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 SELECTED SPEECHES 
 
 OF THE LATE KIGHT HON. THE 
 
 EAEL OF BEACONSEIELD 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
'There is one great drawback inherent in Parliamentary oratory, 
 that it is always criticised in a partisan spirit. The object which 
 the speaker has in view is almost invariably foreknown and pre- 
 judged, and it is hopeless to expect an impartial hearing from either 
 of the political ,parties whose sympathies, interests, or prejudices- 
 have predetermined their opinions for or against the cause he 
 represents. The most convincing logic, the most unanswerable facts, 
 are listened to with a scepticism which no powers of persuasion 
 can remove. On the other hand, the most transparent fallacies are 
 accepted and applauded with a liberal and accommodating faith 
 for which no imposture is too extravagant. An energetic " whip " 
 baffles the highest oratorical effect ; empty benches paralyse the 
 most brilliant powers ; crushing majorities annihilate reason, facts, 
 and figures. But the orator who looks beyond an ephemeral political 
 triumph has this consolation — the record of his speeches is preserved. 
 The time comes sooner or later when his judgment is tested by an 
 impartial audience, and his claim to statesmanship decided — not on 
 a parliamentary vote, but on the strength of fulfilled predictions, 
 of realised calculations, and of proved foresight.' 
 
LONDON: LDN0MAN3 &.C° 
 
SELECTED SPEECHES 
 
 OP THE LATE 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE THE 
 
 EARL OF BEAC0N8FIELD' 
 
 AEBANOBD AND EDITED 
 WITH INTBODVCTION AND EXPLANATORlf NOTES 
 
 BY 
 
 T. E. KEBBEL, M.A. 
 
 a portrait 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME L 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 
 
 1882 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
LONDOH t PBIHTED BY 
 
 -jJPOTTIBWOODB AND CO., NEW-STRBBT SQUARK 
 
 ASD PABLIAMEKT STE.EET 
 
PEEPAOE. 
 
 On giving these volumes to the pubhc, it is my first 
 duty, as it is also my greatest pleasure, to acknowledge 
 the aid which I have received from the friends and 
 colleagues of Lord Beaconsfield. To the Marquis of 
 Salisbury, Sir Stafford Northcote, Lord Eowton, Mr. 
 E. Stanhope, Sir Philip Rose (one of Lord Beaconsfield's 
 executors), and last, but not least, to Baron Dimsdale, late 
 Member for Hertford, I am indebted in various degrees 
 for assistance in the process of selection, for the revision 
 of the proof sheets, for the communication of many in- 
 teresting details, and for the key to Lord Beaconsfield's 
 tactics in more than one Parliamentary campaign. With- 
 out these powerful auxiliaries, I could scarcely have 
 presumed to venture on a task of so much difficulty ; 
 even with them I am only too conscious how very im- 
 perfectly I have discharged it. 
 
 T. E. KEBBEL. 
 
 January 17, 1882. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIEST VOLUME. 
 
 PART I, 
 
 EARLY SPEECHES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 High Wycombe, June 9, 1832 S 
 
 HieH Wycombe, Nov. 27, 1832 5 
 
 Hi&H Wycombe, Dec. 16, 1834 10 
 
 Taiwton, Apeit, 29, 1835 ......... 25 
 
 PART II. 
 
 SPEECHES ON AGRICULTURAL INTEREST, FREE 
 TRADE, AND CONDUCT OF SIR ROBERT PEEL'S 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The New Takipp, May 10, 1842 35 
 
 Import Dttiies, Apkil 25, 1843 . 38 
 
 Speech at Sheewsbuby, Mat 9, 1843 46 
 
 SuGAE Duties, JirarB 17, 1844 58 
 
 Opening of Letters by the Government, Feb. 28, 1845 . . 63 
 
 Agbicttltueai. Distress, March 17, 1845 74 
 
 Maynooth, Aprii 11, 1845 82 
 
 Speech on Abbebss, Jan. 22, 1846 98 
 
 Amenbment to Motion eor going into Committee of Whole 
 
 House, Feb. 20, 1846 HI 
 
viii CONTENTS OF THE FIBST VOLUME. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 OoBN Imporiation Bill, Thied RbadiN9, Mat 15, 1846 . . 144 
 
 Atlesbtjut, JvTsm 26, 1847 173 
 
 Income-tax, Maeoh 10, 1848 182 
 
 Local Taxation, MaeCh 8, 1849 . . . . , . . 208 
 
 State op the Nation, Jxtlt 2, 1849 240 
 
 AoEicuLTUEAL D18IEB8S, Fbb. 19, 1850 . . . ... 258 
 
 „ „ Feb. 11, 1861 279 
 
 „ „ March 28, 1879 324 
 
 „ „ Apeh 29, 1879 334 
 
 PART III. 
 LATER FINANCIAL SPEECHES. 
 
 Budget, Dec. 3, 1852 . . 345 
 
 Reply, Dec. 16, 1852 396 
 
 Speech on Mb. Gladstone's Budset, Mat 2, 1853 . . . . 436 
 
 Wats and Means. BTrDGET,_ Apeil 19, 1858 .... 444 
 
 Me. Gladstone's Budget, Feb. 24, 1860 475- 
 
 Wats and Means, Apbil 7, 1862 . . . .■ . . .493 
 
 Mb. Walpolb's Resolution, June 3, 1862 505 
 
 OoMMEECiAL Tbbatt WITH Italt, Feb. 17, 1863 .... 519 
 
 PART IV. 
 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 
 
 BoBOUGH Fbanohisb, Mat 8, 1865 529 
 
 On Inteoducing Bill oe 1867, Maech 18, 1867 .... 544 
 Second Reading, Maech 26, 1867 567 
 
 Mb. Gladstone's Amendment (Compound Householdbes), 
 
 Apbil 12, 1867 692 
 
 Thibd Reading Reform Bill, July 15, 1867 607 
 
 OoiTNTY Fbanohisb, May 18, 1874 624 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Speeches of Lord Beaconsfield possess a value peculiar to- 
 themselves. Not only do they present us with the opinions of 
 a great statesman in the language of a great orator ; they are 
 also the product of a singularly original and penetrating mind, 
 surveying English history and poUtics from a perfectly inde- 
 pendent position, outside of all the hereditary influences and 
 prejudices of our party life, and unattainable perhaps by one 
 whose mind has been steeped in them from childhood. In this 
 respect they are unique. No other English statesman who has 
 risen to the same eminence has ever contemplated the English 
 constitution from the same external height, or brought to the 
 consideration of political theories an understanding so abso- 
 lutely unhampered by the shackles of political tradition. That 
 this circumstance was not an unmixed advantage to Lord 
 Beaconsfield himself in his public career may readily be 
 granted. Veteran politicians did not like being told by a 
 young man of five-and-twenty that the whole conception of 
 our party history which had been implicitly accepted by them 
 for the last forty years was wrong from the beginning; and 
 much of the peculiar animosity which Mr. Disraeli inspired on 
 his first entry into life may be ascribed to this cause. But it 
 was an unqualified advantage" to the world at large that our 
 history and our constitution should be subjected to this inde- 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 pendent criticism, which has, certainly, had the effect of exploding 
 more than one vulgar error on the subject of political parties. 
 
 I have accordingly been guided in this work by three 
 principles of selection. It has been my object to select (1) 
 those speeches which exhibit in the strongest light the 
 -character of the speaker, and the views of history and poli- 
 tics which were peculiar to himself; (2) those which form 
 an essential part of the history of great public questions, and 
 which are indispensable to the full comprehension of them ; 
 and (3) those which are of general and permanent interest, 
 containing maxims and arguments which, in the opinion at 
 least of Lord Beaconsfield's admirers, all future generations 
 may consult with profit. 
 
 The difficulty of forming a selection from the speeches of 
 any leading statesman of our own times, whose public career 
 has extended over half a century, must obviously be consider- 
 able, if only on account of the number which are now 
 required of him, compared with what would have sufficed 
 some five-and-twenty years ago. But, in the case of Lord 
 Beaconsfield's speeches, the difficulty is at least doubled by 
 the exceptional extent to which the English people are familiar 
 with them. His graver eloquence was often of a very high 
 order; but here he has his equals, and, as many perhaps 
 may think, his superiors. He might have had both perhaps 
 even in the domain in which he now shines without a rival had 
 we the speeches in full of either Charles Townsend or the elder 
 Pitt. In default of such competitors, however, it is no dispar- 
 agement of any English orator, either Uving or dead, but a 
 ' simple fact, to say that no one has ever equalled Lord Beacons- 
 field in that special combination of humour and sarcasm by 
 which he originally gained the ear of the House of Commons, 
 and which served him more effectually than the most impas- 
 
■INTEODUCTION. xi 
 
 sioned declamation, in the particular kind of warfare in which 
 he found himself engaged — a warfare which reminds us at one 
 time of the quarrel between Pope and the dunces, at another 
 of the more dignified hostilities between Pope and Addison. 
 
 These were the oratorical triumphs which won him the 
 sympathetic admiration of the English people, and it was the 
 consummate and truly racy rhetoric displayed in these en- 
 counters which made the deepest impression on their minds. 
 A brilliant repartee, a happy illustration, a choice metaphor, 
 remain embedded in the popular memory, when longer and 
 even higher flights of oratory are forgotten ; and Lord Beacons- 
 field hardly ever made a speech of first-class iniportance which 
 did not contain some gem of this description. Each of them will 
 probably have its own circle of admirers, who will naturally find 
 fault with a selection in which they look for it in vain. This 
 is a difficulty, the difficulty, namely, of pleasing everybody, 
 which I could not expect to overcome ; and I can only therefore 
 throw myself on the indulgence of the public — should I be 
 charged, as I almost certainly shall be, with the omission of 
 speeches which ought to have been included, and the inclu- 
 sion of others which might just as well have been omitted. 
 
 But, if such has been my own principal difficulty, I must warn 
 the reader of two others which he will encounter for himself in 
 perusing the speeches of Lord Beaconsfield. One is the cor- 
 ruptness of the text, in many, if not all his earlier ones ; the other 
 is the variety of meanings which the orator was accustomed to 
 attach to the same words. For instance, he as often uses the word 
 democracy to signify a class in society as to signify a form of 
 government. He occasionally uses the word aristocracy when 
 he means oligarchy, and oligarchy when he means aristocracy. 
 And other instances might be given. Finally, perhaps, this 
 may be the place to acknowledge that his style is some- 
 
XU INTRODUCTION. 
 
 times obscure, and his constructions harsh, though this is- 
 more apparent of course in reading his speeches than it was 
 in listening to them ; and I have been assured by veterans of 
 the gallery, that there were no speeches in the House of Com- 
 mons easier to report than Mr. Disraeli's. To use their own 
 language, he never ' rushed ' at a topic or an argument, but was 
 always deliberate, and consequently always intelligible, even 
 when in the disposition of his sentences he was not a little 
 Thucydidean. 
 
 His early speeches are in some respects the most in- 
 teresting of all, because in these the most original side of his 
 mind is turned towards us. After he becanae one of the recog- 
 nised chiefs of the Conservative party, and was enrolled among 
 the- dozen leading men on whom the country relies in turn 
 for the administration of affairs, the difference between him 
 and others was one less of kind than of degree. His policy 
 on pubUc questions was the policy of a great party moulded to ■ 
 a large extent by its political traditions and based on accu- 
 mulated experience. His financial policy, his foreign policy, 
 his reform policy might be better or worse than the views 
 espoused by other statesmen; but they were not views of 
 ; which it could be said that nobody else could possibly have 
 
 ; entertained them. They were founded on considerations fami- 
 
 i 
 
 1 liar to all politicians ; and though Mr. Disraeli would have 
 
 ; impressed his own idiosyncrasy upon everything he undertook, 
 1 it cannot be said that he imported any absolutely new ideas 
 into the practical questions of the day. But in his concep- 
 tions of our political history, and in the creed which he en- 
 deavoured to found upon them, he stands entirely alone ; 
 nor do I think it improbable that posterity will attach at 
 least as much importance to these as to those more solid 
 achievements in the domain of practical statesmanship, which,. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xiil 
 
 •during the latter part of his life, threw them (sompletely into 
 the shade. I have accordingly been careful to give as many 
 speeches as I could in which these opinions find expression ; 
 and that the reader may be in a position to do justice to them, 
 I would press upon him the following considerations. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli, like Mr. Gladstone, entered public life with a 
 theory ; not one which he had inherited, but one which he had 
 -constructed for himself. The period immediately succeeding 
 the Eeform Bill of 1832 was favourable to the growth of 
 original opinions, and the tendency of the Romanticist revival 
 which marked the first half of the nineteenth century was to 
 turn men's thoughts upon the past. Mr. Disraeli was stirred 
 by the wave as well as others ; and as to others it came in a 
 feudal or an ecclesiastical shape, to him it came in a political. 
 As earlier forms of society and earlier conditions of religion 
 attracted some minds ; so the earlier struggles of our two great 
 political parties attracted his, who fancied that he saw them 
 reproduced before his own eyes. As Scott loved to brood over 
 the idea of reviving in his own person the feudalism of the 
 Middle Ages : as Newman and Keble, and even Mr. Gladstone, 
 recurred to the Church of the Stuarts as the only remedy for 
 the religious distractions of the day : so did Mr. Disraeli's ima- 
 gination carry him back to the Toryism of the first Georges as 
 •our only protection against the dangers threatened by, the 
 Eeform Bill. At one period of our history the Whigs had 
 changed the dynasty in order to acquire power ; they had now 
 •changed the constitution. Eighteen hundred and thirty-two 
 was sixteen hundred and eighty-eight; William IV. was 
 another George II., a puppet in the hands of a party, yet chafing 
 under a thraldom from which he was unable to extricate himself 
 Mr. Disraeli was the champion of a popular Toryism exposing 
 the pseudo-popular pretensions of a Whig oligarchy. What 
 
XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ■ Wyndham had advocated in 1733 he would advocate in 1833.. 
 That he overlooked certain very awkward differences between 
 the two periods may be granted. But a similar class of differ- 
 ences was overlooked by the feudal and the ecclesiastical revi- 
 valist. All three aspirations had their origin in the same 
 source. ' It was the stirring of the blood ' when the present 
 century was young. But neither Mr. Grladstone's theory nor 
 Mr. Disraeli's was found to stand the test of experience, and 
 each silently allowed it to drop into the background. Not, 
 indeed, that either of them ceased to look back on it with 
 fondness. Mr. Disraeli, indeed, perhaps as late even as 1867, 
 may have felt that he was to some extent acting up to the 
 letter of his earliest professions. But we find in both con- 
 stant traces of the early love — indications of an intellectual 
 craving for a creed which was found to be impracticable. 
 
 We are next led to ask what there was in the actual world 
 of politics when Mr. Disraeli entered it to lend any colour to 
 such opinions as he expresses in his earlier speeches. We must 
 remember, then, that, strange as his declamations against the 
 Whig Party may sound to ourselves, they represent what was 
 by no means an uncommon feeling at the time, and that 
 among men of long political experience and of what is called 
 sober common-sense. That the Constitution and the empire 
 would be destroyed by the success of the Reform Bill and the 
 continuance of the Whigs in power, is a sentim.ent which meets 
 us constantly in the correspondence of the Duke of Wellington. 
 Mr. Disraeli had, probably, excellent reasons for saying what 
 he says in ' Coningsby : ' « Nevertheless, there existed at this 
 period a prevalent conviction that the Whig party, by a great 
 stroke of State, similar in magnitude and effect to that which, 
 in the preceding century had changed the dynasty, had secured 
 to themselves the government of this country for at least the 
 
INTKODXJCTION. XT 
 
 lives of the present generation.' Cobbett, whose early Toryism 
 was just what Mr. Disraeli aspired to reproduce, though he had 
 become a violent Eevolutionist by the time of the Eeform Bill, 
 could say nothing too severe of the Whigs. So that, take it 
 ~all in all, there was material enough to lend to the world of 
 imagination in which Mr. Disraeli at that time loved to move, 
 the appearance of reality which was necessary to sustain the 
 illusion. But practical experience very soon revealed to him 
 the superficial nature of the analogy which had once misled 
 him ; and, though he retained to the last his faith in popular 
 Toryism, he saw clearly enough that the enemies of the consti- 
 tution and the empire were not to be sought among the Whigs. 
 
 There was, however, one tradition of the eighteenth century 
 to which he always clung, and in the first twenty years of his 
 public life, from 1832 to 1852, its influence is conspicuous. 
 Lord Shelburne says of the Tories in the reign of Greorge II. 
 ' that justice has not been done to their character and princi- 
 ples, owing to the never-ceasing outcry of Ministers in con- 
 founding them with Jacobites; but in fact they were the 
 landed interest of England, who desired to see an honourable, 
 dignified government conducted with order and due subordina- 
 tion, in opposition to the Whigs, who courted the mob in the 
 first instance, and in the next the commercial interest.' 
 
 Almost every word of this might have been written of Lord 
 Beaconsfield. 'The landed interest of England' was, to the 
 day of his death, the object of his devotion ; and on it he con- 
 stantly maintained that the greatness of England had been 
 reared. Hence his opinions on Free Trade and Protection, 
 which were not founded on any disbelief in the economic 
 soundness of the former. But he was irritated by the sophism 
 which represented the Corn Laws as a tax on the food of the 
 people for the benefit of a single class. The territorial system 
 
XVI INTEODUCTION. 
 
 of Englajid did not exist for its own sake. It conferred 
 enormous benefits on the nation. If you disputed this asser- 
 tion, and said that you did not want a territorial aristocracy, 
 that was a different question, to be argued at another time. 
 But tUl you did say so you had no right to describe Protection 
 as a tax on the food of the people for the benefit of a single 
 ■class. It was a tax on the food of the people for their own 
 benefit; for the sake of a great public object; for the main- 
 tenance of a national institution of which long experience had 
 taught them the inestimable value. Granted that protective 
 duties on agricultural produce were required for the mainten- 
 ance of the territorial system, we must set against these the 
 whole results which flow from the existence of an aristocratic 
 •order ; from its sagacity and fortitude in the conduct of public 
 affairs ; from its moral and intellectual influence on the national 
 life ; from its discharge of great local duties, and its close 
 hereditary sympathies with the labouring population ; from its 
 patronage of art, science, and literature ; from its pride and its 
 ohivaby ; and it was by no means so certain that the balance 
 would come out in favour of unlimited Free Trade. There 
 were those who questioned both these assumptions ; who 
 would deny either that the landed interest was necessary to 
 the welfare of the people, or that Protection was necessary to 
 the support of the landed interest. We have seen his answer 
 to the former proposition. With the latter he would have 
 agreed in the abstract. The landed interest had flourished 
 before the Com Laws were imposed, and might flourish after 
 they were repealed. But then with the removal of Protection 
 must come the removal of those special burdens on the land 
 for which Protection was the only excuse. 
 
 He seems to have thought that Free Trade, salutary free 
 trade, ought to be based on the principle of reciprocity 
 
.INTRODUCTION. XVU 
 
 established by commercial treaties. But as our own financial 
 policy had left us nothing to give in exchange, it was useless, 
 he thought, to rely on reciprocity as an economical principle. 
 Commercial treaties might be useful to England on political 
 grounds, but on no other. The conclusion was that the landed 
 interest must be relieved of those exceptional charges for which 
 when Protection was abolished it received no equivalent what- 
 ever. Hence arose the demand for the readjustment of Local 
 Taxation^ which in our own time has become a question of the 
 first magnitude, of which for a quarter of a century the Tory 
 party has never lost sight, and which on their accession to office 
 in 1874 they immediately took into consideration. 
 
 Of Mr. Disraeli's financial speeches, beyond what I have 
 written in the paragraphs prefixed to each, I am able to say little. 
 He never commanded a majority of the House of Commons while 
 he was Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and it would have been 
 impossible for him, as Sir Stafford Northcote has pointed oiit, 
 to achieve any of those dazzling financial exploits which distin- 
 guished the career of Mr. Gladstone, even had he been so 
 minded. Such achievements require for success the support of 
 an unflinching majority and the control of the public revenue 
 for a considerable series of years. Mr. Gladstone brought in 
 eight Budgets in succession ; but towards the middle of the 
 series his policy looked very like a failure ; and no minister in 
 a minority, certainly not one with Mr. Gladstone in Opposition, 
 could have survived the ordeal of 1862. Nor should it ever be 
 forgotten that Mr. Gladstone, while he was Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, occupied a position very different from that of Mr. 
 Disraeli when he was Finance Minister. Mr. Gladstone had 
 his hands free ; Mr. Disraeli had not. The latter, in addition 
 to the labours of his own department, was leader of the House 
 of Commons. Mr. Gladstone was not. Mr. Disraeli, while 
 
 VOL. I. * a 
 
xviii INTEOBUCTION. 
 
 framing his Budget, was at the same time immersed in labours 
 from which Mr. Gladstone during all those years in which his 
 financial reputation was built up was comparatively exempt. 
 Eeform Bills, Foreign Policy, the very struggle for existence 
 pressing heavily on the Conservative minister, absorbed a great 
 deal of the time which Mr. Gladstone was able to devote exclu- 
 sively to finance. But that his genius was well qualified for 
 the mastery of economic science is shown as well by his own 
 financial statements, as by the admitted value of the criticism 
 which he bestowed on others. 
 
 The speeches here given on Parliamentary Eeform, though 
 not as specimens of oratory among Mr. Disraeli's best, possess 
 considerable value. They vindicate the right of the Tory 
 party to deal with the question as soon as the Whigs had 
 reopened it ; and show that Tories had been the earliest Re- 
 formers, as they had also been the earliest Free Traders. His 
 own objects in legislation were mainly two : first, the extension 
 of the franchise among the working classes, to compensate 
 them for what they had lost in 1832, coupled with securities 
 for the due representation in the House of Commons of the 
 variety of interests and classes of which the community is com- 
 posed ; and secondly, the increase of the county representation. 
 • He always considered it to be of the deepest importance to 
 prevent any single class in the country from obtaining a deci- 
 sive preponderance in Parliament, and he denied to the last 
 that his own Bill of 1867 was calculated to have that effect. 
 
 On Foreign Affairs in general his own Government was 
 accused of very much the same propensity as he himself had 
 constantly condemned in the policy of Lord Eussell and Lord 
 Palmerston. But I think all candid and impartial critics will 
 allow that there was a vast difference in the circumstances of 
 the two governments. The Italian question, the Polish ques- 
 
INTRODUCTION. XIX 
 
 tion, the Danish question, were not in the iirst place questions 
 which touched the British Empire, while the charge brought 
 against Lord Eussell in connection with them was that he 
 irritated and estranged foreign Powers by perpetual and in- 
 iudicious interference, without diverting them from their objects 
 by the legitimate use of British influence. No reader of these 
 speeches can bring the same charge against Lord Beaconsfield. 
 The questions on which he interfered were those in which our 
 Empire was at stake, and his remonstrances, so far from being 
 futile, produced important and valuable results. He would pro- 
 bably have said himself that his foreign policy steered a middle 
 course between a policy of isolation and a policy of intrusion ; 
 that it was strictly a defensive policy, vigilant and energetic, 
 but neither vexatious nor ambitious. It is, however, no part 
 of my present task to reconcile all the discrepancies, either 
 real or apparent, which show themselves between the earlier 
 and the later speeches of this illustrious man. Some of them 
 are due to real changes of opinion, caused by corresponding 
 changes in the condition of the world, in the relations of party 
 to party and of country to country ; some to the different de- 
 grees of knowledge with which at different times he spoke 
 upon the same subject; others, and not a few, are merely 
 nominal, due to the habit which I have already mentioned of 
 using the same words in various different significations. But 
 whatever may be thought of his policy during the last six 
 years of his Kfe, no one can rise from the dignified and im- 
 pressive eloquence in which it is embalmed without doing 
 homage to the character of a true patriot. 
 
 Utcunque ferent ea facta minores, 
 Vinoet amor patriae, laudumque immensa oupido. 
 
 I will only add that if changes of opinion on the gravest 
 questions which can occupy the attention of public men be 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 indeed a crime, then statesmen of eminence, and living states- 
 men among the number, who are still considered worthy of our 
 reverence, must stand at the bar alongside of him. 
 
 The reperusal of these memorable speeches seems to 
 wrap one in a dream. One finds it difficult to believe that 
 the speaker will be heard no more, and that we shall never 
 again see him in that EngHsh House of Commons whose fame 
 and honour were so dear to him. Insensibly one's mind wanders 
 back to the days when every eye in that great assembly was 
 fastened on the Tory leader as he sat silent through a hurri- 
 cane of invective, or rose to retort or to expound. Once more 
 one seems to see that motionless figure, that pale impenetrable 
 countenance, which had betrayed hardly a sign of animation 
 during the speech of his antagonist, suddenly kindle into life 
 and flame as he sprang up in answer to the challenge, confi- 
 dent in his own resources against even the most tremendous 
 odds. Again one hears the ringing rounds of applause or the 
 loud peals of merriment as he successfully demolished what 
 had seemed to be a resistless argument, or turned the tables on 
 an adversary who had rashly tried to be sarcastic. It is hard 
 to persuade one's self that this is all the work of the imagina- 
 tion, and that he will never again, in either House of Parlia- 
 ment, cheer his followers to the fight, sustain the drooping 
 spirits of a party, or vindicate the name and fame of a nation 
 and an Empire. 
 
SPEECHES 
 
 OP THE 
 
 EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 PAET I. 
 EARLY SPEECHES. 
 
 HIGH WYCOMBE . . . June 9, 1832. 
 
 HIGH WYCOMBE . . Nov. 27, 1832. 
 
 HIGH WYCOMBE . . . Dbc. 16, 1834. 
 
 TAUNTON Apbil 29, 1835. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 7 
 
HIGH WYCOMBE, June 9, 1832. 
 
 [In tlie summer of 1832, a vacancy having occurred in the repre- 
 sentation of High. Wycombe by the retirement of Sir T. Baring, 
 Mr. Disraeli, then in his twenty-eighth year, presented himself to 
 the electors. Mr. Bulwer had applied to both Mr. Hume and Mr. 
 O'Connell for letters recommending Mr. Disraeli to the electors of 
 Wycombe, a circumstance which Mr. Disraeli describes as follows in 
 a letter to the ' Times ' of December 31, 1835, which we commend to 
 the attention of all persons interested in the controversy. ' A friend 
 of mine, interested in my success, knowing that I was supported by 
 that portion of the constituency styled Radicals, apphed to Mr. 
 O'Connell and Mr. Hume, with whom he was intimately acquainted, 
 to know whether they had any influence in Wycombe, and requested 
 them to exercise it in my favour. They had none, and they expressed 
 their regret in letters to this gentleman, who forwarded them to me 
 at Wycombe ; and my committee, consisting of as many Tories as 
 Radicals, printed ' them. This is the story of my connection with 
 Mr. 0'Conn.ell.' Mr. Disraeli accepted their assistance in the crusade 
 which he was preaching against Whig domination ; but it is clear 
 that he made no attempt to gain votes by pretending to be either a 
 Radical like the one, or a Home Ruler like the other. He spoke of 
 the institutions of the country with the greatest veneration. He 
 had told O'Connell that he could not listen for a moment to the 
 repeal of the Union. The one point which he had in common with 
 them, and which entitled him in his own opinion to make use of their 
 suppoi't, was disapproval of the Whigs. His opponent, on this 
 occasion, was Colonel the Honourable Charles Grey, son of the Prime 
 Minister; and Mr. Disraeli, whose father resided at Bradenham 
 House in the immediate neighbourhood, came forward as the local 
 candidate in opposition to the Whig nominee. He made the most of 
 
 u 2 
 
4 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 this position, though not able to turn it to full account till after the 
 carriage of the Reform Bill, when he again contested the borough. 
 But as this speech may be said to mark his entrance into public life, 
 I subjoin the brief account of it which is all that I have been able 
 to discover.] 
 
