said, he would propose to add at the end of Clause 7 the following proviso:—

"Provided always that in tidal waters where salmon fishing by means of net and coble can only be carried on during a certain state of the tide, it shall be lawful for persons having such rights of fishing to commence to fish by net and coble only at such hour of the Monday morning as may be suitable for the same."

said, he should oppose the proviso, which would leave it in the discretion of proprietors of fisheries to say when they should commence fishing, and when they should leave off. By an Amendment which he had already proposed to the clause, the Commissioners would have power to vary the period at which the weekly close-time should commence in any district; and he did not think it would be advisable to go beyond that.

said, he would move, in line 20, after the word "Scotland," to insert, "after notice duly given by special advertisement, in some newspaper of general circulation in the district, not less than ten days before any such visitation, to the proprietors of salmon fishings on each of such rivers or estuaries, of their intention so to visit and report.

said, he would propose the insertion of words entitling the lessees of salmon fisheries, under leases of not less than three years originally, and of £50 and upwards, to be placed on the roll of the district board and entitled to vote.

opposed the Amendment.

said, he thought that the interests of the tenants of fisheries on the Scotch shores of the Solway Firth were sacrificed by the Bill. Under these circumstances he thought it only fair that the parties should be allowed a certain time to work out of the business, and he should therefore propose to insert the words "from and after the 1st of January, 1867," the object of which was to prevent the Act coming into operation, so far as these persons were concerned, before that period.

supported the Amendment.

said, he thought it would not be unreasonable to suspend the operation of the Act with respect to the parties for a certain period. He thought, however, that the Amendment of his hon. Friend was too wide in its terms. He (the Lord Advocate), should have no objection to insert words providing that the Act should not come into operation till the 1st of January, 1865, which would meet the case, by giving ample time to the tenants for compensation arising out of a change in the law.

said, that the Bill proposed to extend the English Act to a certain portion of Scotland in a way which would act injuriously to the interests of proprietors and tenants, and therefore he could not help thinking that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Stirling was fair and reasonable.

said, he should support the Amendment.

said, that he approved of the proposal of the Lord Advocate to delay the operation of the Act for a period of two years.

said, he would withdraw his Amendment, and proposed in substitution for it the following:—"from and after the 1st of January, 1866," which would give three clear years to the parties to compensate themselves for the loss which they would suffer from the passing of this measure.

said, that notwithstanding the result of the division, he did not object to make the Amendment he had himself proposed, and to extend the time for the Act coming into operation until January, 1865.

said, he would move an Amendment, providing that the weekly close-time should commence at six o'clock, on Saturday night, and end at six o'clock on Monday morning.

said, ho wished to move the insertion of a clause to follow Clause 24, to provide that fishings in the possession of any proprietor, by virtue of a Royal grant or charter, and who should have exercised the right to fish the same for the term of forty years, and situated within certain estuaries, to be defined by the Commissioners, might be fished with fixed nets or fixed engines, until purchased.

said, that it was impossible for him to accede to clauses which would legalize fishing in places where it was unlawful at present.

said, he would point out that he had inserted the proviso, "not being an estuary already defined or determined by law."

said, the object of the Bill was to provide that, within the limits of estuaries to be fixed by the Commissioners, all fishing with fixed nets or fixed engines should henceforth be illegal.

said, he would then move a clause empowering district boards to grant annual rod licences. The clause, with others following, had been taken verbatim from the recommendations of the Committee of last year.

said, that these were the very clauses upon which the Bill of the last session foundered. He hoped his hon. Friend would not renew a discussion which was very fully gone into during the last year.

said, he should oppose the clause, as it was calculated to demoralize the people, who would not take out licences to do that which had been a custom for 100 years.

said, he would withdraw the clause.

moved the insertion of words embracing the provisions of the Act in respect to the appointment of Deputy Commissioners.

said, that some of the northern counties had heavily assessed themselves to build asylums, in which the lunatics were well looked after, the harmless and incurable being allowed to reside with their friends. He should therefore move as an Amendment, excepting from the operation of the clause the counties of Inverness, Nairn, Ross, and Sutherland.

