to the present motion, unless the minister will adopt some modification to soften the proportion on the retailers, by rendering the tax géneral, or equalizing it in some other shape. in a state of defence as our situation would permit. The first of those was the object and motive of the commercial treaty; and it was certainly not the best way to consult the latter, to give up hastily and on light grounds so considerable a branch of revenue as that now under discussion; and it was to be considered that, by giving it up now, the House would in a great measure be pressed to abandon it for ever; and in any farther emergency would be tied up and precluded from having resort to it. Sir Gregory Page Turner said: After the speech delivered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last Friday, replete, as usual, with a display of oratory, and great knowledge of finance, scarcely to be equalled, but still more distinguished for its glad tidings-tidings that convey more grateful intelligence to our ears, than we have known for a long period of time-I mean, a respite from taxation;-it is with great reluctance, I now rise to oppose any tax he has introduced into this House, sensible as I am, that it is by establishing those taxes, and those taxes only, he is now enabled to hold forth so flattering a prospect to this country. But it is not the principle of the shop-tax, but its partial and baneful influence, which I reprobate. I could wish the right hon. gentleman would see the propriety of extending this Act to every description of traders; so as that warehouses, as well as shops, may be included; and above all, that monied property, of every denomination, especially the funds and bankers, might be looked up to. By so doing, the minister would draw a just line of equalization between the landed and monied interest of the kingdom. The minister is not fond of taxing his best friends, (meaning the bankers and stockholders) as it would ill suit " beggars to become choosers," though a minister himself must always be a beggar, when he wants to borrow money for the state. No member wishes more to support public credit than myself, but not having digested the consequences of this bill at its first outset, I saw it in a more favourable light, yet voted accordingly; though having since that period conversed with, and collected the opinions of some of the most respectable and independent traders in Westminster, whose opinions should always be venerated by every member of the senate upon commercial occasions, I am now fully convinced of my error, and give my hearty concurrence Sir Benj. Hammet said, that having, when the tax was originally proposed, been the first to point out the partiality of it, and sincerely wishing its repeal, he hoped the House would indulge him while he made a few observations. The shop-tax appeared to him to be a kind of capitation tax; and such a tax led very naturally to slavery, and was fit only for a despotic government. If the necessities of the state required it, there could be no doubt but they had the power to give all the houses of the kingdom for the preservation of the whole; but then their constituents should see that they gave their own houses with the houses of their constituents, which was their best security. Whenever that House acted otherwise, they clearly acted contrary to the true spirit of the constitution. He had, upon former occa sions, declared himself an enemy to all personal taxes; and as such, he had considered licences when carried beyond regulation; and he believed, since the Revolution, they had ever been proposed as acts of regulation: duties on commodities were least felt by the people, as they were not demanded in form. The right hon. gentleman could not deny that the present tax might be carried to a horrid degree of partiality and abuse, if ever they should have a wicked minister and a corrupt parliament. Sir Benjamin declared, that he voted against this tax as partial and cruel; and he should hold it his duty to oppose any tax, if that House was not clearly included in the principle of the tax, and which would prevent the possibility of abuse. Mr. Mainwaring argued for the repeal of the tax, declaring, that the peaceable conduct of the shopkeepers entitled them to the favourable countenance of the House. There was not the smallest portion of party feeling, or opposition to Government in their motives, a fact sufficiently apparent from their behaviour at a populous assembly convened for the purpose of instructing their representatives, and at which the right hon. mover was present. That right hon. gentleman had dropped an expression which seemed to bear hard on the minister; and it was instantly noticed and reprobated by the meeting as foreign to their business and wishes. Alderman Sawbridge urged the impossibility of the shopkeepers imposing the tax on the consumer, by distributing it in small proportions on his goods. Alderman Newnham repeated his former objections against the tax, as being extremely partial and unjust, and said, that the shopkeepers of the metropolis, instead of regarding the modification of the last year as any argument in their favour, considered it as clenching the nail completely, since it exonerated the country shopkeepers in a great degree, and thence the more evidently proved the partiality of the tax with regard to them. Sir Watkin Lewes observed, that there was something singular in the debate; for the defence of the measure lay wholly with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had contended upon speculative ideas, though contradicted by the uniform testimony of the traders who had appeared at the bar last year. If the experience of the operation of the tax had not confirmed that testimony, why did not some gentleman get up and support the