 MR, DISEAELI, says the ' Bucks Gazette,' had with much 
 good generalship placed himself on the roof of the covered 
 entrance to the Red Lion, and from this commanding situation 
 addressed the throng in a very able speech. He commenced by 
 saying that he stood before them, not relying on the ties of rela- 
 tionship, or founding his claims to their notice on the merits of 
 his father or any kinsman, but on his own individual intentions. 
 He was a neighbour, living in their close vicinity. He thought, 
 and was sure they would think with him, that a resident member 
 who would at all times be near and accessible to his constituents, 
 who from his contiguity would necessarily know personally so 
 many of the inhabitants, and who would as a resident have more 
 claim to their suffrages, was the person whom they would 
 choose in preference to Colonel Grey, who only came there 
 relying on the merits of his father, and making no pledges of his 
 own principles. . , , He begged them to give him their votes 
 and interest ; to remember that he was their neighbour, a 
 dweller amongst them, who had their welfare deeply at heart, 
 and who would prove his gratitude to his constituents by con- 
 sulting their interest and preserving their independence. 
 
HIGH WYCOMBE, November 27, 1832. 
 
 [In his speech, of t.he previous summer Mr. Disraeli had evidently 
 said enough to draw all eyes upon himself, and in the interval which 
 elapsed he had been exposed to merciless criticism. He had been 
 described as a Iladical obtaining Tory votes on false pretences. 
 This is how he deals with the charge. In the present circumstances 
 of the country, the Tory party must recur to the principles of its 
 founders. This is the doctrine with which he afterwards familiarised 
 the world both in speeches, pamphlets, and works of fiction ; and in 
 the introduction to these volumes I have endeavoured to explain its 
 connection with another great movement of the day, the ecclesiastical 
 renaissance of 1833. Both were regarded at first both by Eldonian 
 Tories and high-and-dry churchmen with a stare of stupefaction.] 
 
 I FIND that I have been described in the organs of the present 
 Grovernment as a ' destructive Eadical.' It is some con- 
 solation to remember that, but a few short months ago, I was 
 therein alluded to as 'a diaajqjointed Tory candidate.' I need 
 scarcely say to you that I have undergone no change. I am as 
 I ever was in motive, principle, and determination. You have 
 undergone no change unless it be for the better — unless it be 
 that you have increased in number, in energy, and in firmness. 
 Thus does the charge of flagrant inconsistency revert to the 
 source from which it emanated. I am a ' destructive Eadical,' 
 forsooth, because I have given pledges which, it is said, destroy 
 everything. Let us look at the justice of such a charge. 
 Feeling that a real revolution has occurred in the nation, 1 
 have thought miich and deeply upon what should be the duty 
 of a statesman at such a time. If, instead of filling the humble 
 position of a private individual, I held a post near the person of 
 my king, I should have said to my sovereign, 'Oppose all 
 
6 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 change, or allow that change which will be full, satisfactory, and 
 final.' In the change produced by the professing party now 
 in power, there are omissions of immense importance. These 
 points they promised ; these points they have not given you ; 
 and now, after all their protestations, they turn round and ask 
 how the people can have the audacity to demand them. Yes, 
 they dare to do this — they dare to shrink from their promises 
 and to express astonishment and horror when the people remind 
 them of their pledges, and clamour at their wilful omission. 
 The two great points which they say we shall never possess, 
 and which we must have, it is scarcely necessary for me to say, 
 are triennial Parliaments and vote by ballot. The first is a just 
 and necessary measure, or I would not stand here as its advocate ; 
 and in adverting to its necessity I only support the true princi- 
 ples, the just spirit of our admirable constitution, for that was 
 always best maintained by triennial Parliaments. It best 
 flourished when they were in use ; it has been injured when 
 they were abused. If there be any epoch of history more glorious, 
 more satisfactory than another, it is the reign of Queen Anne. 
 Then were our armies most brilliant with success ; then were our 
 victories most glorious ; for even Waterloo, the most famed of 
 battles, has not obliterated the memory of Blenheim. This 
 was a period of England's greatest eminence, of England's 
 proudest glory ; and then there were triennial Parliaments. It 
 was then that the House of Hanover acceded to the crown of 
 these realms ; the Whigs got into power, and the nation, blindly 
 confiding in them, elected their nominees throughout the land. 
 What was the result ? Why, when they were returned by a 
 credulous people for three years, they extended their own 
 political existence for seven years, by passing the Septennial 
 Act. In 1716 this measure was carried. A few desolate Tories 
 opposed this arbitrary and unconstitutional edict of a Whig 
 minister, but in vain. Let them, let the Tories again unite 
 in opposing this Act ; ' they will do so with consistency and 
 justice. At that period it was in vain to oppose Sir Eobert 
 Walpole, that able and corrupt minister, for he had the popular 
 cry with him ; he was backed by the voice of the nation, and 
 
 ' I.e. the Septennial Act. 
 
HIGH WYCOMBE, NOVEMBER 27, 1832. 7 
 
 all remonstrance was useless. For twenty years did this pro- 
 fligate minister sway the rod of empire, and administer the 
 corrupt government which he had seized on with so much 
 ability and so much tenacity. After a quarter of a century ' of 
 the most grinding oppression and open corruption, the Tories 
 again came forward and moved the repeal of the Septennial 
 Bill. Sir William Wyndham, a man of high family, of large 
 property, of weight, influence, and respect, of great authority 
 with his party, in fact the leader of the Tory opposition, 
 proposed this repeal in a speech which for sound argument, 
 keen research, close reasoning, and bitter invective, is, I think, 
 unequalled. A more happy composition is not to be found in 
 the records of Parliamentary eloquence. I need not tell you 
 that this motion failed. Now I, who am cried down and 
 branded as a destructive Eadieal, only advocate what Sir 
 William Wyndham, the Tory champion, sought to recover as 
 an act of justice to the people, as an essential point in the 
 well-being of the constitution. Lord Bolingbroke, one of the 
 ablest men who ever lived, was a firm and uncompromising 
 Tory, and he advocated triennial Parliaments. He said that 
 without this there was no security for the people, no integrity 
 for the constitution. What these illustrious and able men 
 deemed vitally important, I humbly advocate, and yet I am ' a 
 destructive Eadieal.' So much for consistency ! 
 
 Now let us look at the ballot. We are told that this is an 
 innovation, an unjust and an un-English measure. Much, I 
 confess, is to be said on both sides, and I have not formed my 
 opinion without deliberation, and I can see in the great con- 
 stitution of my country a glorious and admirable structure, to 
 which I would fain add two wings. Under the old system of 
 representation I should not have thought ballot necessary, 
 because that system was anomalous, and ballot could be of 
 little use in a borough that had no electors. But if you will 
 change, if you will give a constituency to every town returning 
 members to Parliament, and if you will give to that constitu- 
 ency the legitimate right which the constitution contemplates, 
 
 ' I.e. in T734, a period from the accession of the House of Hanover of about 
 twenty years. 
 
 ( 
 
8 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 and which is a freeman's claim, you must add to the elective 
 franchise vote by ballot. My gallant opponent, the breath of 
 whose overpowering and convincing eloquence still hovers about 
 the atmosphere of Wycombe, paused long before he indulged in 
 the tirade which lately obtained so much notoriety through the 
 medium of the 'Times' newspaper. I say to t he . son of the 
 Prime- Minister, thatif the Whig ministry had not Al ter e d -t^e 
 
 fpresentative system of the country, we should not havera,lled 
 r ballot ;'but I now say, that In 'proportion as the electors 
 crease in number, so does. the, necessity fQ:rthie, ballot,, I ^^^^ 
 a Conservative "topreserve all that is ^oodJn,oiu£, constitution, 
 a ITaaicaTtoTefflfySfeairiEEaFIs bad. I seek to preserve property 
 and to respect order, aM~lSquMyaFciy'the^2gjre!^-fee--Ui^ 
 passion s^oTffie many of the prejudices Qj^.the few. I ail^^detest 
 -fclre-TJS'spotism of ah oligarchy and the pre-eminence of a mob. 
 I shall ever seek to confer the greatest happiness upon the 
 greatest numbers, and I conscientiously believe that in ad- 
 vofcating triennial Parliaments and vote by ballot, I am labour- 
 ing to promote this desirable end. As a statesman I should 
 Bay that it is impossible to refuse popular demands well matured 
 and energetically supported. If • so, let the people be fitted to 
 discharge the functions reposed in them ; and, as the means to 
 this great end, I would unflinchingly advocate the repeal of the 
 taxes on knowledge, because, though we admire and enjoy the 
 liberty of the press, yet we feel its tyranny. Now, taxed as it 
 is, it requires a large capital to carry on a newspaper, and its 
 interests once established by a large circle of readers, and by 
 an immense supply of advertisements, it bids defiance to the 
 small capitalists who would embark in an untaxed competition, 
 hut are now overwhelmed by the oppressive impost laid on by 
 Government, 
 
 [What follows is reprinted from the ' Wycombe Sentinel,' No- 
 vember 30, a small single sheet published every Friday during the 
 autumn and winter of 1832-3 by the young Tory party in the 
 Borough.] 
 
 Mr. Disraeli then took a most elaborate, luminous and 
 powerful view of the foreign policy of the present administra- 
 
HIGH WYCOMBE, NOVEMBER 27, 1832. 9 
 
 tion. He said he knew it was not a favourite subject with the 
 general, but, while the cannon were thundering from the 
 citadel of Antwerp, he could not be silent. He shewed how 
 the foreign policy of the present administration must lead to 
 an ultimate loss of the sovereignty of the seas, the destruction 
 of our commerce, and finally of our country. He said that 
 peace was now the policy of England. We had gained every- 
 thing. Now it was our duty to preserve. All domestic policy^- 
 he said, at this moment merged into the question of the Corn 
 Laws, doubtless one of the most difficult and delicate that 
 could solicit the attention of a statesman. As it was one 
 which, under any circumstances, inust always be a matter of 
 partial legislation, he should feel it his duty to bow to his con- 
 stituents: nevertheless he should venture to offer them his 
 opinion, and if it appeared to be on the side of the existing 
 system, he was a most disinterested advocate of it, as he had t 
 but a very slight stake in the soil ; nevertheless, looking to the 
 nature of this county, and to the state of society therein exist- 
 ing, he could not resist the conviction that if we had recourse 
 to any sudden alteration of the present system, we might say 
 farewell to the county of Bucks, farewell to the beautiful Chil- . 
 terns, farewell to Wycombe market. The cultivators of the/ 
 soil might then throw themselves, not on the parish, for that 
 would have ceased to exist, but on the barren soil, and there 
 perish. They would ask, is bread, then, to be always dear ? 
 By no means, but it was surely better to have dear bread than 
 to have no bread at all. Reduce the burdens that so heavily 
 press upon the farmer, and then reduce his protection in the 
 same ratio. That was the way to have cheap bread. He did 
 not doubt that whan the question of tithes was eventually 
 settled, when the poor laws were brought back to the system of 
 l795j and when we employed oiu: surplus revenue in relieving 
 the agricultural interest instead of sending forth fantastic 
 expeditions to attack our ancient allies- — he did not doubt that 
 then we might have the blessing of cheap bread without de- 
 stroying the interest which is the basis of all sound social 
 happiness. 
 
10 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACOiSrSFIELD. 
 
 HIGH WYCOMBE, December 16, 1834. {The Crisis Examined.) 
 
 [In November 1834, on tbe removal of Lord Althorp to the 
 Upper House, King William IV., instead of listening to the proposed 
 reconstruction of the Whig ministry, entrusted the Duke of Wellington 
 with the formation of a new one. Sir Robert Peel was at once 
 summoned from Rome ; and it was understood that a dissolution 
 of Parliament would take place as soon as he returned. Mr. Disraeli 
 again presented himself to the electors of High Wycombe, and de- 
 livered the following speech, afterwards reprinted with the title of 
 ' The Crisis Examined.' ^uUy to comprehend a speech of this de- 
 scription, the reader must himself have mingled in the transactions 
 recorded in it, and retain a lively recollection of the political pas- 
 sions as well as of the club gossip which at this particular period 
 agitated or amused society. Without this knowledge it must neces- 
 sarily appear in many passages far-fetched and exaggerated.] ■ 
 
 GENTLEMEN, — A considerable period has elapsed since I last 
 liad the honour of addressing you within these walls ; and 
 in that interval great revolutions have occurred — revolutions 
 of government and revolutions of opinion : I can, however, 
 assure you that I remain unchanged. I appear before you this 
 day influenced by the same sentiments that I have ever pro- 
 fessed, and actuated by the same principles I have ever advo- 
 cated. There are some among my supporters who have depre- 
 cated this meeting ; who have believed that I stood in so 
 favourable a position as regarded the final result of this contest, 
 that to move might perhaps endanger it ; who observing that 
 I was supported by individuals of different opinions, and hither- 
 to of different parties, were fearful that in hazarding explana- 
 tion, I might hazard discomfiture. But, gentlemen, unless I 
 enter Parliament with a clear explanation of my views, there 
 is little chance of my acting with profit to you or with credit 
 to myself. I cannot condescend to obtain even that distin- 
 
HIGH WYCOMBE, DECEMBEE 16, 1834. 11 
 
 guished honour by Jesuitical intrigue or casuistical cajolery ; I 
 cannot condescend at the same time to be supported by the 
 Tories because they deem me a Tory, and by the Liberals 
 because they hold me a Liberal ; I cannot stoop to deception, 
 or submit to delusion. 
 
 It is the fashion to style the present moment an extra- 
 ordinary Crisis. I will not quarrel with the phrase. The times 
 are, indeed, remarkable ; we have a new administration just 
 formed, a new Parliament immediately threatened. It is 
 therefore incumbent on the constituent body throughout the 
 empire to prepare and to resolve upon the course expedient 
 to pursue. Hoping, even believing, that I shall be your repre- 
 sentative, I will venture to offer to your consideration the 
 course of policy which, under existing circumstances, I think 
 it the duty of an administration to pursue. And in the first 
 place, I think that administration should be based upon a 
 determination to reduce the burthens, to redress the grievances, 
 and to maintain the rights of the people. I will not, however, 
 shelter myself, and certainly I do not wish them to shield them- 
 selves, under a declaration so vague. Let us, therefore, be de- 
 finite. I think the necessary measu T^^R rn fi y b" ^l^ggp^l -uj3. a«:JaH,T 
 heads: Financial Belief , Ecclesiastical Beform, Sectarian Reform , 
 and Corporate Beform. I will consider the Irish que s tion as 
 •^'coilat^lU't' '116 1'he'genei^rTJHe oFEcidieslasticallJRjef^^ 
 ■"""'^ToTinancial Belief, I am of opinion that^tih^eji^ricidtural 
 interest, at" the' prggent niibinent, isinore entitled than any 
 
 TTth'ST'Ctess I'U'^lfatever Boon the minister may spare. AH who 
 Keif ins know, and most who hear me feel, that that interest 
 is tearfully JepressedT We may hope, therefore, that the Ex- 
 
 chequer may granL.thgffl,,at,i!ea§ii. the partial^ relief , of the malt 
 tax, al though I recommend them to petition for the whole. I 
 would not at tEe^sajmetime ina,ke a request and intimate a 
 compr omise. As for any further relief that may be conceded 
 us, T am always an advocate, m spite of poli tical economists, 
 for the abolition of direct taxes. I hope7therefore, the window 
 tax'wiirs8^''HisapBS3rr'1F"is 'T'S^ the na^' onerous and the 
 most umust. Farther relief we ^aanot certainly^joflW-jafttafilEftte.-. 
 1 approach now the solemn subject of Ecclesiastical Beform. 
 
12 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Church Eeform, gentlemen, is the popular cry of the country : 
 and when I recall the desperate professions that have been 
 made, and the abortive measures that have been prepared 
 upon this subject, I confess I recoil from a cant phrase which 
 only reminds me of the intrigues of ignorant faction, or the 
 wily projects of the protectors of vested rights. I hope the 
 timsapproaches when we may hear less of Church, jpfo^ joa. and 
 more^^PESwElJmpravemgJil;. 'T"^em it absolutely neces- 
 sary that pluralities should be abolished, and that the great 
 and consequent evil of non-residence should be terminated for 
 ever. It is, perhaps, unnecessary for me to observe that I can- 
 not conceive that this all -important object can be obtained 
 without increasing the value of the lesser livings, and the in- 
 comes in general of the inferior clergy. Ecclesiastical reform 
 naturally and necessarily draws our attention to Ireland — a 
 name fatal to so many Grovemments. 
 
 I deem it absolutely necessary, ev en for the existence of 
 the Protestant Establishment itseltY thar'f.Eg ,,a,]ij i(=;st^^jpT^ o^^ ^'he 
 
 Irish Church should be forthwith grappled with ; that it should 
 be the object ot a measure m its nature as final, m its operation 
 as conclusive, as human wit can d evise. It is now impossible 
 to avoid, aiicl too'Tate to postpone it ; it must be met immedi- 
 ately — the question is, how may it be met efficiently ? Twelve 
 months, therefore, must not pass over without the very name 
 of tithes in that country being abolished for ever ; nor do I 
 deem it less urgent that the Protestant Establishment in that 
 country should be at once proportioned to the population 
 which it serves. But, gentlemen, I for one will never consent 
 that the surplus revenues of that branch of our Establishment 
 shall ever be appropriated to any other object save the interests 
 of the Church of England, because experience has taught me 
 kthat an establishment is never despoiled except to benefit an 
 aristocracy. It is the interest of the people to support the 
 Church, for the Church is their patrimony, their only heredi- 
 tary property ; it is their portal to power, their avenue to 
 learning, to distinction, and to honour. I see no reason why 
 the surplus revenues of the Church of England in Ireland 
 should not be placed in trust of the prelates of that land, and 
 
HIGH WYCOMBE, DECEMBER 16, 1834. 13 
 
 of lay trustees, for the purpose of advancing the propagation of 
 the Protestant faith in Ireland by all salutary and sacred means. 
 We may fail, gentlemen,- in this great end, but failure under 
 such circumstances is preferable in my mind to seeing this 
 property, hallowed by its original consecration to the purposes 
 of religion, of learning, and of charity, in the ruthless and 
 rapacious grasp of some bold absentee baron. I know the love 
 that great lords, and especially "Whig lords, have for abbey 
 lands and great tithes, but I remember Woburn, and I profit 
 by the reminiscence. As I am upon the subject of Ireland, I 
 will at once declare that I see no chance of tranquillity and 
 welfare for that impoverished and long distracted land, until 
 the Irish people enjoy the right to which the people of all 
 countries are entitled — namely, to be maintained by the soil 
 that they cultivate by their labour. I cannot find terms to 
 express my sense of the injustice and the impolicy, the folly 
 and the wickedness, of any longer denying to Ireland the con- 
 solation and the blessing of a well-regulated system of poor- 
 laws. But notj gentlemen, that system which has recently 
 made all England thrill with feelings of horror and indignation, 
 as they wept over the simple, though harrowing, tale of the 
 sufiferings of our unhappy neighbours at Bledlow.' 
 
 Under the head of Sectarian Eefojgi^X, approach th.&-deli- 
 cate subiect of the claims of the Dissenters. In my opinion 
 
 . liil^il ■ W " ^ 11 I ■I w lili iw iiiMii . n y ,H .iil [W ii n iuii . <i l iui» p in,J>iiiH>liii p i -- - -n— *"^— "-^*'- 
 
 theseare claims which must not De eluded by any Government 
 
 m^^m^^^^-wmsr^cmremf'eis^mwrm' gfeat 
 
 GSH^ffil^tK spiritoi the most comprehensive toleration re- 
 quired, consistent with the established constitution of the 
 country. Therefore, I think that the Eegistration and the 
 Marriage claims should be conceded. As for the question of 
 the church-rate, it is impossible that we can endure that every 
 time one is levied, a town should present the scene of a con- 
 tested election. The rights of the Establishment must be 
 respected, but, for the sake of the Establishment itself, that 
 flagrant scandal must be removed. These are concessions 
 
 ' A village near Wycombe, where the alleged ill-treatment of some labour- 
 ing men by the parish authorities had recently attracted the attention of the 
 London papers. 
 
14 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 which, I think, are due to a numerous and powerful portion of 
 our fellow-subjects ; due, I repeat, to their numbers, their in- 
 telligence, and their property, and consistent, in my opinion, 
 with the maintenance of an Established Church, a blessing with 
 which I am not prepared to part, and which I am resolved to 
 uphold, because I consider it a guarantee of civilisation, and a 
 barrier against bigotry. 
 
 I now arrive at the fourth head under which I classed the 
 measures, in my opinion, necessary to be adopted by the 
 G°OTernmelQt, Corporate""Eeform : a subfect; T"TClTew,-TePy 
 liiterestme; to those I am now addressmg. i am oi opmion 
 that a municipality should be formed upon the model of tuat 
 mixed constitution whj^pjtj.. expenence ,hafe.p«aKed.4fibJje~atIJ2e 
 same time so efficient and so beneficial. I am desirous that 
 the burgesses should be elected by the general body of inhabi- 
 tants of a town, subject, of course, to certain limitations and 
 restrictions ; that the aldermen should be elected by the bur- 
 gesses, and serve the office of mayor in rotation ; for I never 
 will consent that the mayors and returning officers of boroughs 
 shall be appointed by the Crown. This is part and parcel of 
 the Whig system of centralisation, fatal to rural prosperity and 
 provincial independence — one of those Grallic imitations of 
 which they are so fond, but which, I hope, the sense, and 
 spirit, and love of freedom of Englishmen will always resist. 
 Paris decides upon the fate of France, but I hope we may con- 
 tinue to receive our morning papers by the Oxford coach with- 
 out acknowledging a ukase in every leading article and recog- 
 nising a revolution in every riot. 
 
 Gentlemen, I need not, I am sure, remind you that peace 
 and economy are two things without which no Grovernment 
 could now exist four-and-twenty hours. The question for you 
 to decide this day is, whether, if a Government be prepared to 
 adopt and carry similar measures to those I have detailed, and 
 are determined to support, with their utmost energy and reso- 
 lution, everything which may tend to the improvement and 
 amelioration of the society of this realm — whether under these 
 circumstances your representative in Parliament is to support 
 such a Government ? 
 
HIGH WYCOMBE, DECEMBEE 16, 1834. 15 
 
 I am glad to hear that cheer. You are not igaorant that a 
 contrary axiom is now laboriously propagated. I am for mea- 
 sures, gentlemen, and not men, and for this simple reason, 
 that for four years we have had men and not measures, and I 
 am wearied of them. But we are told that we ought not to 
 accept any measures from the hands of those who oppose the 
 Eeform Bill. This is a proposition which it becomes us to 
 examine with an unimpassioned spirit, and a severe scrutiny, 
 for it is a very important one. The country is now divided into 
 two parties, headed by different sections of the aristocracy : those 
 who introduced, and those who opposed the Eeform Bill. Admit 
 the proposition of men and not measures, and the party that 
 introduced that Bill are our masters for life. Are you prepared i 
 for this? Is your confidence in the Whigs so implicit, sftilli-f 
 mitable, that you will agree lo the perpetual banishmentof their^ 
 BOTrCroaf^MtsSfim power? Are you prepared to leave the 
 Whigs without opposition, without emulation, without check ? 
 I think it very dangerous ; I think it very unconstitutional. 
 
 But let us examine this famous proposition a little more 
 severely. All of you have heard of the Duke of Wellington's 
 declaration against reform— God knows it is very famous. One 
 would almost fancy that the people of England had hstened to 
 a declaration against reform from a Prime Minister for the first 
 time in their lives. And yet but a few years before, a very few 
 brief years, and they had listened to another declaration against 
 reform, not less decided, not less vehement, not less vindictive 
 
 ay ! and uttered, too, in the House of Commons, and not in 
 
 the House of Lords— uttered, too, by a Prime Minister, the head 
 of a Grovemment of which all the individuals composing the 
 recent Cabinet were either members or supporters. I allude 
 to the declaration of Mr. Canning — a declaration that com- 
 promised ' Lord Lansdowne and Lord Melbourne, and indeed 
 every member of their party, who are now so loud in their 
 anathemas against apostacy, and their personal horror of rene- 
 gadoes. One solitary Whig alone stood aloof from Mr. Canning, 
 
 1 In the prefacte to Ms History of the Whig Party, published in 1852, Mr. 
 Roebuck has some similar remarks on the conduct of the ' Canningites ' in 
 relation to Parliamentary reform. 
 
16 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 and that was Lord Grey. Will the late Cabinet screen them- 
 selves under the shadow of his mantle ? Lord Grey did not 
 leave it behind ; he did not leave them with his blessing, or 
 the odour of his sanctity. Gentlemen, what strange changes 
 have we not lived to witness ! You all remember when my 
 gallant opponent, for whom I entertain sincere respect, iirst 
 appeared among us. You remember it was the most sudden 
 thing in the world. We did not know where he came from ; 
 we thought he had dropped from the skies. You remember 
 that Mr. Ellice, the Eight Honourable Mr. Ellice, called upon us 
 to elect the Colonel, although a stranger, out of gratitude to 
 Lord Grey. Gratitude to Lord Grey! I suppose when he 
 makes his appearance among us again, we shall be summoned 
 to elect him out of ingratitude to Lord Grey, for that seems 
 more the fashion now. Yes, gentlemen ! Lord Grey refusing 
 the Privy Seal,' and Lord Brougham soliciting the Chief 
 Barony,^ are two epigrammatic episodes in the history of reform 
 that never can be forgotten. 
 
 But, gentlemen, fancy Mr. Spring Eice cheering Mr. 
 Canning in his anti-reform tirade, and Mr. Ellice, the Eight 
 Honourable Mr. Ellice, who was so good as to send us down a 
 member, crying 'Hear, hear,' and Sir John Hobhouse, who^ 
 from his conservatory of consistency, throws stones at the Duke 
 of Wellington — Sir John Hobhouse, the supporter of Mr. 
 Canning, who sailed into public life on the popular wings of 
 annual parliaments and universal suffrage, and afterwards 
 Got pelted for his pains— 
 
 — oh ! rare Sir John Hobhouse ! Are we to be told that men 
 like these, who backed and supported Mr. Canning under such 
 
 ' In the first Melbourne Administration, July, 1834. An amusing account 
 of both of these incidents is to be found in the Gremlle Memoirs, vol iii. 
 pp. 113 and 157. Lord Brougham himself made the offer to Lord Grey, ' who 
 rather smiled at the proposition, but did not express the pious resentment of 
 his children. The Grey women would murder the Chancellor if they could.' 
 
 ' In the following November, Lord Brougham, who was out of office, applied 
 to his successor. Lord Lyndhurst, for the office of Chief Baron. Greville thought 
 the appointment might be convenient for the Government. ' He (Btougham) 
 could cut fewer capers in ermine than he could in plaid trousers ' the Chan- 
 cellor's favourite wear. 
 
HIGH WYCOMBE, DECEMBER 16, 1834. 17 
 
 circumstances, because they afterwards introduced and sup- 
 ported the Reform Bill, possess an exclusive right of calling 
 every man an apostate who sees, in the altered condition of 
 affairs, a ground for applying to a totally different set of cir- 
 cumstances a class of measures essentially new? What an 
 exquisite pretence to consistency there is in saying, ' So pure is 
 the love we bear it, that we will sacrifice for its sake every 
 chance of freedom — that we will endure the worst tyranny, 
 rather than accept the greatest blessings that Reform may 
 shower down upon us from the hands of renegades.' Did any 
 one chalk ' apostate ' on the back of Lord Palmerston, or outrage 
 the nerves of those delicate tergiversators, the Messrs. Grant, by 
 squibbing them in the street for their change of opinion ? On 
 the contrary, a remarkable abstinence from such crimination 
 prevailed, as I think, gentlemen, it prevails at the present 
 moment. The people were content to accept the Reform Bill 
 as a great remedial measure which they had often demanded, 
 and which had been always denied, and they did not choose to 
 scan too severely the previous conduct of those who conceded 
 it to. them. They did not go about saying, ' "We must have 
 reform, but we will not have it from Lord Palmerston, because 
 he is the child of corruption, born of Downing Street, and 
 engendered in the Treasury, a second-rate official for twenty 
 years under a succession of Tory Grovernments, but a Secretary 
 of State under the Whigs. Not they indeed! The people 
 returned Lord Palmerston in triumph for Hampshire, and 
 pennies were subscribed to present him with testimonials of, 
 popular applause. The people then took reform as some other" 
 people take stolen goods, ' and no questions asked.' The 
 Cabinet of Lord Grey was not ungenerously twitted with the 
 abandonment of principles which the country had given up, 
 and to which no man could adhere who entertained the sUght- 
 est hope of rendering himself an effective public servant. 
 The truth is, gentlemen, a statesman is the creature of his age, 
 the child of circumstances, the creation of his times. A 
 statesman is essentially a practical character ; and when he is 
 called upon to take office, he is not to inquire what his 
 opinions might or might not have been upon this or that sub- 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
18 SPEECHES OF THE EAUL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 ject ; he is only to ascertain the needM and the beneficial, and 
 the most feasible measures are to be carried on. The fact is, 
 the conduct and the opinions of public men at different periods 
 of their career must not be too curiously contrasted in a free 
 and aspiring country. The people have their passions, and it 
 is even the duty of pubUc men occasionally to adopt sentiments 
 with which they do not sympathise,' because the people must 
 have leaders. Then the opinions and prejudices of the Crown 
 must necessarily influence a rising statesman. I say nothing 
 of the weight which great establishments and corporations, and 
 the necessity of their support and patronage, must also possess 
 with an ambitious politician. All this, however, produces 
 ultimate benefit; all these influences tend to form that 
 eminently practical character for which our countrymen are 
 celebrated. I laugh,^ therefore, at the objection against a 
 man, that at a former period of his career he advocated a 
 policy different to his present one. All I seek to ascertain is 
 whether his present policy be just, necessary, expedient ; 
 whether at the present moment he is prepared to serve the 
 country according to its present necessities. 
 