said, that asy- lums were sometimes choked up with incurable cases; and if the means of removing those who were harmless existed, there would be an opportunity of taking in new cases. It was well understood, that if cures were effected in cases of lunacy, they were generally brought about within the first twelve months.

said, he objected to the power being given to the Commissioners. It was quite a new principle, and had come upon the Scotch Members by surprise, for at their meeting on the previous day, they were told that the measure would be merely a continuance Bill, whereas the clause was entirely new. It was, he thought, unfair to override all the counties by the clause because a few of them had neglected their duty.

said, the clause contained the most important provision in the Bill. The Bill was an Amendment of the Lunacy Act—and not a continuance Act—in any other sense than it continued the existing Board.

said, that when the district board refused to build asylums, there was no means of compelling them to provide the requisite accommodation. The clause would give the desired power, and he should support it.

said, he hoped the hon. Member for Stirling county (Mr. Blackburn) would persevere with his objection.

suggested, that the provision enabling the Secretary of State to exercise the powers given him by the clause should be qualified by the insertion of the words "unless cause be shown to the contrary."

said, he did not object to the Amendment.

said, he should press his objection to a division.

moved the addition of the following clause:—

"It shall be lawful for the Board to grant licences to any charitable institution established for the care and training of imbecile children, and supported in whole or in part by private subscription, without exacting any licence fee therefore, and such licence may be in name of the superintendent of such institution for the time being."

moved the insertion of the following clause:—

"With the sanction of the Board, agreements and arrangements may be made for the reception and detention of all or any of the pauper lunatics of any district, county, or parish in any public, private, district, or parochial asylum or hospital within or beyond the limits of such district, county, or parish."

said, he wished to move the insertion of a clause for allowing persons to enter asylums voluntarily.

How can a madman enter an asylum voluntary?

said, he wished to ask the Chief Commissioner of Works, What quantity of land will be taken out of St. James's Park for the New Buildings; and whether any change has been made in the Plan so far as regards the quantity of land required in St James's Park?

said, he believed the hon. Baronet alluded to the hoarding that had been recently erected, but that did not mark out exactly the site of the building. That site included 18,000 square feet of ground, which formerly was part of St. James's Park. Since the most recent of the Acts on the subject had been passed, it had been found desirable to alter to some extent the outlines of the proposed buildings with a view to architectural effect; consequently, he should propose to bring in a Bill to allow of a slight exchange of ground between the site of Public Offices and the Park; the general result of that exchange would be that 1,480 square feet would be added to the Park.

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he is aware that Mr. James Bishop, who was arrested at Gaeta on the 2nd of April, and committed to prison on a charge of complicity in the Canaldoli conspiracy, has not yet been brought to trial, and that bail has been refused him, although Count Canaldoli himself has been admitted to bail; and, if so, whether Her Majesty's Minister at Turin has been instructed to take any steps on his behalf?

said, that Mr. Bishop was arrested, not, he believed, for having been concerned in a conspiracy, but for having been the bearer of treasonable correspondence. He had not found any trace of the name of Count Canaldoli in the correspondence with the Foreign Office. Mr. Bishop was arrested on the 2nd of April, and had not yet been brought to trial, on account of difficulties arising out of the introduction of entirely new courts and trial by jury into Naples. A despatch had, however, that morning been received from Consul General Bonham, who states that he had been informed by the Procureur General that the jury lists would be completed in a few days, and the trial would then come on immediately. A despatch had also been received from Sir James Hudson, stating that he had, in accordance with instructions from home, transmitted a note to the Italian Government, calling upon it to proceed with the trial of Mr. Bishop as early as possible.

said, he wished to ask, whether the hon. Gentleman would have any objection to lay that note upon the table?

said, he was not aware that there would be any objection to do so, but it might be as well to wait until the correspondence was closed.

said, he wished to ask the hon. Member for Sunderland, If he is prepared to give the terms of the Motion in relation to American affairs, of which he has given notice for Friday next?

said, that if he considered it advisable to proceed on Friday with his Motion, the object of which was the recognition of the Southern States, he would that evening, or to-morrow at the latest, place the terms upon the table.

