He

to defray the interest, require 660,000l. per annum. regretted much that the terms on which the Loan had been contracted for were not more advantageous than they were to the public interests. The interest, however, at which the money had been borrowed, although high as compared to the terms on which the bargains of the last three years had been made, was still less than that which had often been given in the periods of war. Perhaps, indeed, the contractors had even now more to complain of than the public; and he was sure that, considering the situation of the country, and the consequences of the late Loans to the contractors, the House would join him in the wish that the present may prove more profitable to them than at present it is likely to become. He had now arrived at that stage of his duty, of which the performance was the most irksome and painful, that of proposing to the House those additional burthens which the necessities of the times and of public affairs required to be imposed upon the country. The sum necessary to be raised to discharge the interest of the newly funded debt would be 1,900,000l. He proposed to provide for this by a series of different measures. The first to which he should beg leave to call the attention of the House, he was happy to say, was a tax that would fall upon nobody--(a laugh.) Perhaps it ought not in strictness of language to be called a tax, as the sum intended to be raised would arise from the discontinuance of the bounty on the export of Printed Goods. From a sum of comparatively trifling amount, this bounty had risen to 308,000l. He felt an entire confidence that the withdrawing of this bounty. would not materially discourage our manufactures, and that they had advanced to that state of perfection as to require no other aid and assistance than that unrestricted event and general demand which, in the event of a change in the state of the Continent, might safely be anticipated. The present bounty varied from one halfpenny to 1d. per yard, according to the quality of the manufacture, and the retention of this trifling encouragement could not be considered as calculated to do any serious injury in depressing our exports. The Committee would naturally bear in mind, that in every proposition, having in view the object to which they were directing their attention, they had only a choice of evils, and they must be content to select those which appeared, under all the circumstances attending them, the least exposed to any just objection, or well-founded imputation.

(Hear, hear!)-He had in the next place to submit a duty on Hides and Skins imported. A tax of three-halfpence per pound would, by a calculation formed on the large quantity recently brought from-South America, produce 325,000l. per annum. He was of opinion that no reasonable objection could be raised to an addition to the duty on Glass, that manufacture being protected from foreign competition by a positive prohibition. He should estimate the produce of this at $28,0001. A small increase to the tax on Tobacco, of 10 per cent. as the present duties could not be seriously felt, and he should only take the amount at 107,000. He had now to propose a duty of another kind, differing from the preceding, inasmuch as it would be brought forward in the shape of a regulation. The present Duty on Auctions would be extended in its application, not in its amount, by this measure. It was a matter of pretty general notoriety, that property was often put up to a nominal sale, which fictitious sale was not at present subject to a payment of the duty. It was intended by this measure that the duty should be equally applicable, except in cases where the property in question should be proved to have actually changed hands within the period of twelve months. It was of course quite impracticable to form any thing like a precise estimate of the probable produce of this extension. Premising, therefore, that it was simply matter of conjecture, he would state it at 100,000/-An increase of 1d. on the Postage of Letters conveyed beyond the distance of twenty miles, might be calculated as likely to yield a sum of 220,000l. and to this he did not apprehend that any material or general objection would be felt. The Committee would recollect that in the year 1806, when a noble lord, now a Member of the other House, held the office which he himself had now the honour to fill, a duty on Private Breweries had been submitted to the House. Many strong considerations were then urged against it, and the measure was finally abandoned. It had been, however, the intention of his late right honourable friend to have brought it forward a second time, so modified as to be entirely free from the principle which was chiefly resisted, that of introducing the Excise into private houses. To get rid of the necessity of resorting to this unpopular expedient, it had been proposed. to substitute the principle of an equal and general commutation on heads composing families. The whole scheme had, however, been subsequently abandoned, both from a per

WAYS AND MEANS.