 Such are the claims to public confidence which may be put 
 forth on behalf of the Whigs ; but if instead of being so miser- 
 ably slender they were indeed substantial and important, I 
 would say that no claims can entitle them to become the masters 
 for life of the British people ; and for my own part I have no 
 doubt, and I have ever thought, that they intended to become 
 our masters . for life ; and decidedly they would have gaiued 
 their object had they succeeded in swamping the House of 
 Peers as well as pacldng the House of Commons.^ One of the 
 most distinguished writers of the day,"* and a member of the 
 extreme Liberal party in the House of Commons, has recorded 
 
 > This was notoriously the case with Sir Kobert Peel and Eoman Catholic 
 emancipation. 
 
 ' Mr. Eoebuck, in the work just referred to, marks the difference between 
 such changes of opinion as Mr. Disraeli here describes and Sir Eobert Peel's 
 change upon the Corn Laws. 
 
 ' See Preface. 
 
 * Mr. Bulwer (the late Lord Lytton) in England and the EngUgk, book v., 
 chapter 4. 
 
HIGH WYCOMBE, DECEMBER 16, 1834. 19 
 
 in a work which many of you have read, his regret that he ever 
 was a supporter of the Whigs in their threatened attempt to 
 overpower the House of Lords, and his self-congratulation that 
 the attempt failed. Had it, however, succeeded, gentlemen, it 
 well fits us to consider what would have then become of the 
 liberties of England. I do assure you that in drawing your 
 attention to this important topic I am not influenced by any 
 party, any electioneering views. The remarks which I shall 
 venture to make upon it have pressed upon my mind in the 
 calmness and solitude of study. I will allow for the freedom 
 .of the press ; I will allow for the spirit of the age ; I will allow 
 for the march of intellect ; but I cannot force from my mind 
 the conviction that a House of Commons, concentrating in 
 itself the whole power of the State, might — I should rather 
 say would — notwithstanding the great antagonist forces to 
 which I have alluded, establish in this country a despotism of 
 the most formidable and dangerous character. Grentlemen, I 
 repeat, I cannot resist the conviction, because I cannot shut my 
 eyes to the -historical truth. Let us look to the reign of 
 Charles I., a period as eventful as, ay, infinitely more so than, 
 any that has since occurred in this country. Believe me, 
 gentlemen, we err when we take it for granted that this present 
 age in England is peculiarly distinguished from preceding ones 
 by the general diffusion of public knowledge and public spirit. 
 Two great revolutions immediately preceded the events of the 
 reign to which I have alluded, revolutions productive of as 
 much excitement and as much efifect on the public mind of 
 Europe as the great French Eevolution, the Protestant Ee- 
 formation, and the establishment of a republic in the Nether- 
 lands. There was about this time, too, doubtless in some 
 degree impelled by these great and strange events, a spring- 
 tide in the intellect of England. What marvellous men then 
 met within the walls of Parliament ! The indefatigable Pym, the 
 inscrutable Hampden, the passionate Eliot, the austere genius 
 of Strafford ! Worthy companions of these were St. John, 
 HoUis, Vane ; nor should we forget a Digby and a Capel, the 
 chivalric Falkland and the sagacious Clarendon. Why, gentle- 
 men, these were names that imparted to the deliberations of 
 
 c 2 
 
20 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 your Parliament an intellectual lustre not surpassed, perhaps 
 not equalled, even in the brightest days of Pitt, and Fox, and 
 Burke, and Sheridan. There was the same feeling abroad in 
 favour of freedom, and the same enthusiasm for the rights of 
 the subject. There was also, although it is not generally sup- 
 posed, the same omnipotent influence operating in favour of 
 this cause which we now hug ourselves in believing to be the 
 invincible bulwark of our liberties. Yes, gentlemen, I am in- 
 clined to believe that the English press exercised at that mo- 
 ment a power not inferior to the authority it wields at the 
 present day. Every street had its journal, every alley its ballad; 
 besides these great methods of communication, public opinion, 
 that vaunted pubUc opinion, which we would fain believe to be 
 the offspring of the present hour, appealed to the people in 
 favour of the people by an oracle that for political purposes is 
 now happily silent : I mean the pulpit. 
 
 Yet, gentlemen, notwithstanding all these checks and all 
 these guarantees — checks and guarantees for your rights and 
 liberties, I maintain, as powerful as any that exist at the present 
 day — what was the result ? Your House of Commons, in which 
 you are now called upon to place implicit confidence ; your 
 boasted House of Commons, which I for one will no more trust 
 than any other human institution ; your omnipotent House of 
 Commons, after having pulled down the throne and decapitated 
 the monarch, after having expelled the bishops from the House 
 of Peers and then abrogated the peerage, set you at defiance. 
 They concentrated in themselves all the powers of the State, 
 and then voted their sittings perpetual ; they began by quarrel- 
 ling with the King about one hundred thousand pounds, and 
 ended, in the short space of five years, in imposing upon the 
 people burdens to the amount of forty millions sterling; con- 
 fiscated the estates of a large portion of their fellow-subjects, 
 divided themselves into separate committees, and monopolised 
 in their own persons all the functions of the State, and finally, 
 on one morning, divided among themselves 300,000L of the 
 public money. Did I say finally ? Can we forget that this 
 same House of Commons, when their rapacity had dried up all 
 other sources of spoliation, invented the tax most odious to 
 
HIGH WYCOMBE, DECEMBER 16, 1834. 21 
 
 Englishmen — the excise ? and which they laid, too, not merely 
 upon the luxuries, but the very necessaries of existence. 
 
 Looking then, gentlemen, at such consequences of an 
 implicit confidence in the House of Commons, I confess myself 
 reluctant to quit the vantage-ground on which the constitution 
 of the country is now felicitously placed. Looking at such con- 
 sequences, I think we may feel that we have some interest in 
 maintaining the prerogative of the Crown and the privileges of 
 the Peers. I, for one, shall ever view with jealous eye the 
 proceedings of any House of Commons, however freely chosen. 
 Nor have I marked in the conduct of the reformed House of 
 Commons anything, I confess, to lull me into over-confidence 
 or security. I think I perceive, even thus early in their career, 
 some symptoms of jobbing which would not have disgraced the 
 Long Parliament itself; and some instances of servility which 
 perhaps we must go to the reign of Charles the Second to 
 ,rival. 
 
 So much for the Eeformed Parliament, gentlemen ; and now 
 for the Eeform Ministry ! 
 
 One would think, from the cry that is now raised by the 
 partisans of these persons, that they were a band of patriots, 
 who had never been animated by any other sentiment than the 
 welfare of their' country, and had never by any chance quarrelled 
 among themselves. The Eeform Ministry ! Where is it ? 
 Let us calmly trace the history of this ' united Cabinet.' 
 
 Very soon after its formation Lord Durham withdrew from 
 the royal councils — the only man, it would appear, of any 
 decision of character among its members. Still, it was a most 
 ' united ' Cabinet. Lord Durham only withdrew on account of 
 his ill-health. The friends of this nobleman represent him as 
 now ready to seize the helm of the State ; a few months back, 
 it would appear, his frame was too feeble to bear even the 
 weight of the Privy Seal. Lord Durham retired on account of 
 ill-health ; he generously conceded this plea in charity to the 
 colleagues he despised. Lord Durham quitted the united 
 Cabinet, and very shortly afterwards its two most able members 
 in the House of Commons, and two of their most influential 
 colleagues in the House of Lords, suddenly secede. What a 
 
22 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 rent ! But then it was about a trifle. In all other respects the 
 Cabinet was most 'united.' Five leading members of the 
 Reform Ministry have departed ; let the venerable reputation 
 of Lord G-rey and the fair name of Lord Althorp still keep 
 together, and still command the respect, if not the confidence 
 of the nation. But, marvel of marvels ! Lord Grey and Lord 
 Althorp both retire in a morning, and in — disgust ! Lord Grey 
 is suddenly discovered to be behind his time, and his secession 
 is even intimated to be a subject of national congratulation : 
 Lord Althorp joins the crew again, and the Cabinet is again 
 ' united.' Delightful union ! Then conamenced a series, of 
 scenes unparalleled in the history of the administrations of any 
 country ; scenes which would have disgraced individuals in 
 private Hfe, and violated the decorum of domestic order. The 
 Lord Chancellor, dangling about the Great Seal in post-chaises, 
 spouting in pot-houses, and vowing that he would write to the 
 Sovereign by the post ; while Cabinet Ministers exchanged 
 menacing looks at public dinners, and querulously contradicted 
 each other before the eyes of an admiring nation.' Good God ! 
 gentlemen, could this go on ? Why, even Mr. Ellice — the 
 Eight Honourable Mr. Ellice — who was so good as to send us 
 down a member of Parliament, he could no longer submit to 
 nestle in this falling house, and he, too, quitted the ' united ' 
 Cabinet, because he had — what, for a ducat ? — a sore throat ! 
 
 Why, they ridicule themselves ! and yet the tale is not all 
 told. There is really too much humour in the entertainment ; 
 they make us laugh too much — the fun is overdone. It is like 
 going to those minor theatres where we see Listen in four 
 successive farces. Lord Melbourne, whose claim to being 
 Prime Minister of England, according to the Whigs, is that 
 
 ' This is an allusion to Lord Brougham's celebrated tour in Scotland in 
 the autumn of 1834, when he carried the Great Seal with him. On one occa- 
 sion it was stolen from him by some ladies, who threw him into a pitiable 
 state of consternation. He told the people of Inverness that he would write to 
 the King that night, to tell his Majesty of their loyalty. Lord Durham and 
 Lord Brougham met at the Edinburgh banquet given to Lord Grey at that 
 time, when they spoke some sharp words of each other ; and although Lord 
 Durham had then left oflSoe, they are probably the two ' Cabinet Ministers ' here 
 intended. Cf. Lord Campbell's Lives oftlie Chancellors, vol. viii. p. 453. 
 
HIGH WYCOMBE, DECEMBER 16, 1834. 23 
 
 he is ' a gentleman ' — Lord Melbourne flies to the King, and 
 informs him that a plan of ' Church reform ' has been proposed 
 in the united Cabinet, and that Lord Lansdowne and Mr. 
 Spring Eice, the only remaining ministers in the slightest 
 degree entitled, I will not say to the coniidenee, but the con- 
 sideration of the country, have in consequence menaced him 
 with their resignations. 
 
 I doubt not, gentlemen, that this plan of ' Church reform ' 
 was only some violent measure to revive the agitation of the 
 coimtry, and resuscitate the popularity of the Whigs — a mea- 
 sure which they had never meant, and never desired, to 
 pass. Perhaps, feeling that it was all over with them, it was a 
 wretched ruse, apparently that they might go out upon a 
 popular measure. However, Lord Melbourne, with as serious 
 a face as he could command, informed His Majesty that the 
 remains of the ' united ' Cabinet, Sir John Hobhouse and Lord 
 John Russell, were still as united as ever, and he ended by 
 proposing that the House of Commons should be led by his 
 Lordship, who, on the same principle that bad wine produces 
 good vinegar, has somehow turned from a tenth-rate author into 
 a first-rate politician ; and then Lord Melbourne says that the 
 King turned them out. Turned them out, gentlemen ! why. 
 His Majesty laughed at them ! The truth is, that this famous 
 Eeform Ministry, this great ' united ' Cabinet, degenerated 
 into a grotesque and Hudibrastic faction, the very lees of 
 ministerial existence, the offal of official life. They were a 
 ragged regiment, compared with which Falstaff s crew was a 
 band of regulars. The King would not march through Coven- 
 try with them — that was flat. The Eeform Ministry indeed ! 
 Why, scarcely an original member of that celebrated Cabinet 
 remained. You remember, gentlemen, the story of Sir John 
 Cutler's silk hose. Those famous stockings remind me of this 
 famous Ministry: for really, between Hobhouse dams and 
 Ellice botching, I hardly can decide whether the hose are silk 
 or worsted. The Eeform Ministry ! I dare say, now, some of 
 you have heard of Mr. Ducrow, that celebrated gentleman 
 who rides upon six horses. What a prodigious achievertient ! 
 It seenis impossible ; but you have confidence in Ducrow. You 
 
24 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIBLD. 
 
 fly to witness it ; unfortunately one of the horses is ill, and a 
 donkey is substituted in its place. But Ducrow is still admir- 
 able ; there he is, bounding along in a spangled jacket and 
 cork slippers ! The whole town is mad to see Ducrow riding 
 at the same time on six horses. But now two more of the 
 steeds are seized with the staggers, and lo ! three jackasses in 
 their stead ! Still Ducrow persists, and still announces to the 
 public that he will ride round his circus every night on his 
 six steeds. At last all the horses are knocked up, and now 
 there are half-a-dozen donkeys. What a change ! Behold the 
 hero in the amphitheatre, the spangled jacket thrown on one side, 
 the cork slippers on the other. Puffing, panting, and perspir- 
 ing, he pokes one sullen brute, thwacks another, cuffs a third, 
 and curses a fourth, while one brays to the audience, and 
 another rolls in the sawdust. Behold the late Prime Minister 
 and the Eeform Ministry — the spirited and snow-white steeds 
 have gradually changed into an .equal number of sullen and 
 obstinate donkeys ; while Mr. Merryman, who, Uke the Lord 
 Chancellor, was once the very life of the ring, now lies his 
 despairing length in the middle of the stage, with his jokes 
 exhausted and his bottle empty ! 
 
 Enough, gentlemen, of the Eeform ministry, and the 
 Eeformed Parliament. Let us hope that the time has arrived 
 when we may be favoured with a national administration and 
 a patriotic House of Commons. Let us hope that by their salu- 
 tary influence the peace of Europe and the honour of England 
 may be alike maintained, the great interests of the country 
 fostered and protected, and those considerable changes firmly 
 but caiitiously prosecuted in our social system which the 
 spirit of the age demands and the necessities of the times 
 require. 
 
25 
 
 TAUNTON, April 29, 1835. ' 
 
 [On the formation of Lord Melbourne's second Government in 
 1835, Mr. Labouchere, the member for Taunton, having accepted 
 office, was opposed by Mr. Disraeli, who, in one of the best of his 
 early speeches, explained what he had meant by his previous advo- 
 cacy of the ballot and triennial Parliaments, and why it was no longer 
 necessary to insist on either of them. The balance of parties de- 
 ranged by the elections of 1832 had been restored, and the Whigs 
 were no longer dangerous. This was the famous " O'ConneU speech " 
 which led to the savage denunciation of Mr. Disraeli by the incensed 
 agitator. That Mr. Disraeli, having once accepted his assistance, 
 would have done better to abstain from reproaching him may be 
 granted without convicting Mr. Disraeli of the slightest political in- 
 consistency. He had always been against Repeal. He spoke of the 
 dismemberment of the Empire in 1835 as he spoke of it in 1880. 
 But the opportunity was too good a one to be lost, and for many 
 years afterwards the circumstances were thrown in his teeth when- 
 ever he appeared in public. The speech gave rise to a long cor- 
 respondence between Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Bulwer, Mr. Hume, Mr. 
 O'ConneU, and Mr. Morgan O'ConneU, which appeared in the ' Times ' 
 and in the ' Globe,' and lasted through the summer and autumn of 
 1835 into January 1836. As Mr. DisraeU pointed out, had O'ConneU 
 appUed to himself in the first instance for an explanation of his lan- 
 guage, he would have known at once that the words complained of 
 were not applied to him by the speaker, but were but a quotation 
 of the terms which the Whigs had applied to him themselves. The 
 report of the speech here given, which is taken from the ' Dorset 
 County Chronicle,' differs a little from the one given by the ' Morning 
 Chronicle,' which is probably what O'ConneU saw. The word ' in- 
 cendiary ' is not found in the local report. But the sense is the same.] 
 
 MR. BAILIFF and gentlemen electors of Taunton, I will not 
 claim your gratitude for having given you the Eeform 
 Bill, but let me claim your gratitude for having given you the 
 first poll under the Eeform Bill. Some observations have been 
 
26 SPEECHES OF THE EABL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 made, gentlemen, deprecating any display of hostile feeling to 
 either of the candidates, I have seen none. I can only say 
 that a more courteous opponent or a more courteous constitu- 
 ency I never encountered and never appealed to ; and I trust 
 that as I feel that I have made many friends in Taunton, when 
 I leave it I shall do so without a single enemy. I have at 
 other times been placed before the people, and gentlemen, if I 
 were now to be beaten, as my opponents loudly express them- 
 selves, it would be almost preferable to be beaten at Taunton, 
 than to win at any other place. I say this because from one 
 unfortunate expression of mine, evidently spoken in playfulness, 
 you may have believed that, instead of being a very good 
 natured, I was really a very pugnacious person. But when I 
 was assailed under the circumstances of appearing as a stranger 
 the first time before you, I could not refrain from observing 
 ^that I was the last person to be put down by clamour. Per- 
 haps I may take this opportunity of explaining to that honour- 
 able gentleman who seconded my opponent, and who laid so 
 much stress on my observation that ' the Whigs had seized the 
 bloody hand of O'Connell.' ' Is it possible that so elaborate a 
 rhetorician as that honourable gentleman can have literally 
 supposed that Mr. O'Connell was in the habit of going down to 
 the House of Commons with his hand reeking with gore, or that 
 the Whig Government crawled upon their knees to embrace it ? 
 I meant they had formed an alliance with one whose policy 
 was hostile to the preservation of the country, who threatens 
 us with a dismemberment of the Empire which cannot take 
 place without a civil war. 
 
 My honourable opponent says that the Whigs would not go 
 a hair's breadth to gain the assistance of Mr. O'Connell. 
 Permit me to remind you that the Whigs have already gone 
 much further. My honourable opponent says ' No.' What ! 
 have they not adopted the principle which twelve months ago 
 they opposed, to secure his support ? If they have done this 
 
 » No report is to be found of the speech in which this sentence occurs. 
 It may have been used in a speech made by Mr. Disraeli to some of his sup- 
 porters in a room at the Castle Inn on the night of his arrival in Taunton, 
 April 21, which is mentioned but not reported by the Taunton Cornier, 
 April 22. 
 
TAUNTON, APRIL 29, 1835. 27 
 
 to gain his support and put them in power, what will they 
 do to gain his support to keep them in power ? It is much 
 more difficult to retain power than to obtain it ; if they mean 
 to keep that power on the hair-breadth principle, they will 
 soon have to return back to their constituents. I cannot 
 understand the principle by which the Whigs would reform, 
 as they style it, the Church of Ireland. It appears to me that^ 
 they have offered a premium to the White Boys to destroy the 
 Protestants. If forty-nine souls are not worthy to be saved 
 whilst fifty are, I think we shall soon have no congregations in 
 Ireland which exceed the Popish tariff of salvation. My 
 honourable opponent has told you that the subject of the Irish 
 Church is one that places the existence of the kingdom in 
 hazard. I confess it ; but who has brought it to such a crisis ? 
 Gentlemen, it was the ambition of that weak aristocratic party 
 in the State, who could only obtain power by leaguing them- 
 selves with one whom they had denounced as a traitor. If the 
 Irish Church has always been the intolerable nuisance it is 
 described, why has this nuisance been so lately discovered? 
 It is upon record that twenty years ago tithes were paid more 
 readily in Ireland than rents are now in England. ' Grentle- 
 men, it is agitation that has made the nuisance, and it is the 
 "Whig party who, for their own ends, have encouraged the 
 agitator. Grentlemen, I am just reminded that I have written 
 a novel. (Cries of ' A good one.') I am glad there is a critic in 
 the crowd who joins with me in opinion. I trust there is no 
 disgrace, gentlemen, in being an author. I trust there is no 
 disgrace in having written that which has been read by thousands 
 of my fellow-countrymen, and which has been translated into 
 everj language in civilised Europe ; and I trust that one who 
 is an author by the gift of nature is as good as one who is 
 Master of the Mint by the gift of Lord Melbourne. 
 
 This I do know, gentlemen, that twelve months hence I 
 shall still be the author of ' Vivian Grey,' though I shall be 
 very much surprised if at the same period my honourable 
 opponent be still Master of the Mint. Gentlemen, this attack 
 about the novel reminds me of the only charge of which I am 
 accused. EeaUy I think my opponents, if they wished to attack 
 
28 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 me, should at any rate have taken care that their attacks were 
 original. I think it is some reflection on the intelligence of 
 Taunton that they should copy an anonymous article from a 
 London newspaper. Though I have despatched the novel, I 
 cannot help remembering that the editor of the ' Sun ' declares 
 that I am the puppet of the Duke of Buckingham, and a 
 fellow-labourer in the same vineyard. The editor of the 
 ' Morning Chronicle ' announces that I am a Marylebone Eadical. 
 Gentlemen, if there be anything on which I pique myself it is 
 my consistency. Well, I shall be ready to prove that con- 
 sistency either in the House of Commons or on the hustings of 
 Taunton. Every man may be attacked once ; but no one ever 
 " attacked me twice. Gentlemen, here is my consistency. I 
 have always opposed with my utmost energy the party of which 
 my honourable opponent is a distinguished member. That 
 party I have opposed for reasons I am prepared to give and to 
 uphold. 
 
 As the question ' What is he ? ' has been repeated by Mr. 
 Bunter, I should wish to reply to it, that hereafter there may 
 be no mistake. When I first entered into political Hfe, I found 
 the high places of the realm filled by the party of which my 
 opponent is a member. I found they had an immense majority 
 in the House of Commons, gained by a system of nomination 
 not less equivocal than that of the late borough-mongers. 
 Believing that the policy of the party was such as must destroy 
 the honour of the kingdom abroad, and the happiness of the 
 
 people at home . That was my opinion, though I perceive 
 
 it is not' the opinion of some here. I believed that if the Whigs 
 remained in office for any length of time, this glorious, this 
 unrivalled Empire would perish for ever — I considered it my 
 duty to oppose the Whigs, and to ensure their discomfiture 
 and, if possible, their destruction as a party. Let me recall to 
 your recollection the extraordinary characteristics of the political 
 world when I entered it. Gentlemen, the great safeguard of 
 our liberties, the balance of power, was destroyed. There was 
 then no constitutional opposition to keep the Government in 
 check. That great Tory party, which is now so strongly con- 
 stituted, was "a shattered, a feeble, a disheartened fragment, 
 
TAUNTON, APRIL 29, 1835. 29 
 
 self-confessing tteir own inability to carry on the King's 
 government, and announcing an impending revolution. Gen- 
 tlemen, had I been a political adventurer, I had nothing to 
 do but to join the Whigs ; but conscientiously believing that 
 their policy was in every way pernicious, I felt it my duty to 
 oppose them. But how were they to be opposed ? Where 
 were the elements of a party to keep the Government in check, 
 and to bring back the old constitutional balance ? I thought 
 they existed in the liberal Tories, and in those independent 
 reformers who had been returned to Parliament independently 
 of the Whigs. I laboured for their union, and I am proud of it. 
 Gentlemen, remember the Whig policy; they had a packed 
 policy. They had altered the duration of Parliaments once 
 before. They had the whole power of the State in their hands. 
 I believed, and I still believe, that we were nearer to a Long 
 Parliament than we imagined. I wished to break their strength 
 by frequent elections and frequent appeals to a misgoverned 
 people ; therefore I advocated a recurrence to those triennial 
 Parliaments which it was once the proudest boast of the Tories 
 to advocate. I wished to give the country gentlemen a chance 
 of representing the neighbouring towns where they are esteemed, 
 instead of the nominees of a sectarian oligarchy. Therefore I 
 proposed the adoption of the ballot in the only constituencies 
 wUling to assume it. 
 
 And now where is my inconsistency ? Have I not given 
 an answer to my assailants ? I am convinced that the result 
 of these measures would have been that which I anticipated. 
 Strong measures, certainly ; but when are strong measures to 
 be adopted if not when our country is in danger ? Had the 
 Whigs remained in power — and it seemed to me, and the 
 wisest men in the kingdom shared my conviction, that they 
 were our masters for life ' — had, I repeat, they remained in 
 power, I considered the dismemberment ^ of the Empire inevi- 
 table, and therefore I tried to root them out. But, gentlemen, 
 great, nay almost illimitable as was my confidence in Whig 
 incapacity, I confess they far surpassed even my most sanguine 
 
 ' Mr. Disraeli repeats this assertion in Coningshy. Cf. Introduction. 
 ' Cf . Wellington Despatches of this period, passim. 
 
30 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 expectations ; the mighty Whig party, which had consented to a 
 revolution to gain power, fell to pieces, the vessel of the State 
 righted itself, and now there is no necessity to cut away its 
 masts. 
 
 Gentlemen, the object for which I laboured is attained ; -the 
 balance of parties is restored : and now, gentlemen, I do not 
 longer advocate the measures in question, simply because they 
 are no longer necessary. Is this an answer ? Is this incon- 
 sistency ? When I hear my honourable opponent say he comes 
 before you as the advocate of the same principles which brought 
 him here five years back, I would ask him in sincerity, what 
 these principles are. Are they the principles of the renowned 
 Government which gave you the Reform Bill ? If so, why 
 has the head of that very Cabinet left the Government of 
 which my opponent is a member ? Lord Grey has left them 
 with disgust. Are the principles of the honourable gentle- 
 man the principles of Lord Stanley ? And he has left; and 
 others also. Gentlemen, he says, during that period, the slaves 
 have been emancipated. That great measure was carried by 
 that illustrious statesman. Lord Stanley, who will have nothing 
 to do with them. The Whigs profess economy ; they imitated 
 the Duke of Wellington. They say that a reduction of taxation 
 has taken place : thanks to the political unions that forced 
 themselves into the antechamber of the Minister. Did the 
 Tories ever repeal a tax one night and rescind the resolution 
 of relief the next ? Gentlemen, that act alone sealed the fate 
 of the Whig Parliament. Could the slaves of a Turkish Pacha 
 be more servile ? 
 
 I am asked why Sir Eobert Peel dissolved Parliament. 
 I answer, because he knew well the Parliament was insincere 
 in Reform. The House of Commons consisted of the tools of 
 the Whig party. The best answer to the Whigs, why the 
 Parliament was dissolved, is that 105 additional Conservatives 
 have been returned. Gentlemen, there will be a better answer 
 when it is dissolved the next time — that dissolution will be very 
 speedy. I fear I shall not have the honour of representing you 
 long before that takes place. I am asked how can Sir Robert 
 Peel be a Reformer ? There has not been a greater number of 
 
TAUNTON, APEIL 29, 1835. 31 
 
 votes recorded against Eeform by any man than have been 
 recorded against it by Lord Melbourne. Lord Melbourne put 
 the amendment to the question of the Manchester Massacre, 
 of which so much has been said. He was one of the hottest 
 Tories that ever existed, and now he is piime leader of the 
 Whigs. 
 