said, he rose to call the attention of the House, in connection with the income tax, to the action taken by Government on the "Two Million Fortification Loan Act of 1860;" also to the effect of the income tax on the rents of encumbered landed property, and to move for certain Returns. About two years previously the noble Lord at the head of the Government proposed to raise, for the purpose of erecting fortifications, a loan of £10,000,000 or £12,000,000 through the medium of terminable annuities. He (Mr. Hubbard) then took the liberty of submitting that no more wasteful course could be adopted than to raise money for such a purpose in such a manner, and proposed an Amendment in order to prevent the adoption of that course. The Government, however, persevered, and he was defeated. From papers which had recently been distributed he found that during the year 1861 £970,000 had been brought into the Exchequer by the sale of terminable annuities. Those annuities had not been placed in the open market, but had been taken by the Government to the account of the savings banks; and, to provide the purchase-money, they had sold Three per Cent stocks belonging to the savings banks. The terms, however, on which the annuities were placed were not stated in any paper which he could find on the table of the House; and although he found papers in which the prices were affixed to other kinds of stocks, there was no price attached to these annuities. If, however, the Government persevered in thus contracting loans in a way which was ignored by the capitalists and moneyed corporations of the day, the loss would be multiplied just in proportion as the loans were multiplied. To obtain the means of purchasing the Terminable Annuities for the savings banks, the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt sold Consols and other funds privately; but when they carried these sums of stock into the market, they were selling on behalf of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (or, in plain terms, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was selling on his own account) with an amount of knowledge which was not possessed by the individual who bought. It might be said that that course of proceeding was for the benefit of the Government, and therefore of the country; but he submitted that it was not consistent with fair dealing that the Government should send their agents into the market to sell with a knowledge which those who bought did not possess, because, had it been known that the Government broker was selling to provide money for the Fortifications, there would have been a pressure on the stocks, and the same price would not have been got which was obtained under different circumstances. There was a degree of straightforwardness in all money dealings between individuals in this country which ought not to be departed from; and he submitted that the course of proceeding by the Government in this matter not only involved the Government, through the savings banks, in the risk of serious loss, but was open to objection on the ground that it was not fair to substitute a stealthy sale of Three per Cent stocks for the sale of Terminable Annuities, in accordance with the Fortifications Act. He would next, in pursuance of his notice, call the attention of the House to the action of the income tax upon the landed interest. It would be in the recollection of the House that on the 14th of May he made a Motion upon the subject, when his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in reply, asked hon. Members not to be led away by plausible appeals, but to attend, above all things, to the interest of justice; impressed it upon the House that he spoke from the actual calculations of the Board of Inland Revenue, and did not rest upon an imaginative estimate of the magical results which would follow an improved morality; and declared, that although he was reputed to be an enemy of the landed interest, he would not do them so great an injury as would result, especially to owners of en- cumbered property, from the adoption of his (Mr. Hubbard's) proposal; adding, that as at present (owing to the payment of interest on mortgages and settlements, all of which were paid in full), when the income tax was at 9d. in the pound the landowner really paid 11½d., and that this 11½d. would under Mr. Hubbard's scheme be raised to 13½d., "and that (concluded his right hon. Friend, in his passionate appeal to the landed interest) was the scheme proposed to them in the name of justice and fair play." To that formidable impeachment of his right hon. Friend, grounded (as it was assumed to be) on official facts and computations, he was able at the moment to