but it was a check equally to the agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial industry of the people. It was the unjust confounder of ephemeral profits with perpetual wealth, the blight of professional talent, and the scourge of stipendiary genius and labour. It was to be hoped the House would imperatively interfere with the obstinacy of ministers, that they would not compromise the faith of parlia ment, nor abuse the confidence of the people, but that they would in gratitude prevent them from being ground to the bone, in return for their patience, their spirit, their loyalty, and their valour. Mr. M. stated a case of a farmer being sold up to pay the King's taxes; the produce of the distress went to discharge the landlord's and tenant's income tax, when, in fact, the landlord had obtained no rent nor the tenant made any profit. He wished, before he concluded, to ask ministers three questions, which he thought they might answer without any violent injury to the public service-1st, Whether under the new income tax, the landlord was to pay any tax, if he received no rent? 2dly, Was the tenant to pay any tax if he made no profit? 3dly, Was the tax to continue one or two years more positively?

these important subjects, the means of glory in peace and of strength in war. The hon. gentleman said, that the case of his constituents, and the people in the neighbourhood of Boston, was peculiarly hard, as it regarded the income tax. So much land in that district had of late years been brought into cultivation for the benefit of the state, and for its demands in time of need, that in the year 1802, although the port of Boston exported 90,000 quarters of oats, and 8,000 of wheat, yet in the year 1812, only ten years after, she exported 360,000 of oats, and 32,000 of wheat, being an increase of fourfold in ten years. The capital and industry necessary to bring about so favourable a result to the resources of the country, were no doubt embarked in these useful enterprises under a confidence in the word of parliament, that on the return of peace the income tax paid on these lands, to the amount of 17 per cent. would cease, even when the present low price of grain, and the great and sudden fall in the price of the produce of land were not anticipated. But now, under the extreme depression of the land in all respects, was it not incumbent on parliament to keep their faith with those spirited agriculturists, those true practical patriots, and not permit their capitals to be deteriorated, their spirits broken, and their lands to return to the barren and drowned state in which they had been for centuries? He hoped they would listen to the petitioners, and not to be deaf to the prayer of the nation. He wished the House to have a return of all those farmers and families who had been sold up to pay the King's taxes, and who were reduced to poverty and emigration. Last year, where it took fifty bushels of wheat to pay the King's taxes, it now required more than one hundred. Would parliament, then, be deaf to the petitioners? Would it not turn its attention to the great evils of a suddenly contracted currency? Would this House not do something on the subject of poor-rates and tythes, those great checks to public prosperity? In fact, in addition to the 174 per cent. income tax, the landed interest paid all the direct taxes to the full, and as principal consumers, a greater part of the indirect burthens. They maintained the poor and the clergy, kept up the roads and bridges, and provided buildings and establishments for all the civil wants and necessities of the country. The income tax was not only a system of state inquisition;

Mr. Methuen observed, that without some modification, the property tax was quite out of the question. He believed, in his conscience, that the country had not power to bear it. He objected to it on two grounds; first, that it was a breach of faith towards the people on the part of government; secondly, that in many cases it was a tax on no income-a tax, not on profit, but on absolute loss. An hon. member had said, that it was not a tax on the poor. He wished to ask that hon. member, when gentlemen received no rents from their estates, and when tenants were distrained, how the labourers were to find work, and how the paupers were to be prevented from starving? The argument of the right hon. gentleman, derived from the expediency of not pressing on the money market, might be very good in theory, but it was very bad in practice. In fact, the measure, if persevered in, in its present state, would ultimately be much more injurious to the money market than any abandonment of it could be.

Mr. Brougham saw that it was in vain to expect any answer from the gentlemen opposite. As his right hon. friend (Mr. Tierney) had said the other night, their infirmity was dumbness. If what had

been urged by the two hon. members who had last spoken failed to open their mouths, he almost despaired of success in doing so; yet he would make another attempt on the subject. He could not help suggesting to the right hon. gentleman, for his own sake, and for the sake of the government of which he was the financial organ in that House, and for the sake of the peace and tranquillity of the country, to reconsider the propriety of hurrying this odious measure through parliament. Day after day intelligence reached the metropolis of meetings in the country appointed to be held, some so late as the 8th of March. All, however, would be in vain, if the right hon. gentleman persevered in his intention. Viewing this question as one of no ordinary description, but as an attempt on the part of his majesty's government to stifle that voice which, if once raised, neither they nor those whom they served dare oppose, he would frankly and candidly forewarn the right hon. gentleman, that he would do that which on no other occasion he would be induced to do, he would have recourse to those privileges which every member possessed, for the purpose of interrupting and staying the business before them. He considered this as a just, fair, and necessary proceeding; and though no other member should stand by him, he would use all the means which the forms of parliament put into his hands, for the best object for which they were framed by their ancestors-the protection of the rights of the subject. The right hon. gentleman might attempt to bring forward his proposition on Friday, but he should be immediately met by the question of adjournment, and that for the avowed purpose of stemming at the outset this attempt to smother the voice of the people -[Hear, hear! from all parts of the House].