 Gentlemen, I believe there is some gentleman here who 
 wishes to hear something about the bishops. That great 
 practical measure of Church Eeform which the Tories had the 
 honour of producing to the public, satisfactory and extensive in 
 its details, is a measure of reform brought in by the Tories, a 
 measure which goes to the equalisation of the bishops in the 
 first place ; in the second place, puts an end to pluralities for 
 ever ; in the third place, terminates the evil of non-residence ; 
 and in the fourth place, ensures the general commutation of 
 tithes. These are four great questions which have so long 
 agitated the country. The same Tory Government in four 
 months did ample justice to the rights and wishes of that im- 
 . portant part of our population, the Dissenters, .rj-gnflgmpp. I 
 hava,_g2JgLiJS£3iLJaiwL8JBL-a-su^^ 
 b ecause I beligy e it^to beJbe,,gSiBatbu]aa£Lja£,^^ 
 liberty ; because I consiier^^bjeJ^^&^.oiJiL&Ghiasmk.ha/i^rhee'a 
 
 tTSeseverybishops have saved the constitution of the realm. 
 
, PART 11. 
 
 SPEECHES ON AGRICULTURAL INTEREST, FREE 
 
 TRADE, AND CONDUCT OF SIR ROBERT 
 
 PEEL'S GOVERNMENT. 
 
 THE NEW TARIFF 
 
 IMPORT DUTIES 
 
 SPEECH AT SHREWSBURY .... 
 
 SUGAR DUTIES 
 
 OPENING OF LETTERS BY THE GOVERN- 
 MENT 
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS .... 
 
 MAYNOOTH . . . . 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 AMENDMENT TO MOTION FOR GOING 
 INTO COMMITTEE OP WHOLE HOUSE 
 
 CORN IMPORTATION BILL, THIRD READ- 
 ING .... 
 
 INCOME-TAX . . ' . 
 
 LOCAL TAXATION . 
 
 STATE OF THE NATION 
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS 
 
 May 10, 1842. 
 April 25, 1843. 
 Mat 9, 1843. 
 June 17, 1844. 
 
 Feb. 28, 1845. 
 March 17, 1845. 
 April 11, 1846. 
 Jan. 22, 1846. 
 
 Feb. 20, 1846. 
 
 Mat 15, 1846. 
 March 10, 1848. 
 March 8, 1849. 
 JtTLT 2, 1849. 
 Feb. 19, 1850. 
 Feb. 11, 1851. 
 March 28, 1879. 
 April 29, 1879. 
 
 TOL. I. 
 
For the efiecfc produced by these speeches at the time they were 
 deKvered the contemporary press must be consulted. It was simply 
 electrical. All England, not to say Europe, rang with the daring 
 apophthegms and exquisite humour which delighted and convulsed 
 the House of Commons. During these three or four years, and while 
 Parliament was sitting, it was almost impossible to take up a news- 
 paper without one's eye being caught by some reference to Mr. Disraeli's 
 last witticism. The present generation seems inclined to admit that 
 the provocation given by Sir Robert Peel, especially by the style in 
 which he lectured his former supporters for adhering to the prin- 
 ciples in which he himself had so long and so sedulously trained 
 them, was, if not sufficient to justify every one of these attacks, far 
 greater than the victorious converts were either willing to acknow- 
 ledge, or perhaps even able to appreciate. Their success, their 
 talents, and the popularity of the cause they had espoused, dazzled 
 the public eye, and neutralised for a time all the efforts of a beaten 
 party to vindicate the justice of its anger. But we may learn from 
 Mr. Morley'a Life of Mr. Cobden that the old Free Traders, at all 
 events, were doubtful of the political morality which sanctioned the 
 carriage of Free Trade in a Parliament dedicated to Protection, and 
 that they saw little to condemn and something to applaud in Mr. 
 Disraeli's satire. 
 
35 
 
 THE TAEIFF, May 10, 1842.' 
 
 [On this day Sir Robert Peel explained the chief provisions of his 
 new Tariff; and Mr. Disraeli in reply to Mr. Labouchere took 
 occasion to remind the House and the pviblic that Free Trade 
 originated with the Tories.] 
 
 ME DISEAELI said — with reference to the accusation made 
 on the other side of the House, that the right honourable 
 baronet at the head of the Grovernment had repudiated prin- 
 ciples when in opposition which he had adopted when in office — 
 that that charge had been made without due examination of 
 the facts of the case. He did not think that the honourable 
 gentlemen opposite had succeeded in making out their claim 
 to being peculiarly the originators of the principles of free 
 trade ; and as it was of great importance that the House t'hould 
 have as correct a knowledge as possible as to the pedigree of 
 those particular dogmas, that gentlemen opposite should not 
 continue to consider that the country was indebted to them- 
 selves for the doctrines of free trade, or gentlemen on bis own 
 side imagine that those doctrines were of such recejit and 
 modem invention as was generally supposed, he might be al- 
 lowed to remind the House that it was Mr. Pitt who first 
 promulgated them, in 1787. At the time when this country 
 had been deprived of the great colonial market of America, he 
 was led to look round for new markets on the continent of 
 Europe, and first developed that system which he considered 
 should form the future commercial policy of the country. Air. 
 Pitt said that we must begin to carry on commerce u|>on a 
 system of complete reciprocity — that we must lower our duties, 
 and consolidate our customs. This was at a time when the 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Delates by permission of Jlr. 
 HaHsard. 
 
 B 2 
 
36 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD, 
 
 Whigs ranked among their numbers such names as those of 
 Fox, Sheridan, Burke, Sir Philip Francis, and the distinguished 
 relative of the noble Viscount (Viscount Howick) opposite, and 
 yet Mr. Fox, on a question in which the principles of the then 
 proposed commercial policy was discussed, denounced those 
 new principles of commercial reciprocity, and said they formed 
 altgether a new system, in which not only were the established 
 doctrines of our forefathers departed from, but all the essential 
 principles on which our commerce had been previously con- 
 ducted were to be changed and abandoned. Mr. Burke and 
 Mr. Sheridan also strongly opposed the commercial system re- 
 commended by Mr. Pitt. In the House of Lords, too, the 
 opposition to it was still more strong and efficient, and the 
 opinions of Mr. Pitt upon commerce were so far in advance of 
 the affe that not even a member of his own Grovernment in 
 the House of Lords was willing or competent to become their 
 advocate. 
 
 The task devolved on Lord Hawkesbury, not then a member 
 of the administration : an able man, whose mind had been 
 directed to such studies. Yet he could not maintain the con- 
 troversy against the violent assault of Bishop Watson, who 
 brought forward a mass of statistical details (rare materials of 
 Parliamentary debate in those days) to prove that the system 
 of ]\Ir. Pitt was utterly erroneous, and that the first method 
 of carrying it into effect — namely, a commercial treaty with 
 France — was pregnant with ruin to British trade. It was the 
 repeated attack of Bishop Watson, and its effect on the audience 
 to which it was addressed, that brought from his retirement 
 the most remarkable man of his age, Lord Shelburne. Let 
 honourable gentlemen read and digest the speech, delivered by 
 Lord Shelburne in answer to Bishop Watson, on the French 
 treaty ; and they will then find that instead of that great pro- 
 gress which we are too apt to suppose public men have made 
 of late years in the science of political economy, we are at 
 this moment far behind many of the great statesmen who 
 floiirished at the end of the last century. The principles of 
 free trade were dtveloped — and not by Whigs — fifty years ago; 
 and how was it t hat the Whig party now came forward, and 
 
THE NEW TARIFF, 1842. 37 
 
 contended that they were the originators of these opinions ? 
 But what was the conduct of the Pitt party after the peace ? 
 Was the party which originally brought free-trade principles 
 into notice at that period false to those principles ? If that 
 question were fairly examined, it would be found that exactly 
 the reverse was the case, and that, on the very first possible 
 occasion, the administration of Lord Liverpool showed itself in 
 advance of the years \_sic] upon the question of a greater freedom 
 of trade. Before Mr. Huskisson exercised his great and bene- 
 ficial influence on the commercial legislation of this country, 
 Mr. Wallace and Mr. Eobinson had carried a series of measures 
 founded on the true principles of commerce, and Mr. Hus- 
 kisson only prosecuted their system ; and in what the right 
 honourable baronet now proposed it was manifest that he was 
 doing neither more or less than carrying into effect principles 
 which originated with Mr. Pitt. The conduct pursued by the 
 right honourable baronet was in exact harmony, in perfect 
 consistency, with the principles in reference to free trade 
 laid down by Mr. Pitt, and his reason for saying thus much 
 was to refute the accusations which had been brought against 
 the present Grovernment, that, in order to get into and, being 
 in, to keep office, they had changed their opinions on these 
 subjects. 
 
38 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACOXSFIELD. 
 
 FREE TRADE, April 25, 1843.' 
 
 [On February 1 3, Lord Howick had moved ' that the House do 
 resolve itself into a Committee of the whole House, to consider so 
 much of Her Majesty's Speech as relates to that depression of the 
 manuf.icturing interest of the country which has so long prevailed, 
 and which Her Majesty has so deeply lamented.' The object of 
 the motion was of course an attack upon the Corn Laws. A debate 
 ensueil which extended over five nights, and on the second night Mr. 
 Disraeli addressed himself to the question how far it was possible to 
 iind relief for our commercial distress in an extension of our commerce. 
 
 ' Our markets,' said he, ' might fairly be divided under three 
 gener.il heads — our European markets, the markets of the East, and 
 the markets of the New World. Our European markets must be 
 regulated by commercial treaties.' And he then went on to comment 
 on four projected treaties of commerce which had not yet been carried 
 out : namely, with France, with Spain, with Portugal, and with Bi'azU. 
 Mr. Morley says of this speech that it is ' remarkable to this day for 
 its lar.se and comprehensive survey of the whole field of our commerce 
 and for its discernment of the channels in which it would expand.' ^ 
 But I have preferred to give the speech which follows, for. the sake of 
 the remarks which it contains on the disposition of foreign States. 
 On April 25, Mr. Ricardo, the member for Stoke, moved that 
 remission of duties should not be postponed to the execution of 
 commercial treaties. Mr. Disraeli here refers to his favourite doctrine 
 that these questions could not be decided exclusively by political 
 economy.] 
 
 MK. DISEAELI said that the noble lord who had just 
 iiddressed the House had indulged in a traditional sneer 
 against the right honourable baronet (Su- E. Peel) for his policy 
 with respect to what was called the balance of trade. It had been 
 
 ' Til is speech is reprinted from Hansard's Delates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
 '' Life of CoMen, vol. ii. p. 336. 
 
IMPOET DUTIES AND FEEE TEADE, 1843. 39 
 
 truly said by Sir "Walter Raleigh that what was wrong in the 
 main might still be right in the detail. Now, he considered 
 that anything that could cause a sudden abstraction of the 
 precious metals from this country must necessarily affect the 
 commercial transactions of the country at the same time. This 
 was a subject which rendered the consideration of the honourable 
 member's motion of the deepest importance. Three years ago, 
 they made a very large importation of corn from Germany, at 
 which time the Bank of England had negotiated a loan of 
 money with the Bank of France. They all remembered the 
 effects of that mercantile transaction upon the currency of this 
 country. It was difiB.cult to forget the humiliations that were 
 cast upon them when it became known what were the terms 
 on which this loan was effected between the two countries. No 
 person could deny the abstraction of precious metals which then 
 took place from England, which resulted in the most serious 
 consequences. Their cinrency was deranged, prices were gen- 
 erally reduced, and wages fell considerably. A mercantile con- 
 vulsion had actually taken place. This sudden abstraction of 
 3,000,000L of their precious metals was a very serious evil ; but 
 he would ask, if the proposition of the honourable member for 
 Stoke were agreed to, whether the abstraction of precious metals 
 would not be larger than in 1839. 
 
 This was a subject of consideration totally independent of 
 the balance of trade. It was a consideration that must occur 
 to every person who took an interest in the subject. The noble 
 lord contended that the abstraction of precious metals did not 
 do much injury to the country. He believed that this was a 
 point that was acknowledged to be one of the highest importance 
 by the greatest economists in this country. This, he believed, 
 would be the immediate consequence of the policy that was now 
 recommended. It was their duty to inquire what was the opinion 
 of foreign economists on this subject. There was ample evi- 
 dence on this point to guide the people of England in their 
 opinions on this subject. The work of Dr. Listz, and those of 
 a great many other men, referred to the circumstance and the 
 results of the great importation of com by England from the 
 continent of Europe in 1839 They alluded to the sudden ab- 
 
40 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 straetion of the precious metals, which materially affected their 
 trade and the interests of this country. There was a conviction 
 in the public mind of Germany that if they could occasion an 
 abstraction of precious metals from England in a systematic way, 
 they would raise prices in their own country, and lower prices in 
 this country. He knew that some honourable gentlemen oppo- 
 site would say that prices were but a relative consideration, and 
 of itself the subject was of no great importance ; but such ab- 
 stract truisms involved a practical error. He was of opinion 
 that the sudden lowering of prices must deeply affect, not only 
 the profits of capital, but the most important interests of 
 the country. 
 
 It was highly important for the House to consider what 
 might be the effect of such a course as was now advised upon 
 their monetary system. Some might say that everything would 
 ultimately find a level. Natural philosophers, who deal with 
 principles, dogmatise ; but statesmen, who deal with circum- 
 stances, must negociate. It was possible that they might carry 
 on a trade with less expensive transactions more profitable 
 than a trade with more expensive ones. No one could deny 
 that as they had relaxed their duties, foreign countries had 
 increased theirs. If they intended to proceed in the course 
 that was now recommended, they should be prepared for a 
 systematic abstraction of the precious metals. He would ask, 
 were they prepared for the consequences ? 
 
 He could not conceal from himself — if such principles as 
 these were carried out — there would be a great chance of 
 their revenue being diminished, their commerce deranged, their 
 prices lowered, and the wages of labour considerably diminished. 
 Supposing that these prices were to go on for two, three, four, 
 or five years, before the truth should suddenly flash upon the 
 minds of the Government, he wanted to know if this country 
 were prepared for this ordeal. He wondered what the effect 
 would be if they had even the short experience of three years 
 of these predicted changes. What would be the state of 
 England during the working of this experiment ? There would 
 be an immense mass of individual suffering, followed by fre- 
 quent bankruptcies ; all the banks would be broken, the whole 
 
IMPORT DUTIES AND FEEE TRADE, 1843. 41 
 
 commercial system would be in a state of derangement ; the 
 revenue of the country would be upheld only by having re- 
 course to the most violent attacks on property. He thought 
 these were events that were more than probable — he thought 
 they were inevitable. But surely there were considerations 
 which were of great importance in viewing the case which 
 ought not to be omitted. The House was called upon by the 
 speech of the honourable member for Stoke-upon-Trent to 
 open free ports as against the hostile tariffs of other countries. 
 These were subjects which occupied the minds of Continental 
 statesmen, and were of such importance in the economical sys- 
 tem of Germany, especially, that he was surprised they had 
 not occupied more attention, but which, right or wrong, ought 
 to occupy their attention if honourable gentlemen thought of 
 what must ultimately result to the continent of Europe, still 
 remembering, however, that before that result was arrived at 
 we must be the intermediate sufferers, and perhaps the victims. 
 
 There was another circumstance which seemed to be over- 
 looked by those who held extreme opinions on these subjects: 
 they were apt to think that the Grovernments of Europe 
 proposed to themselves no other objects in their commercial 
 arrangements than the wealth of nations, and totally omitted 
 from their view one of the most prevailing influences — the poli- 
 tical considerations which were always mixed up with indus- 
 trial habits. These honourable gentlemen talked of what they 
 called ' vested interests ' which were raised and cuddled and 
 pampered with protection, and they said that such an artificial 
 class might do very well for a time, but the system was fallacious : 
 it must ultimately prove ruinous ; but, at the same time, the 
 public mind, they admitted, was not enlightened, though a 
 Grovemment must see that such pampered manufacture was a 
 losing concern. Such was the case with the cotton manufacture 
 in France formerly, though now no longer the case. As long as 
 pounds, shillings and pence alone were consulted, these gentle- 
 men were right, and a trade so circumstanced must be given 
 up. 
 
 But honourable gentlemen opposite seemed to forget that 
 some Governments perhaps proposed to maintain certain manu- 
 
42 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 faetures as the elements of future strength. At this moment 
 there were around the city of St. Petersburg some fourteen or 
 fifteen factories which were worked at a great loss, and the loss 
 was paid, and was cheerfully paid, by the Grovemment — it was 
 paid by the Government, as ostentatiously announced, to keep 
 these places up as models to stimulate the industry of the 
 country. Whether eventually this principle might be given 
 up by the Grovernments of Europe was a matter of speculation, 
 but until those Grovernments had accepted our high notions of 
 political economy this country was likely to encounter such a 
 statei of transitive suffering as would render it impossible to cal- 
 culate what commercial losses, what financial distresses, and 
 what political catastrophes it might involve. It was impossible 
 to, shut their eyes to the effect which years of commercial distress 
 and financial difficulty might have on our political institutions. 
 Admitting the general justice of these principles of pubUc 
 economy which had of late years exercised great influence in 
 those countries, was it not the natural course to adopt the 
 happy medium which was always followed by practical men — 
 that system of reciprocity by means of which through negoti- 
 ation they might obtain those benefits which they aU acknow- 
 ledged in increased commerce, and avoid those dangers that 
 might possibly attend a less cautious and prudent course ? This 
 was the wiser system to adopt under any circumstances. If the 
 benefits proposed by the honourable member for Stoke were 
 merely speculative ; more than all, if his principles might tend 
 to great disasters, it followed most satisfactorily that they should 
 take that com-se which, while it secured all the advantages he 
 proposed, at the same time insured them against the dangers 
 with which they were menaced. 
 
 There was another circumstance which should not be left 
 out of their consideration. It would be found that in every- 
 one of those countries with which we sought treaties of com- 
 merce considerable interests existed that advocated our policy. 
 If should be remembered that these powerful interests were 
 founded upon, and existed only in consequence of, our commer- 
 cial system. The Chamber of Lyons, and that more powerful 
 interest the wine interest of France, must sooner or later obtain 
 
IMPOET DUTIES AND FEEE TEADE, 1843. 43 
 
 for us a treaty of commerce with that country ; and if not so 
 advantageous as might have been secured in 1840, it should at 
 least be remembered that it was no fiscal or commercial circum- 
 stance which, in that instance, had operated to our disadvantage. 
 The noble lord, the member for Sunderland, had treated the 
 right honourable Vice-President of the Board of Trade somewhat 
 unfairly in the reference he made to the speech in which he 
 answered the honourable member for Stoke. The noble lord 
 said his right honourable friend had misrepresented the object 
 and purpose of this motion : he said that the motion was a most 
 practical and moderate one, whereas the Vice-President of the 
 Board of Trade had made a speech which was directed solely 
 against extreme opinions. The right honourable gentleman 
 had answered the speech of the honourable member for Stoke. 
 The speech of the honourable member for Stoke was very 
 different from his motion. His motion might be very guarded, 
 moderate, and, in the opinion of some, very practical ; but it 
 was impossible to dissever the speech by which it was prefaced 
 from the motion which was ultimately submitted. The honour- 
 able member for Stoke did not attempt to conceal his opinions ; 
 boldly, clearly, perspicuously, in the most manly way, he 
 announced his adhesion to the most ultra-free-trade opinions. 
 The honourable gentleman had come in like a lion, and gone 
 out like a lamb ; but when he gave a programme of his opinions 
 which was to have its effect on the country, although he con- 
 cluded with what the noble lord called a very moderate and 
 practical motion, the Vice-President of the Board of Trade was 
 not bound to confine his reply to the limited and moderate 
 motion and allow the more general extreme opinions of the 
 honoiirable member for Stoke to pass unnoticed. 
 
 The motion of the honourable gentleman meant that they 
 should fight against hostile tariffs with free imports, and no- 
 thing else. For himself, he believed that would be a policy 
 financially of the most disastrous kind ; at any rate, ,there was 
 sufiicient evidence before them to prove that its immediate con- 
 sequences would be tariffs more hostile to England, and under 
 these circumstances it was not for the honorfrable gentleman 
 who had introduced the motion, or his friends, to say that the 
 
44 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 opinions they had avowed in favour of what they chose to call 
 ' free trade ' should not be replied to. The expression ' free 
 trade,' as originally brought into public notice, designated 
 very different principles from those it denoted in the mouths 
 of the gentlemen opposite. It was first used by economists of 
 very great celebrity, in contradistinction to the old colonial 
 system, and meant a large and liberal intercourse — a free navi- 
 gation from port to port ; but honourable gentlemen opposite 
 attached to it a much more extensive signification, which the 
 original authors of the expression never contemplated. 
 
 There was obviously some analogy between civil and com- 
 mercial freedom. A man was not the less free because he was 
 subject to some regulations and taxes ; but honourable gentle- 
 men opposite meant by ' free trade ' an absence from all restric- 
 tions. But really the honourable gentlemen opposite spoke of 
 restriction in the spirit of those of whom Milton had said — ■ 
 
 Licence they mean, when they cry liberty ! 
 
 A peculiar characteristic of the free-trade school was their 
 total neglect of circumstances — they never took any circum- 
 stances into consideration. He had stated that as a consequence 
 of our commercial system powerful interests had grown up in 
 other countries to advocate and enforce our views ; if those 
 parties succeeded in their endeavours, if commercial arrange- 
 ments were brought about, we should immediately have a con- 
 siderable increase to our trade without intervening danger of any 
 kind ; but honourable gentlemen might rest assured, if they were 
 to be guided by what was said or, what was of more importance, 
 by what was written in Europe and America at this moment, 
 they never would succeed unless they took a decided course. If 
 they meant to obtain advantages by negotiation they must un- 
 reservedly announce it, and certainly it would not be long 
 before they attained their end, because the minister of England 
 who negotiated was placed in a much more favourable position 
 than the minister of any other country. He could say what 
 the minister of no other country could say : he could say to the 
 President of the United States with his hostile tariff : ' There 
 is a country belonging to the Queen of England that, if neces- 
 
IMPORT DUTIES AND FEEE TEADE, 1843. 45 . 
 
 sary, can produce illimitable quantities of that cotton of which 
 you boast so much ; ' he could say to St. Petersburg : ' That 
 very same country, within three months, in 1843, has sent ships 
 to the port of London with cargoes of flax, hemp, and tallow ; ' 
 and without sending a special mission to Brazil, without the 
 expense of the mission or the mortification of failure, he could 
 tell the Brazilian Minister : ' That very same country in one of 
 its valUes produces sugar enough to feed the whole world, and 
 in another district produces coffee superior to that of the Bra- 
 zils.' These were facts the knowledge of which was not confined 
 within the walls of the House of Commons ; they were con- 
 tinually referred to in the political and economical dissertation 
 in Europe : there was not a statesman in Eussia or America 
 that was not frightened at the available resources of India. 
 
 These were the elements of negotiation : as such they ought 
 not to be forgotten ; they were the elements of our strength if 
 we chose to resort to them. He thanked the House for the 
 attention with which they had listened to his observations. He 
 had endeavoured to meet the question fairly. He thought 
 the policy recommended by the honourable member for Stoke 
 founded on principles which were utterly fallacious, and, if pur- 
 sued, it would immediately produce financial consequences of 
 the most disastrous kind by its effect on the monetary system 
 of the country : he thought by adopting the medium course, 
 the principle of reciprocity, they would secure a very consider- 
 able share of the advantages contemplated by the honourable 
 mover, without endangering most important interests, and he 
 thought the principle of commercial treaties was the only one 
 that could be adopted in the complicated state of our relations. 
 If carried into effect, it took its form in that public compact 
 which the law of nations and the manners of Em-ope had 
 sanctioned. He did not think they could do better in attempt- 
 ing to gain those commercial advantages which they all desired 
 than adhere to that system of negotiation by means which they 
 could always have recourse to, which were always understood, 
 which if they failed to-day might succeed to-morrow. 
 
46 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 EXPLANATION TO CONSTITUENTS OF HIS VOTES 
 IN PAELIAMENT, SHREWSBURY, May 9, 1843. 
 
 [This speech -was deliveredjust at that moment when the thorough- 
 going Protectionists were first beginning to express their suspicions 
 of the policy of Sir Robert Peel. On this occasion Mr. Disraeli 
 defended him. The new Corn Bill and the Tariff of 1842 were 
 the measures which provoked the greatest hostility, and provincial 
 Tory papers proclaimed in capital letters that Sir Robert Peel had 
 forfeited the confidence of the Conservative party. Mr. Disraeli, 
 however, went to the root of the matter in the latter part of his 
 speech, in which he avowed himself a Protectionist, not on econo- 
 mical, but on social and political grounds. His description of the 
 landed interest in this speech raises the whole question which 
 really underlies Conservative and Radical principles. It is the 
 old theory, the theory of the eighteenth-century Tories, the theory 
 of the Duke of Wellington and Lord Stanley. The landed interest 
 is the foundation of our national greatness : our constitution is a 
 territorial constitution. This interest embraces, not only the Church 
 and the monarchy, but the great body of local and unpaid jurisdictions 
 which form a part of English life, and must be considered with 
 reference to all the habits, virtues and traditions which it has fostered 
 for centuries : to the moral results, that is, for which we were indebted 
 to Protection. All this is not lightly to be imperilled even for the 
 benefits promised us by free trade. Sir. R. Peel was only revising the 
 Tariff as it periodically required to be revised — as it had been revised by 
 Mr. Pitt and Lord Liverpool. The speaker then went on to say : — ] 
 
 I AM not an enemy myself to free trade, according to my idea 
 of free trade. I have shown it in every vote I have 
 given in Parliament. I have never supported either prohi- 
 bitions or monopoly, nor have I made native industry the 
 stalking-horse by which to uphold any abuses. But my idea of 
 free trade is this — that you cannot have free trade unless 
 the person you deal with is as liberal as yourself. If I saw a 
 
EXPLANATION TO CONSTITUENTS, 1843. 47 
 
 prize-fighter encountering a galley-slave in irons, I should con- 
 sider the combat equally as fair as to make England fight 
 hostile tariffs with free imports ; and I feel persuaded myself 
 that system will be pursued — though I do not mean for a moment 
 to say that the present Grovemment are going to pursue it ; 
 but, I say, the present Government may, by the chapter of 
 accidents, be compelled to pursue anything — if the great mass 
 of the constituency have not firm opinions on the subject and 
 will not support the Grovernment, which is pressed by what is 
 called a ' liberal minority,' incessant in their exertions in the 
 House of Commons, and organised in their exertions in the 
 country. Do not, I beg, suppose I am sceptical as to the dis- 
 positions of the present Government ; but we live in a time in 
 which it is utterly impossible for any administration, or any 1 
 minister, to pursue his particular policy, however convinced he J 
 may be in his own mind, or however resolved he may be, if the 5 
 great body of the people who have placed him in power do not j 
 actively maintain him there. I do not say, gentlemen, that ) 
 this is a healthy state of the social system. I do not mean to 
 tell you that governing a country out of the Government is 
 what, abstractedly, I approve of. It is not either the Conser- I 
 vatives or the Tories ; it is not either Sir Robert Peel or the 'i 
 Duke of Wellington, that commenced agitation in this country ; 
 but the moment you permitted that fatal principle ' to be intro- 
 duced practically into your constitution, it became necessary, 
 according to the old principle of Mr. Burke, that ' when your 
 opponents conspired, you were called upon to combine.' 
 
 Gentlemen, this is the position of Sir Robert Peel in the 
 House of Commons. Sir Robert Peel, I believe, is influenced! 
 by a desire of practically mediating between great contending! 
 parties. I believe he has adopted opinions which are just and! 
 right, and that he is anxious to support native industry ; but, I 
 at the same time, if native industry will not support Sir Robert 5 
 Peel, how is he to go on ? That is the precise position of the 
 minister at this day, with an apparently feeble Parliamentary 
 miinority before him, but consisting of men of great intellec- 
 tual ability, and with the classic temple of the classic drama, 
 ' Cf. Conirtgsby, book iv. chap. 10. 
 
