claimed against the injustice of extending | restrictions, or that it was impracticable this tax to Ireland. Now, feeling every altogether. In voting for his noble friend's commiseration for Ireland, he must say, Amendment, he was aware that he should that, in future, if it were found necessary lose all his power in the district which he to levy this tax, it should apply to Ire- had the honour to represent, and that he land as well as to England. was sacrificing himself to a sense of duty. Dr. Lushington rose, amidst consider-He agreed with the right hon. member for able confusion. He begged of the House Tamworth (Sir Robert Peel), that they to recollect the situation in which he and ought never to forget the celebrated pasother Gentlemen stood, who represented sage of Burke, which the right hon. metropolitan boroughs. He hoped, there- Baronet had then quoted, and for himself, fore, that the House would permit him to if, at any period, it was the duty of Memplease God, he never would forget it; and state the grounds on which he voted on the present occasion. Had the Motion of the will of their constituents, it was ten bers of that House to oppose themselves to the hon. and worthy Alderman been made thousand times more so at a period like the before Friday last, he (Dr. Lushington) should certainly have voted for it; for, in present, when they had, for the greater part, such numerous constituencies at their backs. the district which he represented, there was If they did not obey the dictates of their so much suffering and calamity, the in- conscience, and of their sober and deliberate habitants were so overwhelmed by a di- judgment, they would become the mere minution of trade, and by other difficulties, puppets of their constituents. He was dethat it was his firm conviction, that it would termined that his own judgment should be be all but impossible for them to pay the his guide, and that no earthly power should House and Window-tax in the present induce him to act in contradiction to its year. Such was the state of the popula- dictates. He had one motive more for the tion of that district, that there were per- course which he was pursuing, and which sons earning only eight, nine, or ten he would honestly avow. He had been, shillings a week, who were nevertheless for seven-and-twenty years, attached to his liable to pay the House and Window-tax friends who now held the reins of Governfor the houses they inhabited. But he ment; and he should rue it as the greatest had only the choice of two evils; and the mischief that could befal the country, if question which he asked himself was, they, and especially his noble friend, the which was the less evil to inflict on his Chancellor of the Exchequer, were to retire unfortunate constituents? It was pro- from office. It would give him the deepest posed to add the repeal of the House and pain if any vote of his should contribute to Window-tax to the repeal of the Malt- so melancholy a catastrophe; convinced as duty, and to supply the deficiency in the he was, without meaning to disparage any revenue by a Property-tax. Now, which other individual, that it would be most would be the greater evil? To continue difficult to find a substitute for his noble the House and Window-tax, modified, as friend of equal honesty and integrity. his noble friend proposed to modify it, and the Malt-duty, which was not very sensibly felt by his constituents, or to impose a Property or Income-tax, without any defined limitations, without ascertaining how it was likely to operate; with no guide as to the manner in which it would be received, other than the melancholy experience of the detestation and horror with which it had formerly been considered by the greater portion of the people as the most inquisitorial imposition that ever existed. He, for one, had voted for the Motion of the hon. member for Worcester. If that Motion had been carried, and a Committee had been appointed, the result would have been a report, showing one of two things either that a Property-tax was practicable, under certain limitations and

Mr. William Brougham would not take up the time of the House for five minutes. He also was placed in a situation of great difficulty. The hon. Gentleman might sneer, but he little knew what it was to see the extraordinary distress which prevailed among the hundred thousand persons in the district which he had the honour to represent,-to know that they believed that distress would be greatly alleviated by the repeal of the House and Window-tax,

to feel that although, under other circumstances, he would support the repeal to the utmost of his ability, and yet to find himself so placed, that, as an honest man, he must vote against the proposition. He had been returned to that House on no pledges. All that he had assured his constituents was, that he would vote honestly.

proposed to be taken off. It was his intention to vote for the proposition of the hon. Baronet, and he could but express his surprise that a different course should have been adopted by the hon. Baronet, the member for Westminster, (Sir Francis Burdett), who, while he approved of a Property-tax, and was pledged to support the repeal of the Assessed-taxes, voted against the Motion of the hon. Baronet, the member for the City of London.

