In the House of Commons, last night, the CusucEttemt of
the EXCHE- QUER having moved the Committee of Ways and Means, Mr. HORSMAN moved as an amendment,—
"That, if the Income-tax be continued, it is expedient to amend the act, and not to impose the same charge on incomes arising from professional and precarious sources as on those derived from realized property."
Mr. Horsman dwelt on the excessively unequal incidence of the tax; an evil pardoned in a temporary impost, but intolerable in one that has evidently become permanent. He illustrated this position by quotations from former speeches, in which Lord John Russell bore testimony to the inherent "inequality, vexation, and fraud" of the tax. Mr. Horsman suggested a different plan, of which we have only space to mention the main features. He showed that incomes derived from different kinds of property are of different values; that the jest way to as- certain a common value was to capitalize the incomes, and then to calculate the tax on each kind of yearly income according to a ratio determined by its capi- talized value. To apply this, and rearrange the income so as to produce at least the present amount by a different scale, he took as his basis the returns obtained by Mr. Moffatt, for the year ending 5th April 1846. Instead of a uniform rate of 7d. in the pound, he proposed the following rates,-8d. in the pound on income arising from realized property; 6d. on trade, commerce, and manufactures; 4d. on professional and other precarious sources. This would yield 300,0001. more than the present revenue. Sir CHARLES WOOD and Lord Joust RUSSELL contended that Mr. Hors- man's plan wou'd be more odious than the present, because it would require a more inquisitorial machinery.
Mr. Fitssicts Beau% urged Ministers to attempt the adjustment of the tax on a fairer basis: merely to continue it, was only to postpone a diffi- culty with which they ought to grapple at once; for if the tax were not rendered more acceptable, the country would compel its abolition. Several other speakers joined in the debate; the great balance of argument going against the tax. But on a division, the amendment was negatived, by 316 to 141. The House went into eommittee, pro forma; to sit again on Monday.
The Diplomatic Relations (Court of Rome) Bill was read a first time; Colonel- SIBTHORP pronouncing the measure to be " another inroad on the Protestant constitution of the country, by a Government that feared neither God nor man."
The House of Lords was principally occupied with a resultless discussion on a petition presented by Lord Ltrravrox, from the Worcester Diocesan Board of Education, praying for relaxation of certain clauses in the regula- tions of the Educational Board of Privy Council.
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