48 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 hired at two hundred pounds a night, to represent the character 
 of the House of Commons to the population behind them. How 
 is any cabinet in the world, whatever inay be their calm opinion 
 of the policy they ought to pursue, if that policy is, as it 
 ought to be, an unimpassioned, an impartial, a moderate, and 
 an eminently salutary policy — how are they to pursue it, if bodies 
 of men do not unite out of the House to let them know that 
 the party which put them into power to preserve the institu- 
 tions and interests of the country (let me remind you of that) 
 are now prepared, under all circumstances, as they were then, 
 giving them an ample allowance for circumstances, to support 
 them so long as they adhere to principle. 
 
 I never will commit myself upon this great question to 
 petty economical details ; I will not pledge myself to miserable 
 questions of 6d. in 7s. 6c?. or 8s. of duties about com ; I do 
 not care whether your corn sells for this sum or that, or whether 
 jit is under a sliding scale or a fixed duty ; but what I want, 
 Jand what I wish to secure, and what, as far as my energies go, 
 1 1 will secure, is, the preponderance of the landed interest. 
 Gentlemen, when I talk of the preponderance of the landed 
 interest, do not for a moment suppose that I mean merely the 
 preponderance of ' squires of high degree,' that, in fact, I am 
 thinking only of justices of the peace. My thought wanders 
 farther than a lordly tower or a naanorial hall. I am looking 
 in that phrase, in using that very phrase, to what I consider 
 the vast majority of the English nation. I do not undervalue 
 the mere superiority of the landed classes ; on the contrary, I 
 think it a most necessary element of political power and national 
 civilisation ; but I am looking to the population of our innu- 
 merable villages, to the crowds in our rural towns : aye, and I 
 mean even something more than that by the landed interest— I 
 mean that estate of the poor which, in my opinion, has been 
 already tampered with, dangerously tampered with; which, I 
 have also said, let me remind you, in other places besides 
 Shrewsbury. I mean by the estate of the poor, the great 
 estate of the Church, which has, before this time, secured our 
 liberty, and may, for aught I know, still secure our civilisation. 
 I mean, also, by the landed interest, that great judicial fabric, 
 
EXPLANATION TO CONSTITUENTS, 1843. 49 
 
 that great building up of our laws and manners which is, in 
 fact, the ancient polity of the realm, and the ancient constitution 
 of the realm — ^those ancient institutions which we Conservatives 
 are bound to uphold — which you sent us to Parliament to up- 
 hold ; for there is not a greater, or a more general, there is not 1 
 a more prevalent or a more superficial error of misconception, , 
 than to suppose that the English constitution only consists of 
 Queen, Lords, and Commons. Why, gentlemen, that is only a 
 part, and not even the most important part, of the constitu-| 
 tion of England. Your trial by jury is as important a part,* 
 and it is also an institution of England. Your institution of 
 trial by jury arises out of your landed tenure of property. And 
 if you, because commerce is declining, forsooth, because gentle- 
 men hire theatres, make tawdry speeches in tawdry places, and 
 say that the spirit of the age is against the territorial and feudal 
 system, and declare that it is all the consequence of the re- 
 mains of that old system — if you, upon this account, uproot 
 that tenure of property ; if you destroy all those institutions ; 
 if you destroy all those manners and duties which only are 
 supported by this species of property — which you will do if 
 you have a great territorial revolution in this country (for I 
 will show you that if you have any change it will soon lead 
 to much change) — I want to know what will become of your 
 institutions ? Institutions ! Why, gentlemen, anybody can- 1 
 have a King, Lords, and Commons. In my lifetime twenty-five ? 
 States in Europe and America have made themselves Kings, 
 Lords, and Commons. You may take a hundred gentlemen, 
 and call them dukes, earls, and lords, and shut them up in a 
 room ; you may take 300 other gentlemen, and make them 
 deputies — ^that is, you may give them the name ; but do 
 you think that an ancient, powerful, enlightened, and intel- 
 lectual nation will consent to be governed by those men ? 
 No ; they would rather submit to be governed by two select 
 vestries. 
 
 What do you think, gentlemen, makes the people of Eng- 
 land submit to have their fortunes, or, it may be, their lives, 
 decided by the votes of such men as the Earl of Powis, and Lord 
 Forester, and other persons like them in this country? Is it 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 because they are individuals against whom no fault has ever 
 been heard, for any single or isolated act, that you leave your 
 characters and fortunes to be decided by them? Not at all; 
 but it is the great sympathy which proceeds from the fact that 
 they have some stake in the realm, and which makes everyone 
 feel these men have Shropshire at their back. Why, they re- 
 present Shropshire as much as I represent Shrewsbury. They 
 are as much the representatives of Shropshire in the House of 
 Lords as their sons, nephews, or friends may be the representa- 
 I tives of constituencies in the House of Commons ; and it is be- 
 1 cause there is throughout our constitution, as it were, a terri- 
 ' torial bias, that there exists throughout the country a similar 
 bond of sympathy. Two members are not sent up to a distant 
 city, three hundred miles from the constituency they represent, 
 for no purpose ; on the contrary, we all feel that the members 
 sent up represent the property, and by the property I mean 
 the traditionary rights and duties of the property of this 
 country. 
 
 Grentlemen, we hear a great deal in the present day upon 
 the subject of the feudal system. I have heard from the lips 
 of Mr. Cobden — no, I have not heard him say it, as I was not 
 present to hear the celebrated speech he made in Drury Lane 
 Theatre — but we have all heard how Mr. Cobden, who is a very 
 eminent person, has said, in a very memorable speech, that 
 England was the victim of the feudal system, and we have all 
 heard how he has spoken of the barbarism of the feudal system, 
 and of the barbarous relics of the feudal system. Now, if we 
 have any relics of the feudal system, I regret that not more of 
 it is remaining. Think one moment — and it is well you should 
 be reminded of what this is, because there is no phrase more 
 glibly used in the present day than ' the barbarism of the 
 feudal system.' Now, what is the fundamental principle of the 
 feudal system, gentlemen ? It is that the tenure of all property 
 shall be the performance of its duties. Why, when the Con- 
 queror carved out parts of the land, and introduced the feudal 
 system, he said to the recipient, ' You shall have that estate, 
 but you shall do something for it : you shall feed the poor ; 
 you shall endow the Church; you shall defend the land in 
 
EXPLANATION TO CONSTITUENTS, 1843. 51 
 
 case of war ; and you shall execute justice and maintain truth 
 to the poor for nothing.' ' 
 
 It is all very well to talk of the barbarities of the feudal 
 system, and to tell us that in those days when it flourished a 
 great' variety of gross and grotesque circumstances and great 
 miseries occurred ; but these were not the result of the feudal 
 system : they were the result of the barbarism of the age. They 
 existed not from the feudal system; but in spite of the feudal 
 system. The principle of the feudal system, the principle which)' 
 was practically operated upon, was the noblest principle, the 
 grandest, the most magnificent and benevolent that was ever 
 conceived by sage, or ever practised by patriot. Why, when ij 
 hear a political economist, or an Anti-Corn-Law Leaguer, or some 
 conceited Liberal reviewer come forward and tell us, as a grand 
 discovery of modern science, twitting and taunting, perhaps, 
 some unhappy squire who cannot respond to the alleged dis- 
 covery — when I hear them say, as the great discovery of modern 
 science, that * Property has its duties as well as its rights,' my 
 answer is that that is but a feeble plagiarism of the very prin- 
 ciple of that feudal system which you are always reviling. Let 
 
 ' It is interesting to compare with this passage the following words of 
 Mr. Gladstone, spoken twenty-seven years afterwards : ' In Ireland, from the 
 unhappy circumstances of the country, . . . there has not rested in the hands 
 of the landlords the discharge of that immense mass of public duties, bearing 
 upon every subject of political, social, and moral interest, without fee or 
 reward, which has honourably distinguished for so many generations the 
 landlords of England. This fixed and happy usage I take to be a just relio 
 and true descendant of the feudal system, which never took a real or genuine 
 root in Ireland. . . . Are you prepared to denude them (the Irish landlords) 
 of their interest in the land ? and, what is more, are you prepared to absolve 
 them from their duties with regard to the land ? I, for one, confess that I 
 am not ; nor is that the sentiment of roy colleagues. We think, on the con- 
 trary, that we ought to look forward with hope and expectation to bringing 
 about a state of things in which the landlords of Ireland may assume, or may 
 more generally assume, the position which is happily held as a class by land- 
 lords in this country — a position marked by residence, by personal familiarity, 
 and by sympathy with the people among whom they live, by long traditional 
 connection handed on from generation to generation, and marked by a constant 
 discharge of duty in every form that can be suggested — be it as to the ad- 
 ministration of justice, be it as to the defence of the country, be it as to the 
 supply of social, or spiritual, or moral, or educational wants ; be it for any 
 purpose whatever that is recognised as good or beneficial in a civilised society.' 
 — House of Commons, February 17, 1870 : Speech on Irish Land Act. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 SPEECHES OF THE EABL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 me next tell those gentlemen who are so fond of telling us that 
 property has its duties as well as its rights, that labour also has 
 its rights as well as its duties : and when I see masses of 
 property raised in this country which do not recognise that 
 principle ; when I find men making fortunes by a method which 
 permits them (very often in a very few years) to purchase the 
 lands of the old territorial aristocracy of the country, I cannot 
 help remembering that those millions are accumulated by a 
 mode which does not recognise it as a duty ' to endow the 
 Church, to feed the poor, to guard the land, and to execute 
 justice for nothing.' And I cannot help asking myself, when I 
 hear of all this misery, and of all this suffering ; when I know 
 that evidence exists in our Parliament of a state of demoralisa- 
 tion in the once happy population of this land, which is not 
 equalled in the most barbarous countries, which we suppose the 
 I more rude and uncivilised in Asia are — I cannot help suspecting 
 that this has arisen because property has been permitted to he 
 created and held without the performance of its duties. 
 
 Now, I want to ask the gentlemen who are members of the 
 Anti-Corn-Law League, the gentlemen who are pressing on the 
 Government of the country, on the present occasion, the total 
 repeal and abolition of the Corn Laws — I want to know whether 
 they have soberly considered how far they are personally respon- 
 sible for this degraded state of our population. And I want 
 them to consider this most important point, which has never 
 yet been properly brought before any deliberative assembly — 
 how far the present law of succession and inheritance in land 
 will survive the whole change of your agricultural policy ? If 
 that does not survive — if that falls — if we recur to the Conti- 
 nental system of parcelling out landed estates — I want to know 
 how long you can maintain the political system of the country ? 
 That estate of the Church which I mentioned; that estate 
 of the poor to which I referred ; that great fabric of judicial 
 rights to which I made allusion ; those traditionary manners 
 and associations which spring out of the land, which form the 
 national character, which form part of the possession of the 
 poor not to be despised, and which is one of the most impor- 
 tant elements of political power — they will tell you ' Let it 
 
EXPLANATION TO CONSTITUENTS, 1843. 53 
 
 go ! ' My answer to that is, ' If it goes, it is a revolution, a 
 great, a destructive revolution,' and it is not my taste to live 
 in an age of destructive revolution. For these reasons, gentle- 
 men, I believe in that respect, faithfully representing your 
 sentiments, that I have always upheld that law which, I think, 
 will uphold and maintain the preponderance of the agricultural 
 interests of the country. I do not wish to conceal the ground ' 
 upon which I wish to uphold it. I never attempted to uphold 
 it by talking of the peculiar burthens, which, however, I 
 believe, may be legitimately proved, or indulging in many of 
 those arguments in favour of the Com Laws which may or may 
 not be sound, but which are always brought forward with a 
 sort of hesitating consciousness which may be assumed to be 
 connected with futility. I take the only broad and only safe 
 line — namely, that what we ought to uphold is, the preponder- 1 
 ance of the landed interest; that the preponderance of the 
 landed interest has made England; that it is an immense 
 element of political power and stability ; that we should never 
 have been able to undertake the great war in which we 
 embarked in the memory of many present — that we could 
 never have been able to conquer the greatest military genius 
 the world ever saw, with the greatest means at his disposal, 
 and to hurl him from his throne, if we had not had a territorial 
 aristocracy to give stability to our constitution. 
 
 And I mean to say this, that if we had not done that, if we 
 had not had that territorial power, and that preponderance of 
 the land-owner in our constitution, I do not see why Great 
 Britain, probably very contented and very prosperous, should 
 have been a greater power than Denmark or Sweden ; but I for i 
 one am not prepared to sit under the power of a third-class if I i 
 can be a citizen of a first-class Empire. And I do not believe j 
 that any man who listens to me can differ with me upon that 
 point. It is enough that you were born in Shropshire, that you 
 are a portion of that ancient county, that you were born in a 
 county fuU of historical recollections, a county that has taken 
 the lead of all others in public affairs, a county where, as Lord 
 Clarendon says, ' the Cavaliers' blood lives.' It is enough that 
 you have undergone great vicissitudes ; it is enough that you 
 
54 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OE BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 have lived under various dynasties ; it is enough that you have 
 sprung from a race that has done something ; it is enough that 
 you can talk of your ancestors as of a people that can be re- 
 membered — it is enough to know all this in order to feel that 
 you do. not want to be put in the catalogue of new States 
 which may hereafter turn out something or may not— in fact, 
 to feel that you do not want to be turned into a sort of spinning- 
 jenny machine kind of nation. You want, in fact, to be a 
 great people, because you are a great people, and because you 
 feel that the exertions of your fathers and your own aspirations 
 entitle you to that position : and it seems to be a reasonable 
 ambition. 
 
 Before I sit down I do not wish to close without an observa- 
 tion on those who are always finding fault with the humbler 
 classes of the community — who at the same time charitably 
 (say they are not responsible for their deterioration. I confess 
 jtliat, as far as I can form an opinion, the deterioration of society 
 lis not to be found only among the labourers of the country. 
 It is not in the squalid dwellings ; it is not in the miserable 
 details of sickening poverty, that this deterioration may be 
 found ; but, in my opinion, that heroic nobility which formed 
 this country, and that spirited gentry which has so often come 
 forward to vindicate our rights or to defend our liberties, and 
 which have also been the main source of our commercial great- 
 ness — for it is the nobility and gentry of the land who have 
 founded our greatest colonies — in my opinion the present race 
 is deficient in those qualities.^ There are, however, great 
 exceptions to be made, even in the higher classes of the 
 bountry ; but there is a miserable philosophy of the day which 
 ascribes everything to 'the spirit of the age'— that thinks 
 nothing is to be done by the influence of individual character, 
 which is, after all, the only inducement to great actions, the 
 only spur to great achievements. That opinion is much too 
 prevalent; and there is no question that it is not merely 
 among the lower classes that we find a lack of those great 
 qualities which hitherto have always been associated with the 
 noble, national character of England. 
 
 ' But not the then rising generation. Cf. SijtU, book v. chap. 2. 
 
EXPLANATION TO CONSTITUENTS, 1843. . 55 
 
 I told you when I saw you first that I should maintain, so 
 far as my vote could maintain, the preponderance of the landed 
 interest. I am of that opinion stil]. I believe the landed i 
 interest should be the basis of our political and social system. | 
 But if there be others who are of a different opinion, if it be — 
 which I do not believe — that there are those of a different 
 opinion in high places, and that these alterations may be 
 brought forward, and perhaps even passed, do not let us for a 
 moment disguise from ourselves the influence which such an 
 event must have, I will not say upon the political power, or 
 social condition, or financial prosperity of the country, for these 
 are great themes, but upon the more limited but most interest- 
 ing topic of the construction of parties. Eest assured, if these 
 changes are brought forward, whoever may be the person to 
 propose them, that we are on the eve of an age of great party 
 convulsion — that we are on the eve of an age when we shall 
 see no more permanent Governments,' no more strong Govern- 
 ments, no more administrations carrying out from long and 
 patient experience and conviction the remedies of the faults of 
 their predecessors. Then let me tell you that, in that time, 
 they who look for benefit from the hands of public men, or look 
 to the favour of Courts, or the confidence of ministers, will 
 build upon a rock of sand. No public man at that time will 
 be in a position in which he can pursue his career who has not 
 the power to cast his anchor deep in the rock of some great 
 constitutional constituency. As for myself, if that happens, I 
 shall come to you and tell you, ' I am here ; we are beaten ; 
 but I have done my duty. Eemember what I told you when 
 we met in the Music Hall at Shrewsbury in 1843 ; I told you 
 what might happen ; I told you I did not believe it would 
 occm-, but that if it did occur I was prepared to act ; I told 
 you then that I had elected to support that cause which I 
 believe upholds the power and prosperity of my country, and 
 the social happiness of all classes. Others have thought differ- 
 ently; the majority, perhaps the enlightened majority, ani- 
 mated by that " spirit of the age " which hitherto we have seen, 
 
 ' The experience of the last few years invests these words with peculiar 
 interest and significance. 
 
66 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 have thought differently, and have had the power to act differ- 
 ently,' 
 
 But I have still some confidence in the national character 
 of Enghshmen. I know well that before this, the country has 
 experienced great vicissitudes. I know well that we had in 
 England more revolutions, and upon a greater scale, than in 
 any other country in the world. It is utterly impossible, in- 
 deed, for the French Kevolution, or any other, to embrace more 
 comprehensive objects. You have had the majesty of England 
 brought to the block ; you have had the Church, personified by 
 Archbishop Laud, brought to the block ; you have had the ad- 
 ministration, in the person of Strafford, brought to the block — 
 the king, the minister, and the archbishop. You have had the 
 House of Lords voted a nuisance. You have had the House of 
 Commons kicked out in an ignominious manner by a military 
 officer. You have had the Church completely sequestrated. 
 All this has happened in England. But before a quarter of a 
 century passed over, you returned to your old laws, your old 
 habits, your old traditions, your old convictions. In 1648 
 Oliver Cromwell slept at Whitehall ; in 1688 ' Charles II. fol- 
 lowed his example. And shall I tell you the reason why, after 
 circumstances so wonderfid, though no historian has noticed it ; 
 though you saw every trace of the social system uprooted by 
 the most prejudicial, grasping, and subtle enemies that were 
 ever invented ; ^ though the vessel became a wreck, and the 
 king, the Church, and the constitution were swept away, the 
 nation returned to itself? Shall I tell you how it was that the 
 nation returned to itself, and Old England, after the deluge, was 
 jseen rising above the waters ? This was the reason — because 
 Muring all that fearful revolution you never changed the tenure 
 (of your landed property. That, I think, gentlemen, proves my 
 case ; and if we have baffled a wit like Oliver Cromwell, let us 
 not be staggered even before Mr. Cobden ! The acres remained ; 
 the estates remained. The generations changed : the Puritan 
 father died, and the Cavalier son came into his place, and, 
 
 » Presumably 1660. 
 
 * The reports of the speech difEer so much in diflferent papers, and all of 
 tbeia are so corrupt, that emendation becomes a hopeless task. 
 
EXPLANATION TO CONSTITUENTS, 18i3. 57 
 
 backed by that power and influence, the nation reverted to the 
 ancient principles of the realm. And this, gentlemen, is the 
 reason why you have seen an outcry raised against your Corn 
 Laws. Your Corn Laws are merely the outwork of a great system 
 fixed and established upon your territorial property, and the 
 only object the Leaguers have in making themselves masters 
 of the outwork is that they paay easily overcome the citadel. 
 
58 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 SUGAE . DUTIES, June 17, 1844.1 
 
 [In the second volume, among the speeches on Ireland will be 
 found (August 9, 1843) the first open declaration of hostility against 
 Sir Eobert Peel's Government, together -vyith the complimentary 
 remarks of both the ' Times ' and ' Morning Chronicle ' on the 
 young Tory party who followed Mr. Disraeli and had just acquired 
 the title of Young England. Mr. Disraeli now follows up the blow. 
 He had supported the Corn Bill and the new Tariff of 1842. But 
 he was obliged to oppose Sir Robert twice during the session of 1844 : 
 once on the Factory question, when ministers were first beaten on a 
 motion of Lord Ashley's, and afterwards Compelled the House to 
 rescind its vote ; and secondly on the Sugar Duties, on an amendment 
 proposed by Mr. Miles, when the same change of front was executed. 
 Mr. Disraeli complains of the imperious tone adopted by Sir Robert 
 Peel and thinks if he had assumed a more conciliatory manner he 
 might have encountered less resistance. 
 
 In this speech Mr. Disraeli anticipates what he said at Shrewsbury 
 in the following August. The House of Commons was called on by 
 Sir Robert Peel to rescind its vote, and he now protests against the 
 sound of the lash which was never silent on the Treasury Bench.] 
 
 ME. DISEAELI : Sir, I was not present during the event- 
 ful debate of the other night ; and therefore, not having 
 heard of the movement that has been made, nor of ' the con- 
 spiracy ' that has been entered into, I own I am not without 
 astonishment at what has transpired. I was not a little lost in 
 wonder when I heard it said on Saturday and to-day — on the 
 authority, as it would seem, of persons who had grounds for 
 disseminating the report — that we were to come down to the 
 House this afternoon to witness the resignation of the right 
 honourable baronet at the head of the Grovemment. I con- 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard, 
 
SUGAR DUTIES, 18i4. 59 
 
 gratulate the ministry — ^of course I congratulate the country — 
 that instead of resigning an administration, the right honour- 
 able gentleman has only moved an amendment. Sir, there 
 has been an allusion to a case which is said to be analogous to 
 the present — the case I mean, of Lord Althorp, who, when 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, asked the House to reconsider a 
 vote it had come to on the subject of the Malt Tax. I was not 
 in the House at the time ; but 1 have read and heard of the 
 proceeding, and I know that it was held by men of both sides 
 to be a remarkable case — a ease the occiirrence of which was 
 attributed to the inexperience of a reconstructed assembly, and 
 of gentlemen not very learned in the ways of Parliament. The 
 vote on this occasion was generally felt, I beheve, to be inevit- 
 able ; but, at the same time, it was felt to be a vote that was 
 distressing, if not damaging to the character of all parties in the 
 House ; and it was a vote, I believe, which the members of 
 both the Grovernment and the Opposition felt to be only justi- 
 fied by the extremest exigency. Several years have elapsed since 
 that case occurred. It was left for the era of the present ' Con- 
 servative ' administration- — it was left for our own experience to 
 witness a state of public affairs only too analogous. Twice with- 
 in the present session have the ministry been driven to resort to 
 the precedent of this ' case of extreme urgency.' About a 
 month ago this House was called upon to rescind a resolution 
 on a subject of the deepest interest to the great body of the 
 nation : and for the first time since the Malt Tax vote, this 
 House submitted to that process which was previously regarded 
 with so much distrust and only submitted to from such over- 
 bearing necessity. 
 
 I cannot help thinking, Sir, that some mysterious influence 
 must be at work to place us, within a month, in precisely the 
 same position, and to put us before the country under circum- . 
 stances which I believe no one in this House, whether he be 
 on this side or the Opposition side, can describe as other than 
 degrading. It may be that the right honourable gentleman will 
 retain power by subjecting us to this stern process ; but I should 
 mistake the right honourable gentleman's character if I were to 
 suppose that he could greatly value a power which is only to be 
 
60 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 iuaaiiitained by means so extraordinary- — I doubt whether I may 
 not say, by means so nnconstitutional. I think the right 
 honourable gentleman should deign to consult a little more 
 the feelings of his supporters. I do not think he ought to drag 
 them unreasonably through the mire. He has already once 
 this session made them repeal a solemn decision at which they 
 had arrived, and now he comes down again and says, ' Unless you 
 rescind another important resolution, I will no longer take upon 
 myself the responsibility of conducting afifairs.' Now, I really 
 think to rescind one vote dmring the session is enough : I don't 
 I think in reason we ought to be called to endure this degradation 
 more than once a year. That should be prevented. The right 
 honourable baronet should introduce some Parliamentary tariff 
 for the regulation of our disapproval. The Government ought 
 to tell us to what point we might go — thus far, and no farther ; 
 there are the bounds within which you are to enjoy your Par- 
 liamentary independence, but the moment you pass them, you 
 must submit to public disgrace, or we must submit to private 
 life. Now, this is not the most agreeable way of conducting the 
 affairs of the country ; it is not the most constitutional. I 
 remember in 1841, when the right honourable baronet sup- 
 ported the motion of the noble lord the member for Liverpool, 
 he used these words. He said, ' I have never joined in the anti- 
 I slavery cry, and now I will not join in the cry of cheap sugar.' 
 I Two years have elapsed, and the right honourable gentleman 
 I has joined in the anti-slavery cry and has adopted the cry of 
 cheap sugar. But it seems that the right honourable baronet's 
 horror of slavery extends to every place except the benches 
 behind him. There the gang is still assembled, and there the 
 thong of the whip still sounds. Whatever may be the anti- 
 slavery repugnance of the right honourable gentleman, his 
 distaste would seem not to extend to this House. If the whip 
 were more sparing here, his conduct would be more consistent 
 with his professions. 
 
 After the vote of the other night became known and its 
 consequences were in some degree contemplated, there were 
 various rumours in circulation that the ministry had resigned, 
 and these reports I certainly cannot but consider proceeded 
 
SUGAE DUTIES, 1844. 61 
 
 from some who were authorised to circulate them ; but it now 
 appears from the right honourable gentleman's declaration that 
 it is not he or his colleagues who are to resign their offices, 
 but we, the majority of the House of Commons, who are to 
 resign our votes, and the country at large is to see the repre- 
 sentatives of the people again disgraced as they were on a 
 former occasion during the present session. That is the point 
 to which I think it important to direct attention. We are 
 called upon to rescind our votes a second time ; and, more than 
 this, we are called upon to do so under circumstances so pecu- 
 liar that no man whatever can entertain a doubt as to the 
 personal distress and even disgrace which will be entailed upon 
 him by his participation in such a proceeding. It will be the 
 better for the House, Sir, and far better for the right honour- 
 able gentleman at the head of Her Majesty's Grovernment, 
 that such a system as this should no longer prevail. I say 
 that the right honourable gentleman is deserving of a far 
 better position in the eye of the country than one which he 
 can only maintain by menacing his friends and by using the 
 arts of persuasion with his opponents. The right honourable 
 gentleman menaces us, and deals out threats to keep us to our 
 allegiance with him ; whilst he lavishes those arts of persuasion! 
 for which he has acquired so just a celebrity upon those who ' 
 form what he has chosen to term a combination, if not a con- 
 spiracy, against him. The right honourable gentleman came 
 into power upon the strength of our votes, but he would rely 
 for the permanence of his ministry upon his political opponents. 
 He may be right, he may even be to a certain degree success- 
 ful, in pursuing the line of conduct which he has adopted, 
 menacing his friends and cringing to his opponents, but I for 
 one am disposed to look upon it as a success neither tending to 
 the honour of the House nor to his own credit. I, therefore, i 
 for one must be excused if I declare my determination to give 
 my vote upon this occasion as I did in the former instance : 
 and as I do not follow the example of the honoiu-able and 
 gallant member near me (Sir H. Douglas), it will not subject 
 me to the imputation of having voted upon the former occasion 
 without thought or purpose. It only remains for me to declare, 
 
'62 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 after the mysterious hint which fell from the right honourable 
 baronet in the course of his speech, that if I, in common with 
 other honourable members, am called upon to appear again 
 upon the hustings I shall not at least be ashamed to do so, nor 
 shall I feel that I have weakened my claims upon the confidence 
 of my constituents by not changing my vote within forty-eight 
 hours at the menace of a minister. 
 
63 
 
 OPENING OF LETTERS, Feb. 28, 1845.' 
 
 [This is a continuation of the same complaint, the complaint of 
 Sir Robert Peel's language and demeanour towards the independent 
 section of his followers : a complaint which was endorsed not only 
 by the Opposition newspapers, but still more decidedly by the ' Times ' 
 on the occasion to which I have already referred. The question arose 
 in the previous year, in consequence of a petition presented by Mr. 
 Duncombefrom Mazzini and others complaining that their letters had 
 been opened at the General Post Office. A committee of inquiry was 
 appointed. But their report was considered so unsatisfactory that 
 on the meeting of Parliament in 1845 Mr. Duncombe moved for 
 another. The motion was defeated by a large majority, and he then 
 moved for the production of certain Post Office books and was again 
 defeated. On each occasion he was supported by Mr. Disraeli, who in 
 the second of his two speeches illustrated the conduct of Sir Robert 
 Peel in relation to the agricultural interest by an image which has 
 now become historical. It may seem at first sight perhaps that 
 there is little in common between free trade and the open- 
 ing of private letters. But Mr. Disraeli was complaining of Sir 
 Robert's demeanour towards the more independent members of his 
 own party, and thus was able to introduce his sarcasm in an apo- 
 strophe which did not seem irrelevant.] 
 