oppose nothing but a simple disclaimer, which naturally would prevail as little against the statements of his right hon. Friend as the protestation of a criminal against the sentence of the judge. His right hon. Friend spoke in that House with no common authority, and therefore with no common responsibility. He could not, like other men, cast his words on the air to let them die away after they had served their momentary purpose; the words he uttered became a part of the history of the country. They were heard with attention in that House, and read all over the world; and wherever they were read they were received with deference and respect. Why did his right hon. Friend enjoy that wondrous prerogative? It was not because he stood in that House as a Minister of the Crown—it was not even because he had a command of language, perfect in diction, earnest, and of unrivalled eloquence; but it was, above all, because he was believed to speak with careful and scrupulous veracity on all occasions. That was the secret of his strength; and therefore it was no light censure upon a scheme when his right hon. Friend denounced it as injurious to the State and to the interests of social order. He did not complain of the terms in which his right hon. Friend had conveyed his censure, so long as those terms were but the expression of his own opinion, but when he passed from the region of opinion to the region of facts and figures, the case assumed a different complexion, and one of much greater gravity, and he must be allowed to say that in the debate to which he referred his right hon. Friend was led into statements which were inaccurate, and therefore not applicable to the case which they were put forward to meet. The first proposition of the Chancellor of the Exche- quer was that the adoption of his plan would cause an immediate loss of £2,600,000 to the revenue. The second, that on the residue of encumbered property, the tax would be raised from 11½d. to 1s. 1½d. in the pound. With regard to the first statement, as well as the second, he was about to move for Returns which in due time would enable the House to see how the facts really were. With that frankness which characterized him, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had intimated his intention of making no objection to those Returns. In the mean time he (Mr. Hubbard) ventured to surmise that the sum to be lost, if the abatements were uncompensated by a readjustment, would not be £2,600,000, but very little over £2,000,000. In the next place, he was very much mistaken if it would not be proved that the operation of his scheme, instead of raising the tax on the residue of encumbered property from 11½d. to 1s. 1½d., would actually reduce it to 10¼d. The effect of the scheme would be to remove one of the greatest defects in the present law. In fact, a grievance might be suffered by landed proprietors from the existing state of things of a far more serious character than that complained of in the case of traders, because in the case of the latter he did not think the grievance amounted to more than fifty per cent. That would be the amount if a trader was charged on £900 when he ought to pay on only £600; but in the case of a landed proprietor charged on the residue of encumbered property the excess might be as much as seventy or eighty per cent. Where he was beneficially possessed of only ten per cent of the net rental, he had to pay tax on twenty, because he had to pay on outgoings, which were nothing but a reinvestment of capital. In such a case the landowner was charged not at 9d., but at 1s. 6d. Under those circumstances the landed proprietors, instead of being parties to whom his scheme would be injurious, were parties who would largely profit by its adoption. He did not, however, appeal to landowners on any allegations of self-interest, nor did he feel that in bringing the subject under the notice of the House he was doing so in a private or personal character. Circumstances had induced him to look very carefully into the various Income Tax Acts, and the information he had acquired had led him to advocate the cause of those whom he found to be aggrieved, with earnestness, but he trusted not with unbecoming warmth. He desired to effect a readjustment of the income tax, because he felt that its present operation was most detrimental to the morals of a very large number of the industrious classes of Great Britain. He trusted, therefore, that the House would not think it unbecoming in him to endeavour to vindicate his scheme from impeachments which he knew were baseless, and to show that it would not be attended with those injurious consequences which his right hon. Friend had imagined.