were spoken of, he had to observe, that these could not be made till the bill had been brought in; and when it was in progress he should not be wanting in his duty by failing to attend to the suggestions which might be thrown out. As to hurrying of the measure, which had been complained of, it was proper to remark, that if the House waited to receive all the petitions which might be sent up, they would probably wait till the latter end of next month, as till then it was probable these proceedings would not terminate; and if they were to do this, what time would remain for carrying a measure through the House, which ought to be complete before the 5th of April? In answer to the questions put by an hon. gentleman opposite, he begged to say, that the regulations which were suggested by the two first of them, could only be properly considered in the committee. It would be for the House to introduce such modifications when the bill reached that stage, if they should appear proper to be adopted. With respect to the questions as to the duration of the tax, he had no hesitation in saying it was intended to propose that it should continue for two years, and this he thought would be more satisfactory, than if it were stated that its duration was to be limited to one, as if renewed from year to year, it would wear more of the aspect of a permanent tax. From the present situation of the country, there was reason to hope that at the end of two years it would not be necessary to renew it. If much discontent had been excited out of doors on that subject, it arose, not from the tax itself, but from the gross misrepresentations which had gone abroad, and from the unfounded assertion which had been made, that to renew it would be a breach of the good faith of parliament. He contended, that in renewing it there would be no breach of good faith. The words with which the act had formerly closed" and no longer," which declared the tax should terminate with the war, had been omitted in the act of last year.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer was satisfied, that whenever the hon. and learned gentleman opposite, or any other member, might come down with a studied design to interrupt the proceedings of the House, the House would know how to protect itself, and how to assert its own dignity. Confident of this, he should neither fear nor shrink from any measure to which the hon. and learned gentleman might think it his duty to have recourse. With respect to the questions which had been asked, he had only waited for the bringing up of the petition to reply to them. As to the modifications which

Sir Samuel Romilly, adverting to the statement made by the chancellor of the exchequer, that there was no time to delay the proceeding, because the existing act would expire on the 5th of April, observed, that that was the fault of his majesty's ministers, who had thought proper to call parliament together at a period later than that recollected by any person

it be strongly impressed on the minds of the House, that if the property tax was now to be continued, it was because we had a great military establishment, and that we had a great military establishment because we had seated Louis 18th on the throne of France, and because by treaty we had guaranteed his possession of that throne. Our enormous military establishment had no British object in view-it was not directed to the defence of our liberties, nor to the establishment of our security-it existed solely for the maintenance in France of an arbitrary government. For that object was the country to undergo all the oppression of that severe and inquisitorial imposition, the property tax. It was because his majesty's ministers had made peace on the continent, which could not be maintained without a standing army, and because that standing army was necessary for the maintenance of oppression. All the comforts, and many of the necessaries of life, were to be sacrificed in England, for the support in France of a government which had destroyed the liberty of the press, which had abolished all security for personal freedom, which, in the mode in which it had called together the legislative assembly, had grossly violated the elective franchise, which had connived at the persecution of the unhappy protestants [Hear, hear!]. He would not make this last assertion had he not good grounds for it. He was the more anxious to describe them, because the noble lord (in perfect sincerity he had no doubt) had declared that all the reports and statements with respect to the persecution of the protestants in France, were void of foundation. He repeated, that the government of France had acquiesced in that persecution. The duke of Wellington had said in his letter, that the French government did all they could to suppress the proceedings in the department of the Garde. He (Sir S. Romilly) said that the French government did nothing to suppress them, except in mere words. They issued a proclamation of professions. It was a fact which he had too good information for a moment to doubt, that notwithstanding all the crimes which had been committed in the department of the Garde, notwithstanding the murder of above two hundred persons, notwithstanding the plundering and burning of two thousand houses, notwithstanding the whipping of many of the protestants with a severity so great that (3 L)