 ME. DISRAELI : Sir, the honourable member for Finsbury 
 has brought before the House his proposition in an in- 
 telligible shape. He has laid before the House the statement 
 of a personal grievance, and he has distinctly affirmed to us 
 that in making that statement he makes no personal attack upon 
 any individual. Sir, I should have hardly thought that it was 
 necessary to make that declaration, had it not been for the 
 associations connected with this motion, which perhaps origin- 
 
 ■ This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
64: SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 ated in other debates to which I myself mean not to refer. If 
 the case of the last general warrant ^ that was issued by a 
 Secretary of State be compared with the last Post Office warrant 
 that was issued by a Secretary of State, I think we may clearly 
 in the parallel discover that no personal imputation need be 
 appealed to in order to vindicate a public right. Sir, there is 
 not the slightest doubt that the last general warrant issued by 
 a Secretary of State was an act of tyranny, an act of oppression, 
 an act essentially iniquitous ; but no one pretends that the 
 Secretary of State who issued that general warrant was a tyrant, 
 an oppressor, a man eminently unjust. On the contrary. Lord 
 Halifax ^ was a very good sort of man. Society under these 
 circumstances steps in and settles the rule which decides these 
 questions. It acknowledges that usage is the moral vindication 
 of the minister; but while it frees the minister from any 
 personal stigma, it does not emancipate him from the conse- 
 quence of an illegal act. That is the question which now 
 engages the attention of the House and interests the nation. 
 "We are not to seek what may be the cause that has brought it 
 forward ; I give the honourable gentleman who has brought it 
 forward credit for the same purity of motive as the minister 
 appealed to, and I must say I was much surprised that a 
 minister of the Crown should ever have risen in this House 
 and said that the question was only prompted by personal 
 motives. Sir, it was only in answer to such an imputation that 
 I ever myself stated that no personal feeling in this respect 
 could influence me, and made one of those disclaimers which 
 are generally disagreeable and inconvenient, but which, after 
 all, are only addressed to the individual concerned. I am 
 myself perfectly satisfied that, whatever ebullition of feeling 
 came from another quarter, the person in question did not 
 misconceive my motive. The honourable gentleman, the 
 member for Finsbury, has placed the case neatly and com- 
 pletely before us. He says, ' If my letters have been stopped 
 and opened by the Government, the officers of the Crown and 
 Post Office have committed a breach of privilege, unless they 
 
 1 The warrant on which Wilkes was apprehended in 1763. 
 ''■ Home Secretary at the time. 
 
OPENING OF LETTERS BY GOVERNMENT, 1815. fiS 
 
 have done so upon the warrant of a minister.' If they have done 
 so, let them produce the warrant , he will then be in a position 
 to appeal to the House and the country for the vindication of 
 his character, or to the courts of law, to decide whether that 
 warrant is a legal instrument or not. 
 
 Sir, I am at a loss to comprehend what answer can be given 
 to that direct appeal. This is the view naturally taken by the 
 honourable gentleman in his individual case. He feels the in- 
 dividual grievance — he naturally looks to the individual re- 
 medy. All that he wants is the warrant. All that he wants 
 is an opportunity of vindicating his innocence, or allowing 
 others to prove his guilt. I believe that the country requires 
 more. I believe that the country is anxious that the warrant 
 should be produced — not merely that it should vindicate the 
 honour and conduct of the honourable gentleman, or the re- 
 verse ; but that an opportunity should be afforded to the 
 subjects of the Queen to say whether that instrument is a 
 legal one ; and how is it possible for any person to have 
 that opportunity unless the House interferes, as it is requested 
 in the present instance ? It is not asked to exercise its pre- 
 rogative and privilege to vindicate any gentleman who cannot 
 vindicate himself by law. The situation of the honourable 
 gentleman is that which may be the situation of any member 
 of this House, of any subject of the Queen, to-morrow. It 
 is exactly this, 'Will you put me in a position worse than 
 the meanest subject of the realm is placed in ? "Will you say 
 that I have experienced a wrong and that I have not a re- 
 medy ? ' Now, Sir, that is the question, I believe, in which 
 the country is interested. That it is also interested in the 
 question whether this power should be exercised under any 
 circumstances, no one can doubt. Some gentlemen may rise 
 and say that this is a powei-that ought always to be at the dis- 
 position of Government ; some may say that it is disgraceful to 
 this country that foreign nations should know we exercise it ; 
 and others may rise and state that that can hardly be the case, 
 since every foreign nation does itself exercise it ; but there is 
 this distinction — though foreign nations always do exercise this 
 power, foreign nations never believed that England did. It 
 
 VOL. I. p 
 
66 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 resolves itself into this question — are you content to be ruled 
 by a popular government, or do you wish to be ruled • by a 
 government of police ? No doubt a popular government has 
 many inconveniences. No doubt it would be much bettter 
 that the question of the Sugar Duties, for instance, should be 
 settled without any loss of time. It is a great inconvenience 
 to trade, as the right honourable gentleman (Sir Robert Peel) 
 has often told us, that there should be any discussion on the 
 subject. I don't doubt that if the question were settled by 
 the right honourable gentleman himself, in his cabinet, it would 
 be equally well, perhaps better. This is one of the incon- 
 veniences we endure for popular government, and so it is with 
 reference to the correspondence of individuals. You have a 
 popular government, you have a strong local system ; you may 
 by not prying into the correspondence of individuals be sub- 
 jected to great calamities. You may have Bristol burnt, as 
 Bristol was burnt ; you may have Birmingham assailed, as you 
 had it assailed. But the country strikes the balance. It agrees to 
 suffer those great injuries for the sake of a popular government, 
 instead of a government of police ; and the country, after all, 
 must decide it. 
 
 Now, Sir, I believe that is the impartial view as regards 
 the general question. As regards the country, though sympa- 
 thising with the honourable gentleman who presses the case 
 of his individual wrong, they desire also an opportunity to 
 decide whether this warrant of the Secretary of State is a legal 
 warrant. They wish to have it decided as the question of 
 general warrants was decided ; and if it be a legal warrant, 
 then it becomes an open question fit for discussion, whether 
 such a power should be allowed in a free country to subsist. 
 Sir, the honourable gentleman who has introduced the question 
 to-night seems, in some remarks he has made, to think that an 
 impartial discussion of the question is impossible in this House. 
 Certainly, when I recollect the last debate, to which I need not 
 refer, I am not surprised, from the elaborate misconception of 
 former debates, that the honourable gentleman should fear this 
 discussion should not be free. But I cannot believe, although 
 the honourable gentleman fears, that any intimidation is pur- 
 
OPENlNa OF LETTERS BY GOVERNMENT, 1845. 67 
 
 posely enacted in this House ; but there is not the slightest 
 doubt that on both occasions now before us, and upon others 
 which have occurred within the last two or three years, there 
 have been misunderstandings, founded on the misconceptions 
 — perhaps mutual misconceptions — of the relations that subsist 
 between the leader of a party and the supporters of a party. 
 Sir, I may allude to these circumstances, because the honourable 
 gentleman seems to think that on this occasion he is not secure 
 of a fair discussion of this question ; and because, unless there 
 is a correct understanding on this head, I almost despair of his 
 receiving that fair discussion. When the balanced state of 
 parties ceased in this House, it must have been pretty evident 
 to those who had any idea of the constituent elements of such 
 an assembly, that what we call party feeling, though for a 
 short time from custom preserved, would eventually evaporate. 
 There were very few, if any, party questions, and it was pretty 
 clear that in a popular assembly of more than six hundred 
 persons, questions would constantly arise in which gentlemen, 
 though sitting on different sides of the House, without compro- 
 mising the elementary principles of their politics, would very 
 often divide in the same lobby, and very often in discussions 
 take the same side. An honourable gentleman on the other 
 side gets up and proposes a motion which, at the first blush, 
 does not seem to call in question any of the marked principles 
 of either party ^if two parties, indeed, still exist. Some gen-, 
 tleman on this side thinks it a legitimate opportunity to express 
 his opinions on the question ; he happens to support the 
 motion : the Grovernment barely attend to the debate — treat 
 it, perhaps, with indifference or carelessness ; the debate trails 
 on ; comes into a second night ; certain circumstances occur 
 which portend a division, which, I will not say, might be em- 
 barrassing — that would be impossible — but disagreeable to tne 
 Government. Immediately this takes place, a certain system 
 is brought into play which may prevent, perhaps, that fair 
 discussion the honourable gentleman would seem to despair of, 
 and which I can hardly believe can long be permitted to subsist 
 in this House. 
 
 Sir, it seems to me that the system is established on 
 
 r 2 
 
68 SPEIICHES OF THE EARL OF BEAOONSFIELD. 
 
 two principles, or rather processes — immendo and imputation 
 — the insinuation of base motive, and the allegation of factious 
 conduct. Generally it develops itself in this manner. There 
 are some indications of irritability on the Treasury Bench, 
 almost immediately followed by some impatience among the 
 immediate adherents of the Grovemment ; and then, as I have 
 observed in several debates, some gentleman gets up — an 
 avowed adherent, or perhaps a secret supporter of the Grovem- 
 ment — and instantly we have imputations ' of mean motives — 
 of personal motives — I should say, of corrupt motives — against 
 every gentleman who is perhaps speaking, or about to vote, in 
 opposition to the Grovemment, although the question may not 
 be one that involves any party principle, or any decided prin- 
 ciple whatever — a mere matter of practice and detail. Now, 
 Sir, in this state of affairs, probably at the end of the second or 
 third night of debate, when a course so injiu-ious has naturally 
 produced acerbity in many quarters, perhaps expressions of that 
 bitterness, the sincerity of which is not to be doubted-, then at 
 the right moment the right honourable gentleman (Sir Eobert 
 Peel) rises to cap the climax, and, probably having just been 
 assured by one of his aides-de-camp that he is secure of a greater 
 majority than ever, he makes a passionate appeal to his sup- 
 porters, as if the strong Grovemment were in the very throes of 
 dissolution, and uses language which, in my opinion, is suscep- 
 tible only of one interpretation— that some gentleman on this 
 side of the House would, to embarrass the Grovemment, descend 
 to political collusion and Parliamentary intrigue. Now, Sir, I 
 protest against the system. The system is not founded in jus- 
 tice or fair play. It is not founded upon a real understanding 
 
 ' When Mr. Disraeli first spoke against Sir Robert Peel on August 9, 1843, 
 in condemnation of his Irish policy, the ' Morning Herald ' published a leading 
 article in which appeared the following sentence : — 
 
 ' We regret to express a harsh opinion of Mr. Disraeli, but a perusal and 
 reperusal of his speech has left on our minds a very strong impression that it 
 was the result of personal disappointment rather than of strong conviction, 
 and that had Mr. Disraeli been made President of the Board of Trade, it 
 is more than probable he would have found in Sir Eobert Peel " the great 
 minister " he sighs after.' 
 
 Such, however, was not the view taken of his conduct by the leading journal, 
 an independent supporter of Sir Robert, nor yet by the ' Morning Chronicle.' 
 
OPENING OF LETTERS BY GOVERNMENT, 1845. 69 
 
 of the principles on which party connections should exist. It 
 is, in fact, a system of tyranny, and as degrading to those who 
 exercise it as to those who endure it. 
 
 I take a recent case, because fresh in our memory. When the 
 honourable gentleman (Mr. Buncombe) the other night called 
 our attention to the instance of his grievance, he brought for- 
 ward a motion which on the face of it everyone must see would 
 be opposed by the Government which exists, and the G-overn- 
 ment that preceded them. It was, therefore, taken out of the 
 category of party questions. There was a general impression 
 in the House that it was extremely desirable that the decision 
 of the Committee should be supported. That impression was 
 not peculiar to this side of the House. An honourable gentle- 
 man, the member for Hull (Sir. J. Hanmer), the independence 
 of whose character is, I believe, universally acknowledged, who 
 is certainly as incapable of political intrigue as any gentleman 
 in the House, spoke in the debate without concert or combina- 
 tion, forming his opinion merely on the statement of the 
 honourable member for Finsbury, and being himself particularly 
 inclined to support the decision of the Committee ; but he 
 thought it was impossible that this individual instance of the 
 honourable member could be passed over. He expressed his 
 opinion in a frank, manly manner. 
 
 It so happened, as probably it will often happen in a popular 
 assembly of this kind, that circumstances during the debate 
 changed to that degree that there was a chance of a division, 
 not embarrassing^ but probably more disagreeable to the 
 Government than they at first anticipated, if they condescended 
 to think of a division in the first instance. Well, immediately 
 all the powers of the system were put into action. The right 
 honourable gentleman was brought forward to sanction it by 
 his great example. The division is called for. Gentlemen are 
 brought up from the country to support an endangered Govern- 
 ment tbat never was in peril, and gain a great party triumph 
 when there was not a single party principle at stake, not a 
 single party principle in' danger. Now, Sir, I really think there 
 ought to be a more Hberal sense of party connection than that 
 which the Treasury Bench at this moment recognises ; and I 
 
YO SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 think the right honourable gentleman at the head of the 
 Grovemment is the last minister who should assume to be a 
 political martinet. I can conceive a minister in a position in 
 which he requires devotion from his party ; I can suppose a 
 minister having a very small majority ; I can suppose he holds 
 power merely in deference to the wishes of his party ; he has 
 a right to say to his supporters, ' I have to fight a very difiBcult 
 game ; I would much rather give up power ; still I hold on ; 
 but you must be ready at all times to support me with devo- 
 tion.' That is not the position of the right honourable gentle- 
 man. His position is quite the reverse. He has a very large 
 party to support him, and an Opposition before him which, 
 though distinguished doubtless by very eminent talents, and 
 numerically far from contemptible, is not, nevertheless, dis- 
 tinguished for its power of cohesion. The right honourable 
 gentleman is in a position which really would allow him to be in- 
 dulgent. It is very easy for him to turn round and say, ' What 
 can be more treacherous than this — to be attacked ' on the right 
 flank? I am prepared to meet the foe before me ; no one ever 
 saw me quail.' The right honourable gentleman forgets that 
 the foe before him never wished to fight him. He may sometimes 
 be assailed on his right flank, but while he boasts of his courage 
 and determination to conquer, the right honourable gentleman 
 forgets that the victory is very easy when nobody opposes him. 
 There is another reason why he should not adopt this 
 tone — he should not forget that, after all, a great many of his 
 supporters were elected on the hustings uader very different 
 circumstances to those under which they sit here. Eeally a 
 little philosophical consideration from so great a statesman 
 under such circumstances is the least we might expect. I 
 admit that I for one was sent here by my constituents to sit on 
 this side. He may object to me, although I think he has no 
 great occasion to object, that I am sometimes in a different 
 
 lobby to himself ; but I was sent to swell a Tory majority to 
 
 support a Tory ministry. Whether a Tory ministry exists or 
 not I do not pretend to decide ; but I am bound to believe that 
 
 ' Sir Eobert in a previous speech had complained of being assailed in 
 flank. 
 
OPENING OF LETTEES "BY GOVERNMENT, 1846. 71 
 
 the Tory majority still remains, and therefore I do not think 
 that it is the majority that should cross the House, but only 
 the ministry. I hope that the right honourable gentleman, on 
 reflection, will take a more condescending and charitable view 
 of our conduct than he has hitherto been pleased to do. I am 
 sure myself I never misinterpret the conduct of the right 
 honourable gentleman. I know that there are some who think 
 that he is looking out for new allies. I never believed anything 
 of the kind. The position of the right honourable gentleman 
 is clear and precise. I do not believe he is looking to any 
 coalition, although many of my constituents do. The right 
 honourable gentleman has only to remain exactly where he is. 
 The right honourable gentleman caught the Whigs bathing, 
 and walked away with their clothes.' He has. left them in the 
 full enjoyment of their liberal position, and he is himself a 
 strict conservative of their garments. I cannot conceive that 
 the right honourable gentleman will ever desert his party ; they 
 seem never to desert him. There never was a man yet who 
 has less need to find new friends. I, therefore^ hope all these 
 rumours will cease. I look on the right honourable gentleman 
 
 ' There is a fable in the fifth volume of the Craftsman,, called ' Truth and 
 Falsehood,' in which occurs the following passage, which may or may not 
 have suggested the above illustration : — 
 
 Once on a time, in sunshine weather, 
 
 Falsehood and Truth walked out together. 
 
 The neighbouring woods and lawns- to view, 
 
 As opposites will sometimes do. 
 
 Through many a blooming meadi they pass'd, 
 
 And at a brook arrived at last.. 
 
 At length quoth Falsehood^ ' Sister Tru-fch,' 
 
 (For so she called her from her youth,) 
 
 ' What if, to shun yon sultry beam. 
 
 We bathe in this delightful stream ; 
 
 The bottom smooth, the water clear, 
 
 And there's no prying shepherd near ? ' 
 
 ' With all my heart,' the nynaph replied. 
 
 And threw her snowy robe aside, 
 
 Stript herself naked to the skin, 
 
 And with a spring leapt headlong in. 
 
 Falsehood more leisurely undress'd 
 
 And, laying by her tawdry vest, 
 
 Tricked herself out in Truth's array. 
 
 And cross the meadows tript away. 
 
72 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 as a man who has tamed the shrew of Liberalism by her own 
 tactics. He is the political Petruchio, who has outbid you all. 
 If we could only induce the right honourable gentleman, there- 
 fore, to take a larger or more liberal view of his Parliamentary 
 position than he seems to adopt in moments too testy for so 
 great a man to indulge in, he would spare us some imputations 
 which I assure him are really painful. If the right honourable 
 gentleman may find it sometimes convenient to reprove a sup- 
 porter on his right flank,' perhaps we deserve it — I, for one, am 
 quite prepared to bow to the rod; but really, if the right 
 honourable gentleman, instead of having recourse to obloquy, 
 would only stick to quotation, he may rely on it it would be a 
 safer weapon. It is one he always wields with the hand of a 
 master ; and when he does appeal to any authority, in prose or 
 verse, he is sure to be successful, partly because he seldom 
 quotes a passage that has not previously received the meed of 
 Parliamentary approbation, and partly and principally because 
 his quotations are so happy. The right honourable gentleman 
 knows what the introduction of a great name does in debate, 
 how important is its effect, and occasionally how electrical. 
 He never refers to any author who is not great, and some- 
 times loved — Canning, for example. That is a name never 
 to be mentioned, I am sure, in the House of Commons without 
 emotion. "We all admire his genius ; we all, at least most of 
 us, deplore his imtimely end ; and we all sympathise with him 
 in his fierce struggle with supreme prejudice and sublime 
 mediocrity, with inveterate foes and with -' candid friends.' 
 The right honourable gentleman may be sure that a quotation 
 
 ' To understand the conclusion of the speech, it is necessary to bear in 
 mind the course which the debate had taken. On February 10, Mr. Buncombe 
 moved for his committee. On the 21st, Lord Howick moved an amendment, 
 which was seconded by Mr. Disraeli, in reply to whom Sir Eobert Peel quoted 
 the well-known lines of Canning : 
 
 Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe. 
 Firm I can meet, perhaps may turn, the blow ; 
 But of all plagues, good heaven, thy wrath can send. 
 Save me, oh save me, from a candid friend. 
 
 The amendment was defeated by 240 votes to 145 ; but on the 28th Mr. Dun- 
 combe returned to the charge, when Mr. Disraeli delivered the above speech. 
 
OPENING OF LETTERS BY GOVEENMENT, 1845. 73 
 
 from such an authority will always tell. Some lines, for exam- 
 ple, upon friendship, written by Mr. Canning, and quoted by 
 the right honourable gentleman ! The theme, the poet, the 
 speaker — what a felicitious combination ! Its effect in debate 
 must be overwhelming ; and I am sure, were it addressed to 
 me, all that would remain for me would be thus publicly to 
 congratulate the right honourable gentleman, not only on his 
 ready memory, but on his courageous conscience.' 
 
 ' That is, on his having the courage to apply the words of Canning to 
 Mr. Disraeli's treatment of himself when his conscience must tell him how 
 much more applicable they were to his own treatment of Mr. Canning. I am 
 ofEering no opinion on the merits of this controversy : I only wish to make 
 clear the meaning of the text. Sir Kobert said, in reply, that if Mr. Disraeli 
 had wished to withdraw his confidence from him on account of his relations 
 with Mr. Canning, he need not have waited for him to make that quotation ; 
 an answer which can hardly be described as crushing or terrific, the epithets 
 ■ bestowed on it by his admirers. 
 
74 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, March 17, 1845.1 
 
 [On motion of Mr. Miles, that in the application of surplus 
 revenue tow^ards relieving the burden of the country, due regard 
 should be had to the necessity of affording relief to the agricultural 
 interest. After enumerating a number of Conservative members who 
 in 1836 had supported a similar motion, brought forward by the 
 Marquis of Chandos, and on whom therefore the member for Somer- 
 setshire had a right to rely that evening, Mr. Disraeli wound up 
 with another philippic against the Government not less memor- 
 able than his speech on Mr. Duncombe's motion.] 
 
 MR. DISRAELI: When I ineffectually attempted, Sir, to 
 catch your eye, after the conclusion of the speech of the 
 noble lord ^ the member for London, I would then have pre- 
 sumed to offer some considerations to the House on the ques- 
 tion respecting protection to native industry which that noble 
 lord mooted ; but such considerations I cannot presume to 
 offer at the present hour of the night, and therefore, I am 
 afraid, I must restrict myself to that principle of discussion 
 laid down by my honourable friend the member for Winchester, 
 and confine myself strictly to the motion before the House. 
 But watching, as we all must, with great interest, the forma- 
 tion of the character of an individual so eminent as the noble 
 lord, who has been, as he informed us to-night, thirty years in 
 this House, but appears not yet to have arrived at a result on 
 the great question which now interests the country, I, who 
 would not presume to place my opinions, formed on much more 
 recent experience than those of the noble lord, against his, 
 may yet be permitted to say that, after all, one truth, I think, 
 is perhaps evident from these discussions — that protection is 
 not a principle, but an expedient. If it be the latter, it must 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permisrion of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
 '^ Lord John Russell. 
 
AGEICULTURAL DISTRESS, 18-to. 75 
 
 depend on circumstances, and, if it depend on circumstances, 
 the matter cannot be settled by those quotations of abstract 
 dogmas which have been cited by the noble lord. However, 
 we shall all have ample opportunity to discuss this great ques- 
 tion, which is now the question of the age and of the country. 
 By our speeches or by oxir votes, either in this House or at the 
 hustings, sooner or later, we must come to the test on this 
 great question, 'Will you have protection or will you have, not 
 free trade, for that is not the alternative, but free imports ? ' 
 I cannot forget the speech recently delivered by the honourable 
 member for Stockport.^ That, indeed, is not easily to be for- 
 gotten by anyone who listened to it. I will not therefore say 
 that there is much more to be said on both sides of this question 
 than we have yet been favoured with ; but I will say, with the 
 greatest respect to those honourable gentlemen whom I see near 
 me, that I do believe that there is much more to be said on one 
 side of the question than has yet been offered to the House. 
 
 I shall not presume, however, to enter into the question 
 at present. If, indeed, I held the position of some who at 
 such an hour as this might rise, but who, however anxiously 
 expected, yet do not favour us with their observations, I might 
 venture to enter a field so vast ; but I may be permitted to 
 say, that before we come to settle this great question, we must 
 grapple with the important point of waging war against hostile 
 tariffs. We must ascertain how far ft-ee imports would affect 
 wages and prices in this country ; how far these again would 
 operate on the distribution of the precious metals ; and how far 
 the distribution of the precious metals would affect your power 
 of maintaining your standard of value. I am not offering these 
 observations in a controversial tone to the House, but am merely 
 indicating that before we come to that question, which must be 
 settled, there are great considerations which must be entered 
 into in an imimpassioned and, I trust, in a searching manner. 
 
 But I now come to the question before the House — the 
 
 question which the honourable member for Winchester, who 
 
 advocated with such fervour and ability his opposition to this 
 
 motion, wishes the present discussion to be narrowed to. I will 
 
 . ' Mr. Cobden. - 
 
76 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFJELD. 
 
 meet him on the ground he has chosen. We have a motion, 
 the terms of which are familiar to every gentleman present- 
 it is to take into consideration in the distribution of the surplus 
 revenue the claims of the agricultural interest. This is not a 
 new motion. It has been introduced to this House before, 
 when honourable gentlemen now on this (the ministerial) side 
 of the House were in Opposition. Under identical circum- 
 stances a similar motion was then proposed. What took place 
 under those circumstances ought to be some guide to us as the 
 result of the present motion. The motion brought forward at 
 the time I am referring to was the motion not of a triumphant 
 but of a powerful Opposition — an Opposition distinguished by 
 the quality of cohesion. In 1836 a powerful Opposition, wish- 
 ing to ti'y a fall with, I will not say a feeble, but at any rate a 
 not-confident Government, selected this motion as a point of 
 battle on which contending parties might try their force. The 
 motion was proposed by a noble friend of mine, who is now a 
 member of the other House — the noble lord the then member 
 for Buckinghamshire : and after a discussion, not of very great 
 length, a division took place, which did not shake the Govern^ 
 ment to the centre, but made it tremble. In 1836 the majo- 
 rity was not much above thirty in favour of the administration 
 on a vital question. The motions were identical ; I believe 
 the phraseology of the resolution of 1836 was identical with the 
 present ; and I should suppose therefore, that the honourable 
 member for Somersetshire must have reckoned in ' bringing 
 forward a resolution which on a previous occasion had united 
 together a great number of supporters, many with distinguished 
 names, on a successful issue to his proposition to-night. 
 
 I cannot doubt that the honourable member for Somerset- 
 shire, looking to the list embalmed in those records to which we 
 all appeal, and reading the names of those who voted in 1836 
 with my noble friend, must not only have anticipated equal, but 
 even greater success, for this is a Conservative House of Com- 
 mons, and the other was a Whig House of Commons. The 
 honourable member must have reckoned on receiving a com- 
 manding support in bringing forward this motion. There is 
 the right honourable gentleman the Secretary for Ireland 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, 1845. 77 
 
 (Sir T. Fremantle) — he voted under similar circumstances 
 for an identical motion. I know the right honourable gentle- 
 man too well for a moment to doubt that he will vote the same 
 way to-night. At the time to which I am alluding, 1836, 
 there was a budget, and there was a surplus, and the agricul- 
 tural interest came forward and said, ' Are we not to be con- 
 sidered ? ' The right honourable gentleman the Secretary for 
 Ireland thought that they ought to be considered ; and I am 
 not at all surprised at it, as he has always been a friend to 
 agriculture. I remember having had the honour of meeting 
 the right honourable gentleman in the presence of his consti- 
 tuents. I cannot forget the occurrence, because the presi-' 
 dent of the meeting happened to be the noble individual 
 who brought forward this very resolution in 1836 ; and I 
 remember the speech which the right honourable gentle- 
 man then made. Those were ' dreary moments ' — days of 
 Opposition, when there was no chance of getting into power 
 unless you were borne forward by an agricultural cry. I 
 know the feelings of the constituency of Buckingham. They 
 were satisfied, and justly so, with so accomplished a representa- 
 tive ; they were satisfied with his sympathy in Opposition ; and 
 they knew when he got into power they would have a friend on 
 whom they could count. I should like to know whether, if the 
 constituency of Buckingham had been told that a resolution 
 would be brought forward, at a later period than 1836, similar 
 in its nature to the motion of 1836, and that then their repre- 
 sentative, being then a minister, would be found to vote against 
 it, they would have believed such a tale. Of course they would 
 not; and of course the right honourable gentleman the 
 Secretary for Ireland would not vote against this motion to- 
 night. The noble individual (the Duke of Buckingham) who 
 presided at the dinner to which I have referred, could not, I am 
 sure, suppose for one moment that the right honourable gen- 
 tleman would vote against the motion, for that noble individual, 
 finding that the policy of the Government was contrary to that 
 policy which he had advocated in Opposition, quitted office. 
 