suasion that the amount would fall short of the estimate, 317 and that the equality, which it was the leading object of the measure to preserve, was in fact unattainable, and that the burden would rest principally on the poorer classes, who, in the instances in which they practised private brewing, naturally brewed only to the extent prescribed by necessity, while the rich brewed also for the purposes of hospitality. In now referring to the Assessed Taxes, he had found it his duty to recommend to the Committee some few alterations and increase on their different heads. In the first instance he should propose an additional tax of 4s. to the 2. 8s. now paid upon Male Servants. Upon occasional Gardeners 4s. making the whole duty on this description of servants 10s. Upon Mercantile Agents and Riders the increase would be from 27. 8s. to 31.; that on other Clerks from 17. 4s. to 21. A similar duty on Drivers of Carriages would be subjected to a similar increase. Waiters to a duty of 20s. and Servants occasionally emOccasional ployed in Agriculture to one of 4s. The tax on Carriages, which was now 117. 15s. it was his intention to raise to 12. On Horses used only for Pleasure, a new duty of 4s. making the amount of the entire duty 21. 17s. 6d. used exclusively for the purposes of Husbandry, a tax of On Horses 3s. 6d. but on those employed in the occupations of trade, being of considerably greater value, ten shillings. He believed he should also suggest some increase of the duty on Dogs, and although he was himself no sportsman, he conceived that some distinction might be fairly introduced, and that Greyhounds, as furnishing gentlemen with greater pleasure, should be subjected to a proportionably larger duty-(a laugh.) For Gamekeepers an additional tax of four shillings; for servants not assessed the same sum, and for those assessed an additional ten shillings and sixpence. His estimate of the total produce was 1,903,000l.; and he now begged leave to congratulate the Committee, that at a time when it was generally considered that in the existing state of the resources of the country taxation had found its limit, it had been found practicable to submit a scheme of increased duties that threatened so little general inconvenience, and what was most material, so little pressure on the lower orders of society. He had had it in contemplation to offer a few observations, but he believed that he had trespassed sufficiently long on the attention of the Com

mittce, and would therefore reserve them to a future stage of the proceeding.

Mr. Huskisson observed, that in the present circumstances of the country, he was decidedly of opinion that a more judicious selection of objects could not have been made, than that of his right honourable friend—(Hear, hear!)-When the plan should have undergone some modification in its future stages through the House, he had no doubt that it would be as acceptable as any measure of this character could be in the present state of the resources of the country. He would now, however, with the permission of the Committee, recall to their recollection a few of those observations which he had thought it his duty to make three sessions ago, and to apply to them some of those facts and examples which subsequent experience had furnished in confirmation of his former reasonings. He had then stated as

a general principle, that the only secure means to which the country could look, to enable it to support the arduous and protracted struggle in which it is engaged, was the adoption of every practicable measure of retrenching and equalizing its expenditure. He had added, that the then existing system of loans and war taxes could not be contitinued for any great length of time. What had recent changes and events tended to establish? In 1810, the amount of the debt funded was upwards of 16,000,000%; in 1811, 19,500,000/.; and in 1812, to 27,870,000/. The state of the public funds at these different periods corresponded with the increasing demands, and strongly countenanced those apprehensions which he had entertained. The 3 per cent. Consols were in 1810, at the time of contracting for the Loan, at 70; in 1811, at 65; and in 1812, at 56. The charge of the Loan had risen from 61. 4s. to 7. 4s. The right honourable gentleman then entered into a discussion of the financial policy of the last three years, and blamed the interference with the surplus of the Consolidated Fund. He reprobated the tax of last session on spirits, contended that it produced no addition to the revenue, while it served to encourage illicit distillation, to the detriment of public health and morals. It was evident that if, by doubling a duty, they diminished the legal consumption of a commodity, nothing was gained. We had recently taken upon ourselves the provision for paying the interest of the Irish Loan, but this provision appeared to be entirely forgotten, unless the Chancellor of the Exchequer

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319 for Ireland had included it in his budget. The honourable Member then proceeded to what appeared to him to be the most important part of the subject, and which consequently required from Government the most anxious and unceasing attention; he meant the state of the public credit, which had been so much depressed by the heavy demands upon it. The addition to the funded debt of 1810, created a stock of not quite twenty-five millions and a half, and in 1811 of not quite twenty-eight millions and a half; and even this augmentation had the effect of lowering the funds from 70 to between 50 and 60. The capital stock of the present year, however, to be added to the public debt, was not less than 52 millions, amounting nearly to the whole increase of two years preceding. To what then might we not expect that the price of the funds would shortly be reduced, and with what serious consideration did not this momentous subject require from those, who had the management of the finances of the empire?-This depression of the public credit, which naturally created such alarm with all thinking men, had not arisen from any national disasters that we had sustained, but it had taken place at a time when the affairs of the state had been conducted with almost unexampled success, and in the face of a sinking fund, of not less than fourteen millions. The terms of the loan that had this year been contracted for, were less favourable than any that had been obtained since 1798: the war taxes then produced little more than four millions, and the sinking fund was in its infancy, not amounting to more than one hundredth part of the national debt; whereas now it had ascended to an importance which authorized the most sanguine hopes as to its ultimate effects, since it was more than one forty-sixth part of the national debt. In noticing this subject, he could not in too strong terms point out to the Committee the impolicy of raising money for the public service at such a disadvantageous rate of interest, and it appeared to him that it would be far better to obtain it by general taxes, which would in the end affect the people in a much less proportion. This was another reason for attempting, by a change of system, if necessary, to invigorate the present debilitated condition of the public credit of the country, particularly at a period when even the necessary demands upon it were so extensive. He trusted that the Committee would allow him to point out a few extraneous circumstances which had caused this depression, and which, if duly attended to, might produce