seconded the Motion.

said, that his hon. Friend was not quite correct in supposing that the Government would make any objection to his Motion as far as it was in their power to grant the Returns moved for. That part of the Motion which rested on what might be called matters of fact they would readily accede to; but as for the last paragraph, which rested on no matter of fact, but was pure hypothesis and argument, it was not in their power to prepare such a Return. His hon. Friend in an adroit manner had mixed up two subjects which were distinct, separate, and incongruous — namely, a scheme for the collection of the income tax, and an impeachment of the Government for the mode of raising money adopted by them in order to provide for the for-

said, with respect to that class, he proposed to make a deduction of the whole.

observed, that his hon. Friend would then make greater havoc with the tax than he had anticipated. He had been blamed by his hon. Friend for overstating the amount of burden sought by his hon. Friend's scheme to be laid on the owners of land and houses, and he thought it possible that in some respects he might have overstated the amount; but, whether that was so or not, it did not touch the reason and nature of the case. His hon. Friend was going to burden one class, and to do that by disburdening another; and that was the objection to the scheme. The owners of land were already under great disadvantage, inasmuch as they paid the tax on the gross and not on the net income. The owners of houses were under greater disadvantages than the owners of land; for, while they also paid on the gross, and not on the net income, unfortunately for them, their outgoings in a large amount of cases were greater than those of the owners of land. Then came his hon. Friend and proposed to deduct l–12th from the owners of land, and l–6th from the owners of houses. But what his hon. Friend deducted from the owners of lands and houses made its appearance again in the shape of a tax at a more elevated rate, which not only took away the whole benefit of the deductions, but positively imposed an additional burden. If his hon. Friend were to have his own way with the income tax, and were to carry his favourite project for reducing the rate on official salaries and on the incomes of bankers and merchants by one-third, he must, in order to make the tax produce the same amount as it then did, raise the rate from 9d. in the pound to 11d. The proposition only tended to create a new class of inequalities and anomalies, and would in some instances confer a boon totally unwarranted. In the case of the greater number of the best houses the outgoings did not reach 5 per cent, and yet to the proprietors of these his hon. Friend proposed to make a present of 16 per cent. There were, on the other hand, a great number of owners of house property whose outgoings reached 25 or 35 per cent; and what comparatively was a boon of 16 per cent to them, even if it were an absolute boon? His hon. Friend's proposition would not only introduce inequality and injustice in a new form, but would do something more; for, when his hon. Friend said that he would lay on the owners of house property 3d. additional in the way of tax, it was unnecessary to say what an enormous amount of taxation the plan of his hon. Friend would lay on large classes of house property owners, who at present paid a tax on at least 25 per cent in excess of their net income. His hon. Friend's plan appeared to be unjust, inexpedient, and impracticable. So long as his hon. Friend talked of deducting from certain schedules, he would find plenty of willing listeners; but when, on the other hand, he stated that it would be necessary to increase the rate of tax on some schedules, then all ears, except those of the most favoured classes, to whom he gave 33 per cent, would be closed against him. His hon. Friend would, however, have succeeded in confronting class in the most painful and odious warfare with class. When the struggle about free trade was brought to a close, it was thought that that painful warfare arising out of an erroneously supposed opposition of interests between classes was in a great measure got rid of; but the plan of his hon. Friend would do much to revive all those angry feelings. He trusted, however, that on every occasion when the subject was brought forward his hon. Friend would fail to obtain a vote from the House of Commons favourable to his plan, just as he failed to do so from the Committee, which, without adverse prejudices, examined his plan fairly. With respect to the Motion, the first portion, in the form of a tabular statement, could be given; but, as to the latter portion, there was an objection to public departments giving Returns founded on computations.

said, that as a Member of the Select Committee of last Session he desired to say a few words. It was essential that in every matter of this kind justice should be adhered to; and he had come to the conclusion, upon an examination of the whole question, that the persons under Schedule D not only suffered no injustice, but that they actually possessed several advantages over the persons assessed under the other schedules. The chief axiom of the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Hubbard) was, that a tax should press equally on all members of the community, and that the income tax was not a tax of that description. Now, on looking at the different classes of taxation he was at ft loss to discover where any such principle could be found. For instance, the duty on insurances fell chiefly on the owners of house property, and the probate duty was a tax on survivors only. The very exemption of incomes under £100 a year is made on the same principle; an exemption which he thought it would be only fair to extend to those under £150 a year. There was no tax, he contended, that pressed equally on all classes of the community. The hon. Member for Buckingham had made use of the argument that the unfair pressure of taxation under Schedule D led to a great amount of fraud in making the returns. If that were so, it arose, not from the amount these persons had to pay, but because they had the power of self-assessment. Now, this was in itself a great advantage which the persons assessed under Schedule D possessed over those assessed under the other schedules. The late Mr. Wilson proposed to divide incomes into three classes. From the first class, which comprised realized property, he proposed to make a reduction of 12½ per cent. From the second, which comprised incomes partly derived from realized property, and partly from the personal exertions of individuals, he proposed to deduct 25 per cent. From the third class, comprising all persons under the operation of Schedule D he proposed to deduct 50 per cent. Mr. Wilson fixed upon the sum of £530,000 as the amount which it would be fair to deduct from the various Schedules, principally Schedule D, before assessment to the Income Tax. That was in 1853. Now, it appeared to him (Sir F. Heygate) that in considering this question the succession duty on land had been entirely overlooked. It should be borne in mind that the succession duty was proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer with the view, among other objects, of remedying any injustice the owners of property which came under the class of Schedule D might be supposed to suffer. The right hon. Gentleman the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, in making his Financial Statement, in 1853, had used the following words:—

"It is said that the legacy duty is in the nature of a tax upon property. It is a tax upon property, and because it is a tax upon property it meets the views which have been so much favoured by a large portion of this House and by public opinion—namely, that if the income tax is to bear unequally upon intelligence and skill, as compared with property, then that inequality ought to be redressed in some way or other. I think this is a safe mode in which to redress that inequality; and if this is a tax upon property, it is divested of the danger that attends the taxation of property generally." [3 Hansard, cxxv., 1395.]