 Therefore I think we may count on the right honoiu-able 
 gentleman the Secretary for Ireland supporting this motion 
 
78 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 to-night. I do not think that we need despair of the 
 support of the Vice-President of the Board of Trade (Sir. Gr. 
 Clerk), for he also supported a similar motion under similar 
 circumstances. In 1836, there being a budget and a surplus, 
 the right honourable gentleman the member for Stamford con- 
 ceived that the agricultural interest, of which he was the 
 champion, had a right to be considered. No doubt he too will 
 now vote in favour of the present motion. There is also a noble 
 lord the member for a division in Nottinghamshire (Lord 
 Lincoln), no less a person, indeed, than a member of the 
 cabinet. He was also of opinion in Opposition, and at that 
 time, that if there were a surplus the agricultural interest should 
 be considered. If the noble lord was of that opinion when in 
 Opposition, of course now that he is a member of the Govern- 
 ment — a Government brought into existence by the agricultural 
 interest — he will divide in favour of the present motion. I 
 believe I might pick up a few Lords of the Treasury, but I will 
 let them pass. I must not omit, however, the gallant officer 
 the Clerk of the Ordnance (Captain Boldero), the member for 
 Chippenham, a district so distinguished for its agricultural 
 feeling. All these gentlemen the honourable member for 
 Somersetshire surely counted on when he entered the House 
 to-night. It is, however, but just to state (and I am sure that 
 all the agricultural constituencies from Buckingham to Chippen- 
 ham will feel doubly grateful for it, when they read the division 
 list to-morrow and find their representatives were present)— it 
 is, I repeat, but right to state that the right honourable gentle- 
 man at the head of the Government was, on the occasion I have 
 referred to, of a different opinion from those other honourable 
 gentlemen whom I have mentioned. He acted in a different 
 manner with respect to that motion ; on the division he went 
 into the Whig lobby alone of all his party, whom he left united 
 in favour of the motion. The right honourable baronet did 
 behave throughout in the most handsome manner. He ex- 
 pressed no annoyance at the indiscreet effort of his party, which 
 had almost made him a minister ; he did not give them a 
 lecture ; he did not say, notwithstanding that they went into a 
 different division lobby from their leader, they had broken out 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, 1845., 79 
 
 into open rebellion. The right honourable baronet preserved 
 his consistency, and kept on the verj- best terms with his 
 party. 
 
 That being the state of the case, I have no doubt the right 
 honourable gentleman will vote against the motion to-night ; 
 following the precedent of that time, he will treat his imme- 
 diate supporters with the same affability as he did before. 
 These are facts. We may quote ' Hansard ' by the line to 
 prove them. They are facts so notorious, and so fresh in the 
 memory of every gentleman, that it is unnecessary to repeat 
 them. This is sticking to the question, as the honourable 
 member for Winchester requires. I entirely differ from my 
 agricultural friends around me, though I make these observa- 
 tions, in their view of the conduct of the right honourable 
 gentleman ; nothing is more easy, when your constituents are 
 dissatisfied, than yourselves to grumble against the right 
 honourable gentleman. I believe the right honourable gentle- 
 man has done more for agriculture than any minister or 
 government has done for any quarter of a centm-y. That is 
 my calm deliberate opinion, and placed as I am in momentary 
 collision with the Treasury Bench, I am bound to make this 
 admission. ' Hear ! Hear ! ' as the honourable member says. I 
 am sincerely prepared to maintain that cheer. Why, what has 
 the right-honourable gentleman not done for agriculture ? Before 
 the meeting of Parliament, the right honourable gentleman 
 reconstructed his cabinet, and left out the Minister of Trade. 
 There was a great compliment to agriculture ! It was the most 
 marked thing I know. The agriculturists, then, ought to be 
 satisfied. And yet they complain. They complain of the 
 Corn Law, which they supported ; the accuse they Tariff, which 
 was passed at all events with their connivance ; they inveigh 
 against the Canada Corn Bill, which, I beg to tell the noble 
 member for London, I did not vote for : they complain of all 
 this. Yet how unreasonable ! Can they forget that the right 
 honourable gentleman has expelled from the cabinet the 
 Minister of Commerce, and so made a decided demonstration in 
 favour of agriculture, for which agriculturists should ever be 
 grateful ? What do they want ? Not this tax to be taken off, 
 
80 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 or this act to be done. No, they complain of the ' conduct ' of 
 the right honourable gentleman. 
 
 There is no doubt a difference in the right honourable gentle- 
 man's demeanour as leader of the Opposition and as minister of 
 the Crown. But that's the old story ; you must not contrast too 
 strongly the hours of com-tship with the years of possession. 
 'Tis very true that the right honourable gentleman's conduct is 
 different. I remember him making his protection speeches. 
 They were the best speeches I ever heard. It was a great thing 
 to hear the right honourable gentleman say, ' I would rather be 
 the leader of the gentlemen of England than possess the conii- 
 dence of sovereigns.' That was a grand thing. "We don't hear 
 much of ' the gentlemen of England ' now. But what of that ? 
 They have the pleasures of memory — the charms of remini- 
 scences. They were his first love, and though he may not kneel 
 to them now as in the hour of passion, still they can recall the 
 past; and nothing is more useless or unwise than these scenes of 
 crimination and reproach, for we know that in all these cases, 
 when the beloved object has ceased to charm, it is in vain to 
 appeal to the feelings. You know that this is true. Every man 
 almost has gone through it. My honourable friends reproach 
 the right honourable gentleman. The right honourable gentle- 
 baan does what he can to keep them quiet ; he sometimes takes 
 refuge in arrogant silence, and sometimes he treats them with 
 haughty frigidity ; and if they knew anything of human nature 
 they would take the hint and shut their mouths. But they 
 won't. And what then happens ? What happens under all 
 such circumstances ? The right honourable gentleman, being 
 compelled to interfere, sends down his valet, who says in the 
 genteelest manner, 'We can have no whining here.' And that, 
 Sir, is exactly the case of the great agricultural interest — that 
 beauty which everybody wooed, and one deluded. There is a 
 fatality in such charms, and we now seem to approach the 
 catastrophe of her career. Protection appears to be in about the 
 same condition that Protestantism was in 1828. The country 
 will draw its moral. For my part, if we are to have free trade, 
 I, who honour genius, prefer that such measures should be 
 proposed by the honourable member for Stockport, than by one 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, 1845. 81 
 
 ■who, through skilful Parliamentary manoeuvres, has tampered 
 with the generous confidence of a great people and of a great 
 party. For myself, I care not what may be the result. Dis- 
 solve, if you please, the Parliament you have betrayed, and 
 appeal to the people, who, I believe, mistrust you. For me 
 there remains this at least — the opportunity of expressing thus 
 publicly my belief that a Conservative Grpvernment is an 
 organised hypocrisy. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
82 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 MA.YNOOTH, AprU 11, 1845.» 
 
 [On April 3, Sir Robert Peel introduced his Bill for increasing 
 the grant to Maynooth from 9,000Z. a year to 30,000Z. In the course 
 of his remarks he dwelt on the poverty-stricken aspect of the college 
 under existing conditions, and the wretched plight of the students, 
 who had to be maintained at an expense of only 23Z. a piece, while 
 it was found impossible to furnish them all with even separate 
 beds. Sir Robert contended that if the increased grant were 
 objected to as a violation of principle, the existing grant ought to be 
 withdrawn on the same ground. Mr. Disraeli, on the second reading, 
 made great fun of the proposed increase, which would give each student 
 281. a year instead of 231. But he did not touch the question of 
 principle. He took the Maynooth grant as one out of numerous 
 instances in which the Conservative Government had stultified its 
 former professions, and he urged upon the House the impossibility of 
 keeping up the system of party if this example were generally followed. 
 Without excusing the acerbity which Mr. Disraeli threw into his 
 remarks, we may recognise the truth which they contain. Party is 
 based on the supposition that the balance of the constitution is pre- 
 served by the conflict of two opposing theories. When the champions 
 of the one adopt the policy of the other they disturb the machinery 
 by which the whole system works. Were this to happen often the 
 result would follow which Mr. Disraeli deprecated : the constitution 
 would capsize. Exceptional emergencies may justify the temporary 
 neglect of a rule which is essential to its safety. But the experi- 
 ment is hazardous: whUe the injury which it is liable to inflict on 
 the political faith and morals of those whom it afiects should increase 
 our unwillingness to sanction it. The meaning of Mr. DisraeU's 
 reference to the difference between an ecclesiastical establishment 
 in the days of Mr. Perceval and in the days of Sir Robert Peel 
 is more obscure. He may have intended that the precedent set by 
 the endowment of Maynooth was less dangerous under the old system 
 than it was under the new ; when the theory of Church and State was 
 still intact, than when it had been infringed by the legislation of 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debatei by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
MAYNOOTH, 1845. 83 
 
 1828 and 1829. Mr. Disraeli said on a subsequent occasion that bis 
 speech and vote on the Maynooth Bill broke up the Young England 
 party.] 
 
 MR. DISRAELI said : Sir, I should not have intruded for a 
 moment between you and the noble lord ' just now, had I 
 the slightest idea that he intended to have caught your eye ; but 
 the amendment having been withdrawn, I imagined, and the 
 supposition is very genera,l on this side of the House, that we 
 should not have been honoured with any declaration of opinion 
 from gentlemen opposite. But I am extremely glad that the 
 noble lord has had an opportunity of expressing his opinion on 
 the subject. I trust he does not for a moment imagine that I 
 rise to say anything injurious to his creed, which I respect, or 
 anything offensive to himself and his co-religionists, with 
 whom, in many respects, I sympathise. I come to the speech 
 of the right honourable gentleman the member for Newark.'^ 
 My first impression when I listened to that able address was 
 surprise that the right honourable gentleman had passed the 
 gangway to deliver it. It seemed to be worthy of the Treasury 
 Bench which this evening he criticised. It seemed to me that 
 while the right honourable gentleman informed us that though 
 he supported the present Bill, it was not for the reasons which 
 were adduced by his late right honourable chief; yet never- 
 theless, had he been in his position, and had he introduced the 
 Bill himself, he might have brought forward, perhaps, unanswer- 
 able arguments in its favour ; and, deeply sensible of what he 
 styled the circumstances of the case, he might, perhaps, have 
 arrested the flow of those petitions which he cmfesses has 
 astounded him, but which next week, he informs us, will astonish 
 us stni more. But if I asked myself for a moment what was 
 the necessity for the right honourable gentleman passing the 
 gangway to deliver that speech, ought I rather not to have 
 asked myself the question, what was the necessity for the right 
 honourable gentleman to have crossed the House to deUver that 
 speech ? If those are the opinions the right honourable gentle- 
 man entertains, how can he, subtle a casuist as he may be, recon- 
 
 ' Lord Arundel and Surrey. ' Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 cile the course which he now pursues with that which he pursued 
 when in Opposition ? Because, after all, what is the result of 
 the adroit argumentation of the right honourable gentleman ? 
 It is this : that the principle upon which the State has hitherto 
 been connected with the ecclesiastical affairs of this country is 
 worn out. We must seek a new principle, says the right 
 honourable gentleman, and the Government which I have left 
 because I support it — that Government has discovered a new 
 principle. But where is the new principle ? He tells us that 
 it is not now definitely and distinctly made out. He acknow- 
 ledges that the exposition of it is feeble, a little vague. It is 
 not now complete ; we must look to futurity. But if this is 
 the case, have there been no prior attempts to adumbrate this 
 new system, and have no public men in the House raised their 
 voices to support this principle and advocate this new settle- 
 ment ? Have not their opinions been in fact the foundation of 
 measures brought forward by them as a Government which no 
 longer exists ? And has not an opposition to their measures, 
 however imperfect their provisions, or however partially advo- 
 cated, been the bond of union of the party which opposed them 
 and the foundation of the Conservative theory ? 
 
 I am perfectly ready to agree with the right honourable gen- 
 tleman that the relation which exists between the Church and 
 the State in this country is an extremely unsatisfactory one. I 
 have had some opportunities for observation on this head. 1 have 
 been a member of this House now eight or nine sessions, during 
 a very tempestuous period, the principal part of which has been 
 expended in discussions arising out of this controverted prin- 
 ciple. I have read the right honourable gentleman's book.^ But 
 the right honourable gentleman in his argument to-night has 
 made one great assumption. He says : ' You have endowed 
 the Anglican Church. Can you, in fact, refuse to endow the 
 Koman Church ? ' But have we, in fact, endowed the Anglican 
 Chui-ch ? That is a question. We know that there has been 
 an alliance between the Church and the State ; and the very 
 term ' alliance ' shows that they met on equal terms, and 
 made an equal compact. But the right honourable gentleman, 
 ' Tlte Stats in its Relations with the Church (1838). 
 
MAYNOOTH, 1845. 85 
 
 with all his historical lore, and with all his trained casuistry, 
 cannot place his finger on any page in history which shows 
 that the State endowed the Church. You may regret that the 
 ecclesiastical power in, this country has a large estate. You 
 may say that it makes it predominant, and reason against the 
 policy ; but its estate is a fact which none can deny. "We deal 
 with it as we deal with the great estates of the territorial aris- 
 tocracy. Parties may be divided upon the policy of the landed 
 inheritance of the country. But you cannot deny the fact. 
 As practical men we deal with great facts in such a way as to 
 secure the greatest possible benefits. But when we come to 
 the question of fresh relations, and speak of endowing religions, 
 the plea, I will not call it an argument, of analogy fails us. I 
 should like to know what principle you will lay down for the 
 step you are invited to take. I know that the right honourable 
 gentleman who introduced the Bill — and I must make the same 
 apology as the right honourable gentleman the late President 
 of the Board of Trade for referring to his speech — told us that 
 upon this subject there were three courses open to us. I never 
 heard the right honourable gentleman bring forward a measure 
 without his making the same confession. I never knew the 
 right honourable gentleman bring forward, not what I call a 
 great measure, but a measure which assumes to settle a great 
 controversy — there is a difference — without saying that three 
 courses were open to us. In a certain sense, and looking to his 
 own position, he is right. There is the course the right hon- 
 ourable gentleman has left. There is the course the right hon- 
 ourable gentleman is following ; and there is usually the course 
 the right honourable gentleman ought to follow. Perhaps, Sir, 
 I ought to add there is a fourth course ; because it is possible 
 for the House of Commons to adopt one of those courses 
 indicated by the right honourable gentleman, and then, having 
 voted for it, to rescind its vote. That is the fourth course, 
 which in future I trust the right honourable gentleman (Sir 
 Kobert Peel) will not forget. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman tells us to go back to pre- 
 cedents ; with him a great measure is always founded on a 
 small precedent. He traces the steam-engine always back to 
 
88 SPEECHES OF THE EAKL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 the tea-kettle. His precedents are generally tea-kettle pre- 
 cedents. In the present instance, he refers us to Mr. Perceval, 
 and to some odd vote in a dusty corner, from which he infers 
 the principle is admitted. He says, ' You have admitted the 
 principle. Confine yourselves to the details. Don't trouble 
 yourselves about the first and second reading, but reserve all 
 your energies for the Committee, because the principle is ad- 
 mitted.' Now, I deny that, even in the limited sense the right 
 honourable gentleman says, it is admitted. In the first place, 
 that was a temporary vote, and this is not : in fact, it is a per- 
 manent one. But I will not make that the ground of opposi- 
 tion to the right honourable gentleman. I will go to the 
 argument, founded on circumstances, of the right honourable 
 gentleman the late President of the Board of Trade ' : I am 
 somewhat astonished that he should so completely have given up 
 principles. I looked upon the right honourable gentleman as 
 the last paladin of principle, the very abstraction of chivalry ; 
 and, when a question was raised which touched the elementary 
 principle of ecclesiastical institutions, I never supposed that it 
 would be the right honourable gentleman who would come and 
 give the House the small change of circumstances to settle 
 this great account. 
 
 But have circumstances, which ought to settle everything 
 — have circumstances not changed since the time of Mr. 
 Perceval ? How astonished must Mr. Perceval's ghost be — if 
 he have a ghost to be thus appealed to ! Were it Mr. Pitt, or 
 Fox, or Burke, whom the right honourable gentleman has quoted 
 to-night, that was brought in to settle this question, we might 
 feel the controlling influence of the great apparition. But 
 Mr. Perceval to be brought in to settle it ! Mr. Perceval seems 
 casually to have agreed to a miserable vote about this accidental 
 college at Maynooth. What, let me ask you, was the political 
 and religious situation of affairs by virtue of which Mr. 
 Perceval became Prime Minister at the time of which I am 
 speaking ? You had really then in England what you pretend 
 you now have ^ — a constitution in Church and State. You had 
 that constitution, and members of Parliament, being then 
 ' Mr. Gladstone. ' Cf. Speech on Church, Nov. 25, 1864, in vol. ii. 
 
MAYNOOTH, 1845. 87 
 
 necessarily in communion with the Church, were, by virtue of 
 this junction of Church and State, in fact members of a lay 
 synod. What, again, was the situation of the other kingdoms 
 of the empire ? You had a Church in Scotland without any 
 Dissenters. What was the case mth respect to Ireland ? There 
 was a constitution in Church and State, not only in principle, 
 but rigidly adhered to. What do we now see ? You have no 
 lunger in this country your boasted union of Church and State 
 — ^you may make speeches to prove that the union is as strong 
 as ever — you may toast it at your public dinners ; but I tell 
 you that the constitution in Church and State no longer exists. 
 What is the undeniable fact with respect to this proclaimed 
 union ? You know very well that the Church of England is 
 subject to the control of those who no longer exclusively profess 
 communion with that Church. 
 
 I am politically connected with a district which is threatened 
 with very severe suffering in consequence of this supposed 
 union with Church and State ' ; the inhabitants of this district 
 are about to endure one of the greatest blows that could be in- 
 flicted upon them, and this solely because it has pleased a Con- 
 servative Government to destroy the ancient episcopate under 
 which they have been so long governed. What is now the 
 position of the Church of Scotland ? a Church which the late 
 Earl of Liverpool held up as a model, and as the perfection of 
 a religious community, because, I suppose, it gave him no 
 trouble. What, I repeat, is the present situation of the Church 
 of Scotland ? It is rent in twain ! Besides the Kirk, there is 
 now the Free Kirk. Well, will you endow the Free Kirk ? 
 Will you apply this principle of endowment to sectarians and 
 schismatics of every class ? Where will you stop ? Why 
 should you stop ? And this consideration brings me to the real 
 question before the House. You find your Erastian system 
 crumbling from under your feet. Will you adopt a pantheistic 
 principle ? I have unfaltering confidence in the stability of our 
 Church, but I think that the real source of the danger which 
 
 ' This refers to the threatened union of the Sees of Bangor and St. Asaph. 
 Of. a letter from Bishop Thirlwall to Dr. Whewell, Nov. 18, 1842, in which he 
 condemns the contemplated union in the most forcible and indignant terms. 
 
88 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 threatens it is its connection with the State, which places it 
 under the control of a House of Commons that is not necessarily 
 of its communion. Leave the Church to herself, and she will 
 shrink from no contest, however severe. I believe in Ireland 
 itself, if the question be, will you sever the Church from the 
 State, or will you endow the Eoman Catholic Church ? for my 
 own part, I believe the Protestants of Ireland would say, ' Sever 
 the connection between the Church and the State, and don't 
 endow the Eoman Catholics.' But then we come to this other 
 consideration — are we to recognise a pantheistic principle ? 
 Because, judging from all that has passed, I can only come to 
 the conclusion that any body of sectarians that can prove a 
 certain population to Downing Street will be considered to have 
 a claim for endowment. For my own part, I confess I have no 
 great confidence in the cure of souls in that quarter. I observe 
 in Downing Street a disposition to assail our old and deeply- 
 rooted habits. From that quarter has proceeded the assault on 
 the parochial constitution of the kingdom. Will they com- 
 plete it by attending to our spiritual necessities ? I am totally 
 opposed to such a proceeding. I can conceive nothing more 
 opposed to or more utterly at variance with the feelings of this 
 country than a police surveillance, such as is contemplated over 
 the religious ordinances of the people. I deny that the Church 
 of England is the creature of the State. The alliance between 
 them has been one formed and maintained upon equal terms ; 
 and if it be attempted, as appears to be the intention, to place 
 all ecclesiastical affairs under the control of Downing Street, 
 and to subject them to the same species of discipline that is 
 enforced in Prussia over the religious establishments there, I 
 tell the right honourable gentleman that the people of this 
 country will never endure such a system. 
 
 This alone is a sufficient ground for me to oppose the Bill 
 before the House. 1 will not say that this Bill has been intro- 
 duced into the House in a sinister and insidious manner, 
 though I, in common with others, have formed my conclusions 
 upon that point ; but I will assert, what I believe cannot be 
 denied, that this measure has taken the country by surprise. 
 But I have other reasons for opposing this measure. I oppose 
 
89 
 
 this Bill on account of the manner in which it has been intro- 
 duced, and I oppose it also on account of the men by whom it 
 has been brought forward. (Loud cheers.) I am perfectly 
 ready to meet those cheers, and I do so by declaring that I do not 
 think — putting totally out of view the other objections which 
 I entertain— that the gentlemen who are now seated on the 
 Treasury Bench are morally entitled to bring such a measure 
 forward. This measure. Sir, involves a principle against which 
 the right honourable gentleman and most of his colleagues have 
 all along signally struggled. When I recall to mind all the 
 speeches, and all the motions, and all the votes which have 
 emanated from the present occupants of the Treasury Bench 
 on this and analogous questions ; when I remember their op- 
 position to that system of education which they now seek to 
 promote ; when I recollect the procession of prelates going up to 
 the palace of the Sovereign to protest against measures analogous 
 to those which the very men who incited that procession are 
 now urging forward ; when I recall to mind all the discussions 
 which have taken place here upon the subject of Irish educa- 
 tion; when the Appropriation Clause presents itself to my 
 memory, I consider it would be worse than useless to dwell 
 at any length upon the circumstances which induce me to adopt 
 that opinion. And are we to be told that because those men 
 who took the course to which I have referred have crossed the 
 floor of this House, and have abandoned with their former seats 
 their former professions — are we to be told that these men's 
 measures and actions are to remain uncriticised and unopposed, 
 because they tell us to look to the merits of their measures, 
 and to forget themselves and their former protestations ? 
 
 Such pretensions naturally lead to the question whether 
 party, as a political instrument, is or is not to continue to govern 
 the discussions of this House ? The question touches the whole 
 of their ministry. Let us, therefore, grapple with it, and decide 
 what our future comrse shall be in this respect. Let us en- 
 deavour to put an end to the misconception and subterfuge 
 which now surround us. I am perfectly contented to place the 
 question upon this footing. Now, Sir, it is very easy to complain 
 of party government, and there may be persons capable of 
 
90 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 forming an opinion on this subject who may entertain a deep 
 objection to that government, and know to what that objection 
 leads. But there are others who shrug their shoulders, and talk 
 in a slipshod style on this head, who, perhaps, are not exactly 
 aware of what the objections lead to. These persons should 
 understand that if they object to party government, they do, 
 in fact, object to nothing more nor less than Parliamentary 
 government.' A popular assembly without parties — 500 isolated 
 individuals— cannot stand iive years against a minister with an 
 organised Government without becoming a servile senate. 
 The objectors to party government may have a good case, on 
 the merits of which I give no opinion. They may say, ' Here 
 are we, the Parliament of England ; we have had the virtual 
 sovereignty of this country for a century and a half ; we have 
 plunged the country into debt, and we can't pay it. We have 
 done more than patrician Eome in its most rapacious hour ; we 
 have mortgaged industry to protect property. We have passed 
 laws on the currency which have affected property more than 
 all the tampering of the coinage by all the sovereigns that 
 have ever existed; we have violently assailed, and now still 
 more enormously menace, the parochial constitution of the 
 country, and, having dififered on every other subject, we have 
 at length agreed on one point, that, with relation to civilisa- 
 tion, the wealth and luxury that surround them, the people of 
 England are the hardest worked and the worst fed, the most 
 miserable and degraded population in the world.' This is the 
 case of those who are opposed to party government. Well, let 
 them carry out their principle ; let them vote an Address to 
 the Crown, go up to Buckingham Palace, fall on their knees 
 before om- Sovereign Lady, and restore to her the prerogatives 
 which they have so long usurped and injuriously used. But for 
 
 ' Of. Sir G. 0. Lewis' speech on vote of want of confidence, June 10, 1859 : 
 ' I f uUy admit that this motion is a party move . . . but I must be permitted 
 to remark that all great questions in this House have been decided by party 
 moves. A Parliamentary system can only be conducted by the combined 
 operation of parties. If we look back to former times we shall find that all 
 great questions — the Reform Bill of 1832, Catholic Emancipation, and the 
 Repeal of the Corn Laws — were dealt with in the way of party moves ; and 
 - whatever amelioration is to be expected in our present state must, according 
 to the constitution of the House of Commons, proceed from the same sources.' 
 
MAYNOOTH, 1845. 91 
 
 the right honourable gentleman, even a pedant in- favour of 
 Parliamentary power, who, First Minister of the Crown, declares 
 he is ready to go to wax to-morrow with the Lord Chief Justice 
 of England in behalf of your privileges ; who is jealous of the 
 slightest interference with your business or your duties, even if 
 you cannot transact or perform them; who enjoins the youth 
 of England not to make brilliant speeches, but to work on rail- 
 way committees — for him to set up for one who would be 
 independent of Parliament and party is indeed astonishing. 
 
 The noble lord opposite, the hereditary leader of the Whig 
 party, which founded Parliamentary government in this country, 
 will, I am sure, not withhold his concurrence with the principles 
 I have laid down. That noble lord, the representative of Mr. 
 Fox, will not gainsay the motto of that great leader — ' Measures, 
 and not Men.' And I would ask gentlemen on this side, how 
 has the opposite system answered for them ? You have per- 
 mitted men to gain power and enter place, and then carry 
 measures exactly the reverse to those which they professed in 
 Opposition, and they carry these measures by the very means 
 and machinery by which they conducted the Opposition, and 
 by which they gained power. And you are reconciled to this 
 procedure by being persuaded that by carrying measures which 
 you disapprove of and they pretend to disrelish, they are making 
 what they call ' the best bargain ' for you. I say that the Par- 
 liamentary course is for this House to have the advantage of a 
 Government formed on distinct principles, and having in con- 
 sequence a constitutional Opposition. Here is a minister who 
 habitually brings forward as his own measures those very 
 schemes and proposals to which, when in Opposition, he always 
 avowed himself a bitter and determined opponent. He brings 
 in Canada Bills ; he brings in Maynooth Bills ; he uses expres- 
 sions and excites feelings far more objectionable than the 
 measures ; but, let me ask the admirers of ' the best bargain ' 
 system how they think the right honourable gentleman would 
 have acted had they been introduced by the noble lord oppo- 
 site ? Why, then those Bills would have been at least checked 
 by the Opposition, by a constitutional Opposition ; the ques- 
 tions would have been criticised, the measures would have been 
 
92 SPEECHES OF THK EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 modified. Grant even that some measures might have been 
 faetiously opposed ; that would have been only one of the necess- 
 ary inconveniences of a Parliamentary government. In what 
 situation are we placed now ? Up come all these petitions ; in 
 them we hear the loud murmurs of the people, because there is 
 no exponent of a great national opinion in this House, while 
 we have a Government which came into power by an organisa- 
 tion prepared to oppose such measures, now engaged in carrying 
 them. I may on constitutional grounds say the noble lord 
 (Lord John Eussell) ought to oppose the present measure, 
 though he approves it, because it is thus brought forward. He 
 will reply, it is for those who act on another set of principles 
 to oppose the Government ; consequently the country is with- 
 out a constitutional Opposition to keep the Government in check. 
 Now, I hope it will not be said, because I have made 
 these observations, which are in entire and complete relation 
 and affinity to the motion before the House, that I am ' bandy- 
 ing personalities.' Certainly we live in strange times, when 
 Parliamentary criticism on a person in so eminent a position as 
 First Minister of the Crown is to be stopped by his declaring it 
 personality, when it is but fair observation on the character and 
 conduct of a public man, whose career is ©pen to us^ with re- 
 spect to whom we have a right to draw the inferences we think 
 legitimate ; and if they are not just they may be contravened in 
 free discussion. I do not know what the House thinks of this 
 system of putting down Parliamentary discussion. It is not a 
 very new experiment; it has been tried in — I will not say 
 another House, for that must not be referred to — but it has 
 been tried in what is called ' another place.' I do not know 
 whether the position occupied by ' another place ' in the pubhc 
 estimation and the public eye is one of which the members of 
 the House of Commons are particularly ambitious. I remember 
 when we used to toast ' another place ' with three times three 
 and nine times nine ; the independence of ' another place ' was 
 once a favourite toast at all Conservative dinners. Where is 
 the independence of ' another place ' now ? It is not Kadical- 
 ism, it is not the revolutionary spirit of the nineteenth century 
 which has consigned ' another place ' to illustrious insignifi- 
 
MAYNOOTH, 1845. 93 
 
 cance ; it is Conservatism and a Conservative dictator. Are 
 you prepared to meet the same fate ? Every time a mem- 
 ber expresses any opinions not absolutely agreeable to the 
 minister of the day, is he to be stopped by a charge of ' bandy- 
 ing personalities ' ? Whenever the young men of England 
 allude to any great principle of political life or Parliamentary 
 conduct, are they to be recommended to go to a railway com- 
 mittee ? I have no doubt it would be very agreeable if this 
 House were in the same condition, especially with regard to 
 the Bill, as ' another place.' I know the elements of this 
 House are different, that the characters of the individuals who 
 would control us are different ; but the process with both 
 bodies, although it varies, is in result the same. It may break 
 the spirit in ' another place,' and it may lower the tone in this ; 
 ' another place ' may be drilled into a guard-room, and the 
 House of Commons may be degraded into a vestry ; but the 
 consequence may be exactly similar, and that consequence may 
 be that you will have Bills like the Maynooth Bill, and that 
 still more important measure ' which, after the admission of the 
 right honourable member for Newark, may be looked on as a 
 fact, if not accomplished, yet ascertained, introduced, and carried 
 through this House, and of course through ' another place : ' 
 and you may have the floor of this House covered with peti- 
 tions and the lobby of ' another place ' crowded with constituents 
 who have left us in despair ; but, whatever may be the degree 
 of public feeling, whatever may be the depth of national senti- 
 ment, if you choose to support a Government that announces 
 no distinctive principles, which is in turn supported by an 
 Opposition which does not oppose, I am certain there is no 
 spirit and no nation that can resist a ' cross ' so deeply laid 
 and so deliberately accomplished. 
 