Mr. Leech said, that it was absurd to say that the Ministers had been taken by surprise. He saw no reason why he should alter the vote which he had given on Friday.

If the proposition were singly for the repeal of the House and Window-tax, he should feel no hesitation in supporting it. But taking the repeal of that tax in connexion with the repeal of the Malt-duty, the question arose if they could do without it. If not, Government would be placed in a situation of great difficulty. Had the Government a surplus to the deficit which would be occasioned by the hon. Alderman's motion? It was clear that they had not. The surplus amounted only to 1,500,000l.; and, by the vote of Friday evening, added to the vote of this evening, if the proposition were agreed to, the deficit would amount to no less than 5,000,000l. Under the existing circumstances, he could not vote for the repeal of any tax until an adequate substitute had been provided. In supporting his noble 'friend's Amendment, however, he pledged himself no further than to vote for the inexpediency of re-whelming majority against the repeal of pealing those taxes, and imposing a Property-tax at the present moment; leaving it perfectly open for the future, to consider whether a Property-tax, under proper limitations, might not be advantageously adopted.

Mr. Tennyson rose, amidst cries of "Question! question!" It had not been his intention to say a single word; but it seemed to be expected that all the Representatives of the Metropolitan districts should explain the reasons of their vote. As the Representative of a large constituency, he felt entitled to express his sentiments; and if hon. Gentlemen persisted in interrupting him, he would move an adjournment. In the vote he should give, he would follow the dictate of his own judgment, for no man was more averse from giving pledges on any subject than he was. He thought that those who voted for a large reduction of taxation without being prepared to support the imposition of a Property-tax, which was allowed to be the only substitute for the taxes to be taken off, were not acting with any regard to consistency. He himself was an advocate for the imposition of a Property-tax. He thought it was calculated to give a spring to the industry of the people. Upon the representation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, many hon. Gentlemen had postponed Motions which were intended to relieve the burthens of the people until the Budget was brought forward, and now, when that event had taken place, what relief was promised? Merely a few paltry items of taxation were

The House divided on the Question that the words proposed by Lord Althorp to be left out stand part of the question Ayes 157: Noes 355: Majority 198. Mr. Hume declared that after the over

the Malt-tax and the House and Windowduties, he should not feel himself justified in pressing his Amendment on the main question to a division; and he would therefore withdraw it.

Sir William Ingilby complained of the manner in which the question of the repeal of the Malt-duty had been smothered under that of the House and Windowduties. He thought the House ought the Motion of Friday. For that purpose to decide directly whether it would rescind he would move, as an Amendment on main question, that all the words relating Lord Althorp's Motion which was then the to the Malt-duty should be omitted.

had complained of the embarrassment in Mr. Henry Handley: The noble Lord which he had been placed; but the Members of that House, also, had been placed understood the English language, he had in great embarrassment. Thinking he believed the noble Lord would have been the last man in the House to say what he

did not mean.

On Friday night, after the debate, he went down to his constituents, and told them that half the Maltduty had been repealed. He was in the market the following day-he saw the joyous countenances of the farmers-he saw what had not been seen for some time-smiles upon their countenances-and he came back instructed to ask the noble Lord whether he would take the duty off stock in hand. If the noble Lord proposed thus cavalierly ["no, no!""yes, yes!"]. He said, thus cavalierly to rescind the Motion to

which the House came the other night, A List of the AYES on the First Division. he would add fearfully to the despondency and despair which already

Bill.

Read a third time:-Public Revenue (Scotland). Petitions presented. By the Earl of RADNOR, from St. Clement's, Oxford; and by Lord SUFFIELD, from St. George's, Middlesex,-for a Repeal of the Assessed Taxes. -By the Marquess of WESTMINSTER, and the Earls of FITZWILLIAM, MORLEY, and GOSFORD, and Lord Sur. Slavery.-By Lord SUFFIELD, from a Dissenting Congre gation at Nuneaton; and by the Marquess of WESTMINSTER, from Nantwich, for Relief to the Dissenters from

FIELD, from a great many Places,-for the Abolition of

their present difficulties.-By the Marquess of WEST

MINSTER, from several Places in Wales, for a Correction of the Abuses at present existing in the Established Church

in Wales, and from a Dissenting Congregation in Little Carter Lane, Doctors' Commons, for a Removal of the Civil Disabilities of the Jews: also from Over, for a Repeal or Alterations in the Sale of Beer Act.