The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Cobden), in his speech on the budget and income tax in 1853, also said—

"At the same time I have presented to me another portion of the budget, which I believe not only goes far to redress the inequalities which existed in the old income tax, but which I consider a bold and honest proposal; and, whatever be the fate of this budget, the right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) and his colleagues have earned for themselves, I think, great honour for their straightforward and resolute conduct in grappling with a question which defeated Mr. Pitt in the plenitude of his power, and with which no one has ever since dared to meddle—I mean the legacy duty. … I must say that, looking at the income tax, coupled with the legacy duty—taking them together, viewing them as the keystone of the arch of this budget—I take them both, and I take them with both hands. I feel as strongly as any man in this House the case, of professional men; but I have not found in the north of England any very active opposition to the equal rate of duty upon all classes …. It will not, I think, benefit the professional man or the small trader in rural districts; but the legacy duty upon real property — although I should wish to view that question per se, and not as a compensation, though we are made up: of checks and compensations in this country— will be some compensation to the professional and | trading community, and will somewhat tend to reconcile them to the tax in its present form." [3 Hansard, cxxvi., 691–2.]

Now, the sum which Mr. Wilson had fixed upon as representing the amount of injustice inflicted on the taxpayers under Schedule D was £530,000; but the succession duty exceeded that amount, the duty having produced in each of the last two years more than £600,000. Now, when the hon. Member for Buckingham talked of the unfair pressure under Schedule D, he entirely overlooked the advantages which these persons derived from the privilege of being allowed to take the average of three years, as well as from the privilege of self-assessment. To show how that operated, it must be observed that from the enormous increase in our trade it was fair to look for a proportionate increase under Schedule D. But while from 1854 to 1860 our exports have increased from £115,821,000 to £155,692,975, the amount of the income returned for assessment under Schedule D had shown an increase of no more than £2,417,000, the amount in 1854 having been £93,022,000, and in 1860 not more than £95,439,000. Now, either the trading classes under Schedule D, for whom such a piteous case had been made out, had carried on an enormous trade without profit or with only a small profit, or else they were able by some peculiar process known only to themselves to neutralize those returns. Mr. Till, the intelligent clerk to the Commissioners of Income Tax for the City of London, stated to the Committee, that each penny of tax under Schedule D produced from the beginning £50,000, and no more now, although trade had so increased. On looking at the large increase in the value of land around large towns, and at the general prosperity of the manufacturing and trading classes, as shown by the increased price of every article of luxury, it was impossible to believe that in ten years they had not received a larger accession of income than I £2,417,000. It was of essential importance that the subject should be grappled with at once. For his own part, he could I not see that the taxpayers under Schedule D were subject to any special injustice, and his confidence in his fellow-countrymen was so strong as to induce him to believe that the moment it was proved to them that such was the case they would desist from I all agitation on the subject. He must, however, remark that all the evidence taken before the Committee went to show that the income tax was essentially a bad tax, and that it ought to be reduced to as small an amount as possible. The facility with which such large sums were raised, was a temptation to extravagance, and he believed the Estimates would not pass so readily if the House had not the income tax to fall back upon. If that tax was only resorted to in times of danger, instead of quarrelling who should bear the most or the least, he believed the people would come forward like good citizens and bear their share of it fairly and honestly.