minister, instead of contenting themselves with giving a silent vote? The last division in that House against the tax was very considerable; and he had no doubt that it would be greatly increased from the conviction that the tax was unjust, partial, and oppressive. It had been insinuated that the motion for its repeal had originated in a spirit of opposition. He desired to contradict that opinion, as all parties in one of the greatest meetings assembled in the city of London had expressly declared otherwise. Sir James Johnstone said, he had been a voter for the tax on account of the legal murder of the hawkers and pedlars which it occasioned. Mr. Drake complimented Mr. Pitt on his good intentions, and said, he had generally supported him; but he really thought the tax should be repealed. He quoted M. Necker's expression, "that the happiness of the people ought to be consulted by every financier, as well as the exigencies of government," and recommended it as well worth the notice of the right hon. gentleman. Alderman Le Mesurier contended for the repeal of the tax, and advised the members to act disinterestedly, and give up the right of franking letters in order to make up the deficiency which the repeal would occasion. The abolition of the right of franking he estimated at 160,000l. Mr. H. Thornton declared, that the shopkeepers would persist in their applica tion year after year, till they obtained a repeal. The House had better, therefore, with a good grace, give up the tax at once. Mr. Fox said, that what had fallen from an hon. baronet, relative to the "legal murder of the hawkers and pedlars," reminded him of a matter which he meant to have taken notice of in his first speech. The idea of abolishing the hawkers and pedlars had originally been held out as a sort of douceur to the shopkeepers, to induce them to submit the more readily to the payment of the shop-tax; but the idea was afterwards given up, and only a slight regulation respecting hawkers and pedlars had taken place. Had they, however, been abolished entirely, the circumstance could not have proved beneficial to the shopkeepers of London and Westminster. It was, therefore, extremely unfair to urge the operation of the measure taken respecting hawkers and pedlars as argument against the shopkeepers. The House divided: Articles of Impeachment against Mr. Hastings.] April 25. Mr. Burke brought up the first seven Articles of Impeachment against Mr. Hastings, which were read pro formâ at the table, and ordered to be printed. See Commons Journals, Vol. 42, p. 666. Debate in the Commons on the Bill for Farming the Post Horse Duties.] April 26. Mr. Rose presented a Bill for enabling the Treasury to let to farm the Duties on Horses let to hire for travelling post, and by time. Mr. Marshem said, that, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not give the House some information as to the extent of the frauds practised, and the principles on which the proposed alteration was founded, he should think it his duty to object to the Bill being read a first time. Mr. Pitt said, that the fraudulent evasion of the tax was a matter of such noteriety, that he believed it could not have escaped the observation of a single mem this, a parliament jealous of the rights and liberties of their fellow-subjects, and able to protect them; there the farmers were invested with their powers by the Crown singly; whereas here, without the consent of Parliament, no such powers could be given, even if a minister should be desirous to have them granted.-With respect to its being an innovation, that, he contended, was not, in fact, strictly true. He referred to the turnpike duty, which was of all others the most analogous in its nature, and the mode of its collection to that under discussion; and which was almost universally let to farm. Another instance adduced by him was, that of the cross-letter postage, which had been for many years let out to Mr. Allen, the gentleman who first suggested it.A farther alarm had been taken, from an apprehension that the precedent might hereafter be followed up, and other branches of the revenue put under a sinilar regulation. He denied that he had any such intention; and he desired the House to consider, whether there was not something in the post-horse duty, which made it peculiarly proper to be placed under the new system, and which might not be applicable to any other branch of the public revenue. He earnestly wished that gentlemen would suspend their judgments on the subject until after the Bill should be printed, when they would have had time to consider its tendency and ope ration. ber of that assembly. The extent of these frauds had not, he said, been ascertained, but he believed no one doubted of its being very considerable; and it was a circumstance which added much to the grievance, that the tax, for the most part, was exacted with great strictness from the public, but that a large proportion of it, through collusion between the inn-keepers and the collectors, never found its way into the Exchequer. To correct so great an abuse, and to secure to the public the receipt of that money, which the individual was thus obliged to pay, it was necessary to put the duty under some regulation; and the only effectual mode which had occurred to him was, that of letting it out to farm. It was intended, he said, to divide the island into districts, each of which, a few instances excepted, would contain a county. These were to be put up to public auction; and that the public might at least be sure of losing nothing by the bargain, the bidders were to begin from that sum, which the district, at its highest rate, had ever yet produced. There could be little doubt that many candidates would offer themselves, and that the duty in each district would let nearly for what