HOUSE OF LORDS,
Thursday, May 2, 1833.

MINUTES.] Papers ordered. On the Motion of Lord TEYN

HAM, an Account of the Number of Acres of Land in

Great Britain cultivated in Hops, the Amount of Duty

paid on Hops in the year 1852, and of the part unpaid: also the total Number of Quarters of Malt made and Duty

charged thereon: and of the Number of Quarters used in Distillation, from October the 10th, 1831, to the same

day, 1832.-On the Motion of the Earl of RoSSLYN, the Quantities of Wheat, Wheatmeal, and Flour, imported

into Great Britain since the passing of the Act 9th George

4th, to the latest period.

Petitions presented. By Lords SUFFIELD, STANLEY, and

AUCKLAND, from a great Number of Places,-against

Slavery. By Lord REDESDALE, from Kingnorth, for the
Repeal of the Malt Duty. By the Earl of RoSSLYN, from

the Sheriff's Court of Fife, for Alterations in the Small
Debts Court Bill.-By Lord STANLEY, from Burnley;

and by Earl FITZWILLIAM, from three Places, for the

Repeal or Amendment of the Sale of Beer Act.-By Lord

AUCKLAND, from Shelford, for the Amendment of the

length. [The petition having been read by the Clerk, the noble Duke proceeded.] The petitioners referred to the Resolutions of the House of Commons in 1823 on the subject of Slavery and made them the basis of their statements. Those Resolutions tended to gradual emancipation, not immediate, by the adoption of temperate measures. He claimed credit for the different Governments with which he had been connected up to November, 1830, for acting on these Resolutions. The Order in Council of March, 1830, enforcing manumission, would alone have led at last to the accomplishment of the Resolution of 1823, if temperately carried into effect. It was impossible not to apprehend serious evils from immediate emancipation; the interests of the slaves themselves would be endangered no less than the security of the colonies, and the parent country would not escape the consequences that must inevitably ensue. The petitioners stated, that the revenue derived from the colonies in 1830, amounted to 7,800,000Z., and there was every reason to believe that it was not less than 7,500,000l. in the last year. Was it not an object to retain such

a

revenue as that? According to the nected with the colonies, amounted to petition, the exports and trade con120,000,000l., and there were 350,000 tons of shipping employed in the colonial trade. A large income (much diminished, however, as compared with what it had been) was received by proprietors of West India estates resident in this country. This country (putting Ireland out of the question) consumed more sugar than all Europe beside. If the West-India trade were abandoned, whence could we get sugar? Only from slave colonies, which were at this moment carrying on the slave trade in the same manner as we drew our supplies of cotton from colonies where the whole population were slaves. It would seem we were going to do this to sacrifice slaves and masters, and colonies, at an expense of losing 7,000,000l. of revenue. Such conduct appeared to him to be little, He if at all, better than insanity. He held in had a petition to the same effect from his hand the detail of the proceeds and Edinburgh. The latter was signed by expenses of an estate in the West Indies, 2,468 persons, and was well entitled to from which it appeared, there were 161 attention, no less on account of the re- hogsheads of sugar made upon it, which spectability of the petitioners, than by were worth 6,3721.; and, of this sum, reason of the justice of the sentiments 2,9651. went to Government for duties. contained in the petition. He proposed After the proprietor had paid every thing that the Edinburgh petition be read at connected with the transfer and sale, he

Labourers Employment Bill.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. PETITIONS.] The Duke of Wellington presented a Petition from Magistrates, Bankers, Merchants, and others, inhabitants of Belfast, for a gradual and safe Abolition of Slavery, and compensation to the Planter.