said, he could not but deprecate the line of argument by which it was sought to uphold that the income tax did not press unduly on Schedule D, because, by leaving a door open for the commission of fraud by means of making false returns, its pressure might be mitigated. He regretted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not acceded to the whole of the Motion, for the Returns moved for would have shown the country what would have been the real effect of the readjustment proposed by the hon. Member for Buckingham. Great injustice was at present done to the landowners, and to those who derived their incomes from certain kinds of house property, and the time had come when something should be done for their relief. He was the more anxious that the income tax should he placed upon a sound basis, because he desired to see it permanently established, believing that it had enabled the present and past Governments to improve our fiscal system, and that future Governments would find in it the means of taking off those indirect taxes which still restricted our commerce, and lessened the comforts of the great body of the people.

said, he must decline to discuss the income tax, because, do what they would, they could not make it agreeable. It was a most detestable impost, incapable of amendment, and the best plan would be to get rid of it as soon as possible. Such a tax ought not to exist in time of peace; and if, as they had been told by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, £65,000,000 was a revenue amply sufficient even during the Crimean war, there was some reason to hope, that if things went quietly, at least one-half of the income tax might be taken off next year. But what he wished to remark upon at that moment was the objection taken by the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Hubbard) to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when authorized by the Legislature to raise annuities, being permitted to Bell those annuities practically to himself. It appeared that a large portion of the Fortification Annuities had been taken by the savings banks. Everybody knew that the manager of the savings banks had nothing to do with such transactions, which always took place between the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day and the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt. Now, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was a leading Commissioner, and practically he had sold the annuities to himself. That was a most vicious system, and he hoped the House would stamp it with its reprobation.

said, he would suggest that the hon. Member for Buckingham, in accordance with his own plan for the readjustment of the income tax, should distinguish in the Return for which he had moved between trades and professions generally and joint-stock companies. The proposal of the hon. Member was to allow trades and professions generally to deduct one-third from their incomes; but he would not permit joint stock companies carrying on business to make any deductions at all. Such a plan, if adopted, would operate most injuriously, and it was only right that the real effect of it should be made known to the country. His hon. Friend would by no means get rid of the difficulty and injustice of the income tax by his plan. He mitigated them only in a very insignificant degree. Nothing was easier than to point out anomalies in its incidence; but that fact only showed that they ought not to lay that stress on it they were now doing —that it was desirable to reduce the pressure to the minimum, and that they should only have recourse to the tax in an emergency, and for great objects; but the scheme proposed by his hon. Friend was full of objections and inequalities. Thus, for instance, there was no doubt that landed proprietors whose property was subject to mortgages were unjustly treated by the system of charging upon the gross rental; and be understood his hon. Friend to say that by his plan he would get rid of that injustice, by relieving the proprietor from a proportion of the charges of management; but that really was not sufficient, and would still leave him liable to more than his fair proportion as calculated upon his net income; and the proposal to increase the tax upon real property in order to relieve the taxpayer under Schedule D would increase the injustice, and make the proprietor of landed or house property liable to perhaps more than ho paid then. His hon. Friend drew a line which would cause the greatest dissatisfaction, and give rise to questions that would go on spreading from year to year until the tax became perfectly odious, and utterly useless for all purposes of finance.

replied: He should have been very glad to have his Return rectified according to the suggestion of his right hon. Friend the Member for Stamford; but he found that the Board of Inland Revenue could not, without much trouble and delay, distinguish the returns of public companies. But the general result would not be very different from that under the form of Return he proposed. It was a principle in his scheme to assess differently the products of property and the earnings of skill and intelligence. The impossibility of learning the amount of traders' capital must reconcile one to the necessity of taxing the combined product of skill and capital in private trade; but as joint stock companies distinguished their proprietors' capital, it was both practicable and just to distinguish for taxation the salaries of the skilled labourer and manager from the dividend of the proprietor. His right hon. Friend objected to the second Return he had moved for; and as his right hon. Friend had admitted the point he wished to prove—namely, that his scheme so far from raising the effective tax on landowners' residue of rent from 11½d. to 13⅓d., would actually reduce it to 10d.—he would omit it, and conclude by moving for the first Return only.

