumed from his antecedents, that he does not possess the calm firmness, the experience, or the unexcitable temper, to be the manager of trade and armaments on the frontier between civilization and barbarism. It is an instance of the mischiefs arising from the miserable contrivances by which our Executive dispenses its patronage. Sir John might have been a meritorious public servant in other capacities, but at Hongkong ho is not "the right man in the right place." Mr. Bonham had shown distinctly, that to press the right of entry acquired under treaty, would be of doubtful value at Canton ; and whenever it was determined to press it, a more appropriate selection should have been made of the man to conduct that armed diplomacy. On the first night of the debate, the aspect of affairs was ominous for the Government ; but by the second night, Thursday, the danger to the existence of the Ministry had its influence, and 146 Peers tallied to prevent the 110 from recording a vote of censure.
Mr. Cobden raised the question in the House of Commons somewhat differently : he moved resolutions expressing concern at the proceedings in Canton, which the papers failed to justify, and proposing that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the state of our commercial relations with China. The story which he had to tell was of course the same as that told by Lord Derby, but it was told with more compactness, with different illustrations, and with some original information. It only made more strong the conclusion, that the attempt to press the right of entry was untimely, and that Sir John Bowring has been indulged in the exercise of very gross indiscretion. The debates showed the same distribution of the House that we see in other discussions of the week—Ministers on one side, upholding their own case as re matter of course ; the Opposition on the other side, attacking the Ministerial ground as a matter of course ; with an increasing number of independent Members, not sympathizing with the Opposition, but partially censuring the Government ; and Lord John again coming to the common-sense of the matter in a speech "received with signal favour by the House." The expression is that of Mr. Lowe, one of the junior counsel for the Government. Before the adjournment of the debate, the strength of Mr. Cobden's position was shown by a trifling incident. The printer had run his two resolutions into one ; but Government, yielding to the influence of the hour, could not resist Mr. Cobden's request to amend that mechanical mistake.
Government has definitively refused the petition of Lady Franklin and the men of science for a final expedition to go in search of Sir John Franklin's remains. The refusal comes late in the day. It was last summer that this urgent request was preferred to Government ; Ministers listened to it, and avowedly with favour. They have suffered eight valuable months to pass, and now they say that they will not undertake the responsibility. No doubt, they have a plausible excuse to offer for their final decision ; but the question remains, whether by the manner of arriving at it they have not rendered the responsibility of refusing greater than the responsibility of acquiescing.
Even more discredit has been drawn upon Ministers by the device to which they have resorted for stopping the fair claims of Sir John If 'Neill and Colonel Tullooh. Those gentlemen had performed a difficult public duty with the approval of Lord Palmerston and Lord Fermium ; the correlative duty of honourably rewarding them has been enforced, not by themselves, but by public opinion ; and Government has endeavoured to buy them off with a gratuity of 1000/. a piece ! The money was declined, "not indignantly," said Lord Palmerston last night, as if unconscious of the sarcasm, "but very courteously and in kind language."
Lord Campbell has made a very practical and judicious motion in the House of Lords, for referring a question of Libel Law to a Select Committee. A recent case in the Court of Queen's Bench had settled, that even in reporting the proceedings of a public body, as of a Town-Council, a journal repeating accusations renders itself liable to an action for libel. The very principle of the law has been called in question on the strength of old judgments, which appeared to draw no distinction between oral and written slander. The late decision, however, makes it positively unsafe to publish even debates in Parliament when the matter is accusatory; and unless a restraint is to be put upon the fair reporting of debates, in or out of Parliament, an amendment of the law is absolutely necessary. But what amendment of the law ? Lord Campbell moved for a Select Committee "to inquire whether the privilege now enjoyed by reports of law proceedings might not safely and properly be extended to proceedings in other bodies " ; and he.hiniself modestly put the question whether the privilege could not be extended to faithful reports of proceedings in Parliament ? But there are many other public proceedings which are almost equally necessary to be reported. It should be a question for the Committee to define, what, for instance, is a public meeting ? We believe that the definition would be possible.
The movements out of doors are both ancient and modern. The Association for the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge has made its annual demonstration, this year on behalf of paper, the duty on which the Association would abolish. There can be no doubt that the removal of the duty would lead to very great improvement in an important manufacture ; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not repealing taxes this session.
"The unemployed" continue to meet in Smithfield ; with the only effect, not of obtaining employment, but of stimulating quietists in the London Corporation to expedite the enclosure of Smithfield.
The meeting in Westminster to promote emigration is more practical in its tendency ; but the gentlemen present did not show a very practical acquaintance with the subject ; nor has it been elucidated by recent writers on Australia, who speak with an air of authority because they have " been there." It is true that funds have accrued in the Australian Colonies ; but they have been appropriated by the colonists, sometimes to emigration, sometimes to other purposes local and personal. Those who are actually wanted by the Colonies can be assisted ; but those who are not so invited will find no funds suitable to their case, until some new settlement be founded to open the way for a new emigration. The workpeople who organize for this object will be disappointed, unless they can discover that the existing Colonies want them, or that they can bring forward capitalists to found a new settlement. Government, as such, has no fund for emigration; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not proposing one.
A movement new to England, for extending to Scotland the forty-shilling county franchise, was initiated this week it a meeting of Reform Members in Palace Yard ; where it virtually effected a promising alliance with the Locke King movement.