might reasonably be supposed to be its full value. It was proposed, that the agreement should continue for three years, that the lessee should keep a regular account of his receipts, and that these accounts should be submitted to the inspection of the Treasury. No greater powers were to be given to the farmers than had been given to the present collectors; and it was merely from the superior, because the more interested, vigilance of the former, that they could derive any advantage. He had heard it objected, that there was something in the principle of such an establishment repugnant to our constitution, and to the general system of our revenue; but for this objection he saw no solid foundation. It was true, that such a principle did generally obtain in some countries of more despotic and arbitrary forms of government than ours; and, perhaps, some degree of oppression might arise from the manner in which that principle was carried into effect. But those oppressions were not to be attributed to the system of farming the revenues, but to the form of government, which of itself would naturally lead to arbitrary and oppressive modes of collection under any system of revenue which might be adopted. In those countries there was not, as in Mr. Bastard conceived that some proof ought to have been laid before the House, that the frauds talked of did actually exist, before such a Bill had been proposed. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said, that the public did pay the tax individually, but that after it had been so paid, it did not find its way into the Exchequer. If the fact were so, it only proved that the Board to whose management the collection of the tax had been intrusted, were not sufficiently alert. As to the comparing the farming the post-horse tax to turnpikes being farmed, he did not think there was the smallest analogy between the two, because the one was a private and the other a public concern, and every gentleman must see there was a wide distinction between suffering men to do as they pleased with their own private concerns, and farming the public revenue. Sir Joseph Mawbey said, that, when he had first heard of the measure, he felt the same objections to it as those stated by the two hon. gentlemen; but the fair and candid explanation of the nature and tendency of the Bill given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer had convinced him that it was a measure not likely to be productive of any bad consequences. It had been his lot to have much to do with letting the tolls of a neighbouring county, and he knew from experience, that the letting them to the highest bidder did very considerably increase their rents. Mr. Drake thought the analogy between farming the post-horse tax and farming the tolls of a turnpike was not very wide; and could say from personal knowledge, that putting the latter up to public auction was attended with very beneficial consequences. He thought the explanation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer perfectly satisfactory. Mr. Rolle said, that, in supporting the Bill, he thought he should best comply with the wishes of his constituents, who were desirous, before new taxes were imposed, that the minister should be supported in adopting such measures as were most likely to make the existing taxes productive. Mr. Dempster should not think he did his duty, unless he were to object to the Bill, even in that stage of it. He considered the farming the revenue as a measure so foreign to the principles of the constitution, that it was seriously alarming to his mind. Would that House so far depart from their duty as to put it in the power of farmers of the revenue to grow inordinately rich, at the expense of the ease and happiness of the people? Would it leave the people at the mercy of such men as farmers of the revenue always proved? There were parts of the kingdom, especially Scotland, which had few turnpikes in it; if farmers of the revenue were instituted, they would be putting up gates without number, to the great annoyance of the public. Mr. Dempster read the opinion of the president Montesquieu, from that chapter of his Spirit of Laws, in which he treats of the subject of collecting the revenues of a kingdom by farmersgeneral. He also read an extract from Smith's Wealth of Nations upon the same subject, to show that the best writers gave the preference to an administration of the Government of a country keeping the collection of the revenues of it in their own hands, and stated the consequences of entrusting the collection to farmersgeneral to be destructive to the liberty and comforts of the subject. He said, he had lived long enough to be able to remember the institution of the cross posts. That scheme had been devised by Mr. Allen; it was the product of his brain, and, therefore, at first the Post-office gave it to him for nothing. He afterwards farmed it; but as soon as it became productive, the public would not bear it to be farmed by an individual, and Government took it into its own hands. Instead, therefore of that matter being fit to be held up as a precedent, it was rather a proof of the adverse sense which the public entertained of farming the national revenue. precedent were once admitted in the case of the post-horse tax, who could answer for its stopping there? It most probably would be followed by a variety of other taxes being put out to farm; and therefore he considered it his duty to resist the first attempt to establish so fatal a precedent. Mr. Jolliffe said, that, although there were other periods in which the Bill might be discussed, yet he could not avoid taking some notice at the first appearance of this phænomenon in English economy. This was such a foundation whereon to build oppression, influence, and every species of jobbing, that