said, he rose to move the Address of which he had given notice. He could assure the House that he felt the responsibility he incurred in bringing so important a subject before it. Every year they had a debate raised upon the propriety of holding Alderney as a military station, and forming a harbour of refuge there. If that was a fit subject for discussion, how much more fit for it was the question whether they should hold those two larger Channel Islands, which were far more difficult to defend, and of much less value than Alderney— namely, Jersey and Guernsey. On what ground did they attempt to hold them? He did not believe they were under any moral obligation to do so; and still less did he believe in the possibility of their defending them with the small military force they possessed. He understood that the Duke of Wellington had suggested that 10,000 men would be required for the Channel Islands. Of that number Alderney would take 3,000; but what could be said in favour of locking up the remaining 7,000 in the other two islands? With a properly organized militia Jersey and Guernsey could defend themselves. Some years ago the people of Guernsey maintained their own fortifications, but the works had been transferred to the War Department, and were maintained at the expense of this country. At Jersey England had always constructed the works. She built Fort Regent, placing it, however, in a wrong position, where the troops would be trapped instead of being sheltered; and it afforded no protection to the town of St. Helier's or the surrounding country. When the Duke of Wellington recommended 10,000 men for the Channel Islands, England had not the gigantic works now in progress at Portsmouth and elsewhere. The seventeen miles of fortifications proposed for Portsmouth would require a garrison of 25,000 men. Plymouth would require another 25,000, Chatham 15,000, Dover 6,000, Pembroke 8,000, the Isle of Wight 6,000, Sheerness 5,000, Ireland 10,000, and Scotland 10,000, making an aggregate of between 100,000 and 110,000 men. The Militia and the Volunteers, however valuable, could not defend their great arsenals against the best regular troops in Europe except their own; and they could not possibly spare 10,000 men of their regular army for the Channel Islands. Previous Commissions had inquired into the subject of the defence of these islands, but the Commissioners were mostly naval and military men who, though very able in their respective professions, required to have been associated with statesmen, so that the financial and political bearings of the question might be duly considered. Great blunders had been committed. In 1845 the Government determined, on the Report of a professional Commission, to construct the harbour of St. Catherine's, in Jersey, at a cost of £300,000. The work was stopped in 1862. That money had been entirely thrown away, and the work would be more useful to an enemy than it would be to England. It was worth nothing at present except to an enemy, and therefore the Government should either complete it, or remove what had been constructed. The militia of the islands should be put upon a proper footing, which certainly was not the case at present; for, if the inhabitants of Jersey could not in a great degree defend themselves, the 2,000 or 3,000 men we could send there would be thrown away. The points of landing upon the island were not numerous, and if—us would be the case in the event of war—an English fleet occupied the Channel, no Imperial troops ought to be necessary. With respect to Alderney the case was different, and he did not object to expenditure of money in forming a harbour there. In former times England blockaded the enemy's ports; and doubtless that would be attempted in future wars, though some experienced officers doubted the practicability of effectually doing so with steam fleets; but in any event Alderney would act as a check upon Cherbourg; and if a harbour were formed there, vessels would not have to run to Portsmouth to coal and for repairs, as at present they were obliged to do. It was known that the Emperor of the French was constructing a port for gunboats on the coast of France immediately opposite to Jersey, and in the unhappy event of war between England and France we should require a force prepared to attack that port. The navy of England had always been in the habit of seeking its foes and not waiting to be attacked, and it was not likely to introduce a new practice now. It must be admitted that the inhabitants of the Channel Islands had ever been loyal to this country, and any protection that they required, and that England could afford, they seemed well entitled to, but the question was one demanding inquiry, and he therefore proposed that it should be undertaken by a Royal Commission, as suggested in his Motion.

said, that the hon. and gallant Officer had expressed a confident hope that he would be able to accede to the Motion. He therefore lost no time in undeceiving him, and in declaring his inability to support the terms of the Motion. He collected from the speech of the hon. and gallant Officer that the conclusion at which he wished the intended Commission to arrive was, to negative both the propositions contained in the Motion. The Channel Islands had belonged to the Crown of England since the Norman Conquest, and, though inhabited by a population which, to a considerable extent, spoke French, and formerly formed part of the duchy of Normandy, the population were sincerely attached to the British Crown.

moved, that the name of the hon. Member making the Motion be taken down.

seconded the Motion.

said, it having been stated that there were not forty hon. Members present, he must first ascertain whether there was a House before he could entertain any Motion.