living. It was for that that the measure was to be hurried through the House with haste so indecent, as not to allow the representatives of the people time to be instructed by their constituents. At the time that they prolonged the prorogation of parliament, ministers knew the distresses of the country; they knew also their own intention of proposing the continuance of that tax, which, oppressive as it was in itself, was rendered still more irksome by the mode of its collection; and they must also have felt, that the proposition was one calculated to excite the greatest alarm and opposition. The right hon. gentleman had asserted that it was a gross misrepresentation to say that the faith of parliament was pledged to the continuance of the tax only during the war; and he had maintained this assertion by stating, that in the last act the words" and no longer," after the words "during the war," were omitted. Unquestionably, the House was last year given to understand, that the measure was to terminate in a year; and if it was at that time the intention of the right hon. gentleman to propose, at the end of the year, a prolongation of its existence, it ought not to have been announced by a mere omission only. The right hon. gentleman ought at once to have declared that it was intended to make it a permanent tax. That it certainly would be, if the present proposition were agreed to; for could the House or the public be so deceived, as to imagine, that if parliament voted the tax for two years longer, it would actually terminate at the expiration of that period, and that it would not be made a permanent measure? It was important to consider under what circumstances this tax had been originally imposed, and under what circumstances it was now proposed to continue it. It had been imposed because it had been deemed indispensable by the country to maintain a vigorous war for our own security, and for the destruction of the power of that individual, who in his gigantic progress towards universal empire, threatened to wield the immense means which were placed at his disposal, for the purpose of excluding Great Britain from all continental commerce, and who had nearly effected this, one of the wildest of the wild projects in the execution of which he had engaged. That war, avowedly carried on for the purposes which he had described, had a very different object before its conclusion. Let (VOL. XXXII.)

people might put them in force, whenever the country wanted time to state their opi nions to that House. There was no danger whatever in encouraging his hon. and learned friend to enforce those regulations; the whole population of the country was at his back, and applauding him. He trusted, therefore, that he would persist, and that he would succeed, in resisting this most unconstitutional mode of hur rying the bill through the House.

would give, than for the purpose of keeping in the hands of ministers the machinery of oppression. Possessing this tax, they could at any time raise it from five to six or seven per cent. If it was now submitted to, he did not believe any man in that House would live to see it again taken off. Mr. Brand declared it to be his opinion, that the House had been pledged to remove the tax, and as a confirmation that the chancellor of the exchequer had made a promise to that effect, he reminded him of what had passed in a committee of ways and means, when the tax was proposed. When it was renewed last year, he had expected it would end with the contest which caused it to be revived. That contest having terminated much sooner than might have been expected, he was astonished that every man in that House did not hold himself bound as a party to the pledge which had been given, to oppose the renewal of the tax by every means in his power.

Lord Folkestone said, that the House was in the constant habit of looking back to the circumstances under which an act was framed. It was always done in the assessed taxes, and ought not to be neglected in this instance. With respect to this bill, no man could doubt that the sole object of the right hon. gentleman was, to preclude the people from stating their grievances, and to prevent their petitions from being heard. Was not this adding insult to injury? One member of the administration had said, that there existed an ignorant impatience for a relaxation of taxation; and another declared that the public feeling was not excited by the tax itself, but by the exaggerated statements that were made in that House. Gracious God! had not all the meetings been held before any discussion had taken place? Every man in the country felt the grievous effects of this tax, and was anxious that it should be abolished. Persons in town could not conceive the distressed state of the country; but he wondered that none of the friends of ministers had informed them of it. Every person raised his voice in detestation of this odious and oppressive impost, and humbly requested the House not to renew it. He perfectly agreed with his hon. and learned friend, that every parliamentary form should be opposed to the progress of the bill. For what purpose were those forms established by our forefathers? It was, that some honest and faithful representatives of the

Mr. Calcraft said, he had stated par-ticularly, in the last session of parliament, that the necessity of the occasion induced him to vote for the tax for that year, on the faith that it was not to exist longer than that necessity continued, This might, perhaps, be called a misrepresentation, but he had certainly communicated it to his constituents as the feeling of his mind, and the reason of his consenting to that tax. He really believed, that the majority of the House would feel that the faith of parliament had been pledged. It was astonishing the right hon. gentleman should say, that the words "no longer" had been purposely omitted in the act. He had differed with the right hon. gentleman on many occa sions, but had always thought him a plain, honest, fair-dealing man; but he now turned round upon the House with his new act of parliament in his pocket, and said it contained words which none of them were aware of. He now stated that he never meant the tax to be given up. But why did he not say so at the time it was imposed? Why not say, I fear the tax must be continued? It appeared, however, that he had concealed his intention under that ambiguous sort of statement which had deceived not only the people, but their representatives. According to the plan of finance now proposed by him, it was totally impossible that this tax could be taken off. It was a breach of faith to the people, to the amount of six millions. reasonable man to say, that the customs and excise would be sufficient; but if the House should be induced to concede the property tax in this instance, he should think himself a very fortunate man, if the chancellor of the exchequer, instead of taking it off at the end of two years, did not propose to increase it. He most so lemnly declared, that he voted for this tax on an express understanding that it should be taken off at the end of the year, if the war should be then concluded.

He defied any