some resistance ought to be given to its very entrance. The Gallomania formerly mentioned by his hon. friend (Mr. Lambton) had sarely infected the minister in a wonderful degree, when the very first bill he introduced after his commercial treaty had passed, went to constitute in this country the French mode of collecting the revenue. Some articles of French manufacture might be not only palatable, but wholesome to the natives of this island; but French constitution and French law no Briton could relish. This Bill, therefore, should have his hearty opposition, from its first entrance to its final exit. Mr. For said, that he was determined to oppose the Bill, on the ground of its being sure, if carried, very considerably to increase the influence of the Crown. The number of collectors who were to receive the duty must be considerably increased, and the appointment of so many new officers would give the Crown great additional influence. With regard to there being no new powers to be created, it was impossible; for if the tax was let out to farm, those who farmed it must necessarily be invested with those powers, which could alone enable them to enforce the payment of it; and then Ad whole revenue producing but 166,000l. and the expense attending it being 17,000%; which last sum would probably be as much as the amount of the whole profits of all the farmers taken together. The right hon. gentleman had also objected to the principle of setting up what he called a middle man between the people and the state. But the fact was, that at present every innkeeper was that middle man; and though many of them might be perfectly clear of any such practices, yet he apprehended in general they all played a very unfair game both with the individual and the public. There were many branches of the revenue to which it would be improper to apply the regulations of excise; but would gentlemen for that reason say that there ought to be no excise at all, lest it might be extended too far? ministration could no longer be responsible for the conduct of the collection. This was a point extremely essential for the consideration of the House. They were bound in duty to watch over the Executive Government, and to censure it in every instance where they saw abuse or improper conduct. They ought not, therefore, to let such a power loose, and suffer it to go out of their hands; and the power of inquiry and superintendance would be lost, as far at least as regarded the posthorse tax, if they suffered Administration to get rid of their responsibility respecting it for three years, or for any other term, for the space of which it might be let out to farm. Every gentleman who knew what war was, knew what a contractor was; and the improper influence exercised over and through the medium of contractors. The farmers of the revenue would be contractors under another name; and was it to be imagined that there would be no connection between them and Administration? Undoubtedly there would. Shameful was the idea of there being a middle man between the subject who paid the tax, and its ultimate payment into the exchequer, created for the express purpose of growing rich out of the distresses of the people. If the precedent was once established, who could tell to what extent it might be carried? It was wise, therefore, to resist it in the first instance. Mr. Sloper. felt much pleasure in observing the general jealousy and alarm which had shown itself at the very first introduction of a scheme so opposite to the principles of the constitution. It was extremely becoming that House, and did the individual members, who had resisted the attempt to establish so bad a precedent, great honour. Mr. Pitt said, that the right hon. gentleman who spoke last had made it a very serious business indeed, when he stated the danger of great and sudden fortunes being created by it, such as should enable the farmers to overawe the Government, and support themselves in any new oppression which they might think it their interest to introduce in their collection, and the loss the public must sustain by the enriching so many people at its expense: but, in the first place, the public could suffer nothing; for the districts were to be set up at the highest rate which they had ever produced, and the present mode of collection was extremely expensive, the Mr. Sheridan stated several arguments against the Bill, and particularly contended, that the House could not delegate the powers of the executive government to others, who were not amenable to that House. On the question, that the Bill be read a first time, the House divided: Yeas, 76: Noes, 39. May 2. On the motion for the second reading of the Bill, Mr. Marsham said, that he had examined the Bill attentively, but that it had not altered his sentiments respecting the impolicy of introducing so dangerous a system as farming the public revenue. The preamble set off with stating, that there were enormous frauds practised in the present mode of collection of the tax on post-horses; before the House voted that assertion, he conceived they had a right to have before them proof that it was true. He desired to know where that proof was to be found. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had indeed observed, that frauds were notoriously practised; but had the Board of Revenue, in whose hands the management of the tax was in, vested, presented any memorial to the Treasury, stating that the produce of the tax was declining, and that such a regulation as the Bill enacted, appeared to them to be absolutely necessary? He thought, if the Bill passed, that the revenue would rather be injured than benefited, and men. tioned several facts elucidatory of his position. Upon the whole, he would make his stand there, and oppose the second reading of the Bill. |