 This Maynooth Bill, I suppose, is introduced instead of the 
 Irish Eegistration Bill, the necessity for which was so apparent 
 when the right honourable gentleman was in Opposition. It is 
 brought in after a four years' experiment of lowering your tone, 
 and working that, constitutionally, by means of a Whig Oppo- 
 sition. During those four years what has the Conservative party 
 ' Endowment of Roman Catholic clergy. 
 
94 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 endured ? What has it experienced ? Wha^ is the treatment 
 it has been obliged to submit to, till the thing was so ripe 
 that even your murmurs are not noticed? This Bill brings 
 affairs to a crisis ; the question is not to be decided on its merits ; 
 it is to be decided on the fact — ^who are the men who bring it 
 forward ? If you are to have a popular government, if you are to 
 have a Parliamentary administration, the conditions antecedent 
 are, that you should have a Government which declares the 
 principles upon which its policy is founded, and then you can 
 have on them the wholesome check of a constitutional Opposi- 
 tion. What have we got instead ? Something has risen up 
 in this country as fatal in the political world as it has been in 
 the landed world of Ireland — we have a great Parliamentary 
 middle-man. It is well known what a middle-main is : he is a 
 man who bamboozles one party and plunders the other, till, 
 having obtained a position to which he is not entitled, he cries 
 out, ' Let us have no party questions, but a fixity of tenure.' 
 I want to have a commission issued to inquire into the tenure 
 by which Downing Street is held. I want to know whether the 
 conditions of entry have been complied with, and whether there 
 are not some covenants in the lease which are already forfeited. 
 I hope I shall not be answered by ' Hansard.' I am not sur- 
 prised the right honourable gentleman should be so fond of 
 recurring to that great authority ; he has great advantages ; 
 he can look over a record of thirty, and more than thirty, years 
 of an eminent career. But that is not the lot of everyone ; 
 and I may say as a general rule I am rather surprised that 
 your experienced statesmen should be so fond of recurring to 
 that eminent publication. What, after all, do they see on 
 looking over a quarter of a century or more even of their 
 speeches in ' Hansard ' ? What dreary pages of interminable 
 talk, what predictions falsified, what pledges broken, what 
 calculations that have gone wrong, what budgets that have 
 blown up ! And all this, too, not relieved by a single original 
 thought, a single generous impulse, or a single happy expres- 
 sion ! Why, ' Hansard,' instead of being the Delphi of Downing 
 Street is but the Dunciad of politics. But I want something 
 more than quotations from ' Hansard ' to account for the process 
 
MAYNOOTH, 1845. 95 
 
 by whicli parties have been managed in this House. It is a 
 system so matter of fact and yet so fallacious— ^taking in 
 everybody, though everybody knows he is deceived — so mechani- 
 cal and yet so Machiavellian, that I can hardly say what it is, 
 except a sort of humdrum hocus pocus in which the order 
 of the day is read to take in a nation. 
 
 Now, the system is to be brought to a test to-night. Will 
 the House support the Government in a measure which, ac- 
 cording to the highest authority — one that has quitted the 
 cabinet for some reason that has not been given, and who, 
 probably, may join it again under circumstances equally obscure 
 — is, in fact, an endowment for the Eoman Catholic priesthood 
 of Ireland ? If any vote were at stake in which the social and 
 political equality of the Eoman Catholic population were con- 
 cerned, I would go as far as any man in the House, and perhaps 
 further than many. But, Sir, no one pretends that this is 
 now the question. The grounds on which I oppose this 
 motion are not those of hostility to their claims, but grounds 
 which they themselves, after the clamour of the moment, must 
 feel are legitimate ones. I cannot adnait the plea of ad 
 'rnisericord/iam, founded on the state of Maynooth. Surely 
 men of high spirit and bearing cannot for a moment bring 
 themselves to suppose that we shall be induced to vote for the 
 measure on this plea ; it would be an insult to them to suppose 
 so. I know there are Eoman Catholic colleges, well organised 
 and well ordered, that are not in the condition of Maynooth ; 
 there are sectarian colleges in England with larger revenues 
 even than those now proposed to be given by the Grovemment 
 in support of Eoman Catholic principles. What sustains them ? 
 The sympathy of their co-religionaries. I cannot bebeve, there- 
 fore, that those gentlemen will, upon reflection, be anxious that 
 this Bill should pass. I do not think it a measure either flatter- 
 ing to their pride, or solacing to their feelings ; I do not think 
 it either a great or a liberal measure. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman is a supreme master of Par- 
 liamentary tactics, and when he found he was not receiving from 
 the seats behind him the once abundant-chorus of applause to 
 which he was accustomed, he went forward to the red box, and 
 
1)6 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 saying, ' I know this is a great grant to Maynooth,' obtained the 
 heedless assent of some honourable gentlemen opposite to the 
 assertion. But if the right honourable gentleman's principle 
 is correct, I think it is not a great grant ; I think it is a mean, 
 a meagre, and a miserable grant. If the Eoman Catholic 
 priesthood are to be educated by the State it must be some- 
 thing greater than the difference between 231. and 28L, some- 
 thing higher than the difference between three in a bed and two. 
 That is not the way, under any circumstances, in which I would 
 approach a reverend priesthood. I cannot believe, therefore, that 
 the Roman Catholic gentlemen on reflection — and I hope they will 
 have time for reflection — will vote for this measure when they 
 consider what it is. Who is he who Introduces it ? It is the same 
 individual whose bleak shade fell on the sunshine of your 
 hopes for more than a quarter of a century. Will not this 
 consideration affect you ? What if it be a boon ? I deny that 
 it is one — but if it were the boon it is said to be, would you 
 accept it from hands polluted ? It is not from him you ought 
 to accept it — not from him who, urged on, as he reluctantly 
 admitted, by fatal State necessity, accompanied the concession 
 of your legitimate political claims by the niggardly avowal that 
 he was obliged to concede them. 
 
 As to the Whigs, I am almost in despair of appealing to 
 their hereditary duties, their constitutional convictions, or their 
 historical position ; but I should have thought that the noble 
 lord opposite was almost weary of being dragged at the triumphal 
 car of a conqueror who did not conquer him in fair fight. 
 I think the noble lord might have found some inspiration in 
 the writings of that great man whom he has so often quoted, 
 and whose fame he attempts to emulate. I should have 
 thought that a man of the mind and spirit of the noble lord — 
 and he has a thoughtful mind and a noble spirit — might have 
 felt that Mr. Fox would have taken that course which I still 
 think the noble lord, touched by his high position, and the 
 responsibility of that position, will still adopt. His party may 
 have fallen, but it is still one connected with the history of 
 this country. Other parties have also fallen ; they have been 
 . reconstructed and they have been destroyed. The noble lord 
 
MAYNOOTH, 1845. 97 
 
 is not in so fallen a position as that in which the right honour- 
 able gentleman was in 1831. But let the noble lord beware 
 of this — let him beware of rising from that degraded position 
 again by the same system of tactics.' They may bring some 
 short-lived success, but upon conditions which I believe the 
 gallant spirit of the noble lord would disdain. I do not then 
 despair, Sir, of the aid of the Koman Catholic gentry of Ire- 
 land, or of the Whigs of England, in opposing this measure 
 respecting Maynooth, as well as of those who would reject it 
 on exclusively Protestant principles, or on the general principle 
 against State interference which I have attempted to uphold. 
 But, whatever may be the various motives and impulses which 
 animate these different sections of opinion, there is at least 
 one common ground for co-operation — there is one animating 
 principle which may inspire us all. Let us in this House 
 re-echo that which I believe to be the sovereign sentiment of 
 this country ; let us tell persons in high places that cunning 
 is not caution, and that habitual perfidy is not high policy 
 of State. On that ground we may all join. Let us bring 
 back to this House that which it has for so long a time 
 past been without — the legitimate influence and salutary check 
 of a constitutional Opposition. That is what the country re- 
 quires, what the country looks for. Let us do it at once in the 
 only way in which it can be done, by dethroning this dynasty 
 of deception, by putting an end to this intolerable yoke of 
 official despotism and Parliamentary imposture. 
 
 ' I.e. As those by which Sir Kobert rose. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
98 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 SPEECH ON ADDEESS, January 22, 1846.' 
 
 [Sir Robert Peel had now declared his Free Trade policy ; and 
 the following speech is a kind of grand cannonade, before the attack 
 began on specific propositions.] 
 
 8 IE, I rise with some feeHng of embarrassment to address the 
 House at this stage of the debate, as it is only since I 
 have entered the House that I have had the advantage of read- 
 ing Her Majesty's Speech ; and I had understood that the great 
 question which now agitates the country was not to be dis- 
 cussed on the present occasion. I thought that, under protest 
 perhaps, we should be allowed to address Her Majesty in lan- 
 guage closely akin to that in which Her Majesty had addressed 
 us, and that all topics which could excite any difference of 
 opinion might be avoided. After the announcement of the 
 ^ght honourable gentleman, that an early day was to be ap- 
 pointed for the discussion of that question, I should have ab- 
 stained from intruding myself on the House at the present 
 moment, had it not been for the peculiar tone of the right 
 honourable gentleman. I think that tone ought not to pass 
 unnoticed. At the same time I do not wish to conceal my 
 opinions on the general subject. I am not one of the converts. 
 I am, perhaps, a member of a fallen party. To the opinions 
 which I have expressed in this House in favour of protection 
 I adhere. They sent me to this House, and if I had relinqmshed 
 iithem, I should have relinquished my seat also. I must say 
 that the tone of the right honourable gentleman is hardly fair 
 towards the House, while he stops discussion upon a subject 
 on which he himself has entered and given vent to his feelings 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Bebates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
SPEECH ON ADLBESS, 1846. 99 
 
 with a fervency unusual to him. Sir, I admire a minister who 
 says he holds power to give effect to his owi)^convictions. These 
 are sentiments that we must all applaud. ' Unfortunate will be' 
 the position of this country when a minister pursues a lin6 of' 
 policy adverse to the convictions which he himself entertain^. 
 But when we come to a question of such high delicacy as the 
 present, we may be permitted to ask ourselves what are the 
 circumstances which require one so able, and one so eminent, 
 to enter upon the vindication of himself, and to rise in this 
 House, amid the cheers of his former opponents, to place himself 
 in a position of an apologetical character to those who were 
 once of his own party ? I have no doubt that the right honour- 
 able gentleman has arrived at a conscientious conclusion on this 
 great subject. The right honourable gentleman says that it is 
 not so much by force of argument as by the cogency of observa- 
 tion that he has arrived at this conclusion. But, Sir, surely the | 
 observation which the right honqurable„g£ntleman has made 
 might have been made when he filled a post scarcely less con- 
 siderable than that which he now occupies, and enjoyed power 
 scarcely less ample than that which he now wields in this House. 
 J want to know how it is that the right honourable gentleman, 
 who certainly enjoys the full maturity of manhood, should not ' 
 have arrived at this opinion, which I deplore, although con- - 
 scientious, at the moment when his present Grovernment ,' 
 was formed. ? J What, Sir, are we to think of the eminent !' 
 statesman /who, having served under four sovereigns ; unable 
 to complain of want of experience or royal confidence ; who, 
 having been called on to steer the ship on so many occa- 
 sions, and under such perilous circumstances, has only during 
 the last three years found it necessary entirely to change his 
 convictions on that important topic which must have presented 
 itself for more than a quarter of a century to his consideration ? 
 Sir, I must say that such a minister may be conscientious, j 
 but that he is unfortunate. I will say, also, that he ought to bej 
 the last man in the world to turn round and upbraid his party in 
 a tone of menace. Sir, there is a difficulty in finding a parallel 
 to the position of the right honourable gentleman in any part 
 of history. The only parallel which I can find is an incident in 
 
 H 2 
 
100 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 the late war in the Levant, which was terminated by the policy 
 of the noble lord opposite* I remember when that great 
 struggle was taking place, when the existence of the Turkish 
 Empire was at stake, the late Sultan, a man of great energy 
 and fertile in resources, was determined to fit out an immense 
 fleet to maintain his empire. Accordingly a vast armament was 
 collected. It consisted of some of the finest ships that were 
 ever built. The crews were picked men, the officers were the 
 ablest that could be found, and both officers and men were 
 rewarded before they fought. There never was an armament 
 which left the Dardanelles similarly appointed since the days of 
 Solyman the Great. The Sultan personally witnessed the 
 departure of the fleet ; all the muftis prayed for the success of 
 the expedition, as all the muftis here prayed for the success of 
 the last general election. Away went the fleet, but what was 
 the Sultan's consternation, when the Lord High- Admiral steered 
 at once into the enemy's port ! Now, Sir, the Lord High- 
 Admiral on that occasion was very much misrepresented. He, 
 ,,too^was called a traitor, and he, .|;oo,, vindicated himself. ' True 
 it is,' said he, ' I did place myself at the head of this valiant 
 armada ; true it is that my Sovereign embraced me ; true it is 
 that all the muftis in the Empire ofl'ered up prayers for my 
 success : but I have an objection to war. I see no use in pro- 
 longing the struggle, and the only reason I had for accepting 
 the command was that I might terminate the contest by 
 betraying my master.' And, Sir, these reasons offered by a man 
 of great plausibility, of vast adroitness, have had their effect, 
 for — you may be surprised at it — but I assure you it is a fact, 
 which, by the way, the gallant officer opposite (Commodore 
 Napier) can testify, that he is at this moment the First Lord of 
 the Admiralty at Constantinople, under the new reign. The 
 gallant Commodore says that he is dead. At any rate he was not 
 shot for treason. 
 
 Well now, the right honourable gentleman has turned 
 round on us, and in a peroration, the elaborate character of 
 which remarkably contrasted with the garrulous confidence 
 of all the doings of his cabinet, the right honourable 
 gentleman told, us that he had been assured that a certain 
 
SPEECH ON ADDBESS, 1846. 101 
 
 power had made him minister, and that a certain power would 
 prevent him from being a minister ; but that he protested 
 against such an authority, and that he never would hold office 
 by so servile a tenure. Sir, no one can fill a position such as 
 that of the right honourable gentleman, and give utterance to 
 sentiments so magnanimous as his, without reference to ante- 
 cedents. And that leads us to the consideration of that 
 trovemment by parties which must never be lost sight of in 
 estimating the position of the right honourable gentleman. It 
 is all very well for the right honourable gentleman to say, ' I 
 am the First Minister '—and, by the by, I think the right 
 honourable gentleman might as well adopt the phraseology of 
 Walpel'e, and call himself the sole minister, for his speech was 
 rich in egoistic* rhetoric — it is all very well for him to speak of 
 himself as the sole minister, for a j_alljiis cabinet voted against 
 him, Jie is quite right not to notice them. I repeat, it is all 
 very well for the right honourable gentleman to come forward 
 to this table and say : ' I am thinking of posterity, although, 
 certainly, I am doing on this side of the table the contrary to 
 that which I counselled when I stood upon the other ; but my 
 sentiments are magnanimous, my aim is heroic, and, appealing 
 to posterity, I care neither for your cheers nor your taunts.' 
 But, Sir, we must ask ourselves, as members of the House of 
 Commons, as the subjects of a popular government — we must 
 ask ourselves, what were the means, what the machinery, by 
 which the right honourable gentleman acquired his position, 
 how he obtained power to tm-n round upon his supporters, and 
 to treat them with contempt and disdain? Sir, the right 
 honourable gentleman has supported a different policy for a 
 number of years. Well do we remember on this side of the 
 House — peA aps not w ithout, a. blush— well do we remember the 
 efforts which we made to raise him to the bench on which he now 
 sits. "Who does not remember the ' sacr ed cause of protection ,' 
 the cause for which sovereigns were thwarted. Parliaments dis- 
 solved, and a nation taken in ? Delightful, indeed, to have the 
 right honourable gentleman entering into all his confidential 
 details, when, to use his courtly language, he ' called ' upon his 
 sovereign. Sir, he called on his sovereign ; but would his 
 
102 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 sovereign have called on the right honourable baronet, if, in 
 1841, he had not placed himself, as he said, at the head of the 
 gentlemen of England — that well-known position, to be pre- 
 ferred even to the confidence of sovereigns and Courts ? It is 
 all very well for the right honourable baronet to take this high- 
 flying course, but I think myself — I say it with great respect for 
 gentlemen on this side of the House, and gentlemen on the 
 other ; I say it without any wish to achieve a party triumph, 
 for I believe I belong to a party which can triumph no more ; 
 for we have nothing left on, our side except the constituencies 
 which we have betrayed ; but I do say m^pnception of a great 
 statesman is of one who represents ^^%at idei) — an idea which 
 may lead him to power ; an idea witnwhich he may identify 
 himself ; ap idea which he may develop ; anjdea which he may 
 and can impress on the mind and conscience of a nation. That, 
 Sir, is my notion of what makes a man a great statesman. I 
 do not care whether he be a manufacturer or a manufacturer's 
 son. That is a grand, that is, indeed, an heroic position. But I 
 care not what may be the position of a man who never originates 
 an idea — a watcher oT the atmosphere, a man who, as he says, 
 takes his observations, and when he finds the wind in a certain 
 quarter, trims to suit it. Such a person may be a powerful 
 minister, but he is no more a great statesman than the man 
 who gets up behind a carriage is a great whip. Both are dis- 
 ciples of progress ; both perhaps may get a good place. But 
 how far the original momentum is indebted to their powers, 
 and how far their guiding prudence regulates the lash or 
 the rein, it is not necessary for me to notice. 
 
 Why, Sir, the right honourable gentleman places himself in 
 this position in the House : he tells us that he has held high 
 office under four sovereigns, ' George III., George IV., William 
 IV., and Queen Victoria.' His historic career, for it amounts 
 to that, is that he has served four sovereigns=rit _is his own 
 recommendation. It is as much as to say, 'I am able and 
 experienced : the grandfather of our present sovereign trusted 
 me ; a Eegent and a King trusted me ; a King iii a revolution 
 trusted me ; a Conservative sovereign trusted me. I must be 
 wise and able and experienced.' He tells you this is his rare 
 
SPEECH ON ADDRESS, 1846. 103 
 
 recommendation, and he adds, ' Follow me.' Follow him ? Who 
 is to follow him, or why is anybody to follow hiin, or where is 
 anybody to follow him to ? What does he mean to do, this 
 great statesman who talks with a sneer of a,n ' ancient mon- 
 archy,' and ' a proud aristocracy,' and the difficulty of reconciling 
 them with a reformed constituency, and who tells us that we 
 are but drags on the wheel, and that he is the only driver. 
 Have we arrived at that ? Is that the opinion of the majority 
 of this House, or even of the minority— pf the majority of the 
 country, or even of the minority ? Is it their opinion that 
 ancient monarchies and proud aristocracies are inconvenient 
 lumber, to be got rid of on the first convenient opportunity ; 
 that they are things irreconcileable with a reformed constituency 
 — refoimed under this minister's own protest, in spite of his 
 own protest — this man who comes forward and tells us that he 
 is devoting himself to his country, and sacrificing himself to his 
 sovereign, and that he is the only man who can advise you 
 what counsel it is most expedient for you to pursue. He tells j 
 you that he is still purely Conservative ; for, asks he, ' Has notij 
 my administration put down agitation ? ' Sir, I confess when 1 1 
 heard this, that, great as undoubtedly are the powers of the 
 right honourable gentleman — I confess. Sir, that I w;as thunder- 
 struck. I could forget the agitated councils, called .without a 
 cailse^ and dismissed without a consequence; the candid explana- 
 tion of the situation ofTTis cabinet— his admission that the only 
 man in that body who dared to speak the truth difi'ered from 
 him ; the almost humble confession that, in spite of Lyon 
 Playfair and Professor Lindley, he had been misled in his 
 information ; that his Viceroy, who, being a diplomatist, com- 
 iaunicated his principal information in a postscript, had caused 
 such false impressions in the cabinet that the Secretary of 
 State was obliged to send a courier for an explanation — all these 
 frank details I could afford to admire in one who has taken up 
 so lofty a position as the right honourable baronet saysjiehas 
 taken,_and who can afford to speak truth."' But really when he 
 told us that his Conservative administration has put down agi- 
 tation ; when he said^this in the face of the honourable member 
 for Stockport, in the face of the honourable member for Durham, 
 
104 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 then, Sir, I confess that the right honourable baronet did 
 manage to achieve the first great quality of oratory — ^that^he did 
 succeed in making an impression on his audience ! Put down 
 ag'italioh ! Will he rise and deny that he is legislating or 
 about to legislate with direct reference to agitation ? What 
 other excuses has he — for even his mouldy potatoes have failed 
 him, even the reports of his vagrant professors have failed him — 
 to induce the noble representative of South Lancashire, and the 
 honourable representative of Yorkshire, to come forward and 
 stand his bail ? 
 
 Sir, I remember in the midst of a great revolution, when 
 all the principles of our social system were called into question ; 
 when we heard much of the inconvenience of ancient monarchies 
 and proud aristocracies ; when it was necessary to invent some 
 means, to devise some expedient, to manage reformed consti- 
 tuencies ; well do I remember that great mind, which was to 
 control divided counsels, to guide a distracted people, delivering 
 itself of that oracle, which rang so solemnly over the land, 
 ' Eegister, register, register ! ' Eegister, some thought, to save 
 the Com Laws ; some, to save the monarchy ; some, to save the 
 [ Church. We went on registering,^ and the right honourable 
 gentleman went on maEng protection speeches — a great orator 
 before a green table beating a red box. Then he showed us the 
 sovereign passion — we were to register to make him a minister. 
 The statesman who opposed Catholic Emancipation against 
 arguments as cogent as any which the gentlemen of the League 
 can now offer, in spite of political expediency a thousand times 
 more urgent than that which now besets him ; always_j:eady 
 with his arguments and amendments ; always ready with his 
 fallacies ten thousand times exploded ; always~reaS'y with his 
 Virgilian quotations to command a cheer — the moment that an 
 honourable and learned gentleman was returned for the county 
 of Clare, then immediately we saw this right honourable gen- 
 tleman, not ashamed to recall his arguments, not ashamed to 
 confess that he was convinced, but telling us, on the contrary, 
 that he should be ashamed if he had not the courage to come for- 
 ward and propose a resolution exactly contrary to his previous 
 policy. 
 
SPEECH OK ADDEESS, 1846. 105 
 
 And so is it always with the right honourable gentleman. 
 Nursed in the House of Commons, entertaining no idea but that i 
 of Parliamentary success, if you wish to touch him to the quick 
 you must touch him on the state of the poll. [The moment he i 
 heard of South Lancashire being lost— by means respecting 
 which I will not, at this moment, say anything — the moment 
 he heard that Yorkshire was in danger, the right honourable j 
 baronet, the minister who has served four sovereigns, the 
 gentleman who"has^ had the question of protection before his 
 official mind in every shape which ingenuity could devise 
 during his Parliamentary career of a quarter of a century ; this 
 gentleman suddenly finds that the. arguments in favour of pro- 
 tection to native industry are not, after all, so cogent as he 
 once thought them ; he discovers that the principle of protec- 
 tion cannot be supported ; and, having arrived at this conclur 
 sion, then, with all the debating dexterity, with all the 
 ParUamentary adroitness he possesses, he comes forward — he 
 has the sublime audacity to come forward and confess that at his 
 rip§^ge he is convinced by arguments the very same we have 
 heard for- the last thirty years ; and, greater triumph still, he 
 has the Parliamentary^ tact to convince most of his supporters 
 that he i^ sincere.'"^' 
 
 Sir, I give the right honourable gentleman full credit ; I 
 admire his Parliamentary powers ; I admit them ; I appreciate 
 them ; but it is really too much for a minister who has led 
 such a career, who offers us such arguments, who tells us, in 
 effect, that it is not intellect which should govern ; that it is 
 not great and true ideas which should govern ; but that it is 
 the state of the registration, and the accident of the poll — it is, 
 I repeat, too much for such a man to come forward and talk to 
 us in high-pitched language about his lofty spirit, about his 
 determination never to be the tool of those of whom, when in 
 Opposition, he was, by the by, the very ready counsellor — to 
 come forward and say that he is but thinking of posterity, that 
 he is touched by the love of fame, the noblest of all aspira- 
 tions, and which alone constitutes the highest reward for his 
 great toils. What an advantage to a country to be governed 1 
 by a minister who thinks only of posterity! The right h on- 
 
106 SPEECHES OF THE EAKL OF BEACONSFIELD, 
 
 curable gentleman has before assured us that he and his 
 colleagues are only thinkiug of ' the futiu-e.' Who can doubt 
 it ? Look at them. Throw your eyes over the Treasury Bench. 
 See stamped on each ingenuous front, ' The last infirmity of 
 noble minds.' They are all of them, as Spenser says, ' Imps 
 of Fame ! ' They are just the men in the House you would fix 
 upon as thinking only of posterity. The only thing is, when 
 one looks at them, seeing of what they are composed, one is 
 hardly certain whether ' the future,' of which they are thinking, 
 is indeed posterity, or only the coming quarter-day. I should 
 like to know what posterity will think of a cabinet which re- 
 signs ofiice because it cannot support a policy, and accepts 
 , office for the same reason. In the history of England, in 
 the history of parties, I defy any man — I defy even the right 
 honourable member for Edinburgh, with his disciplined memoiy 
 and cultivated mind — I defy any man learned in English his- 
 tory, to adduce me a case parallel to this. 
 
 And what is to be the result ? If ' coming events east 
 their shadows before,' I suppose no gentleman in a sane state 
 of mind can doubt it. We resisted the moderate proposal of 
 the Whigs. We rejected it, confiding in the experience of that 
 practised individual — the gentleman who has served four sove- 
 1 reigns. We were blind enough to believe that a gentleinan_of 
 ) such great ability, of such long experience, who had ha d such 
 immense advantages, could not make very gross and palpable 
 blunders. We accepted him for a leader to accomplish—the- 
 triumph of protection,^ and jiow we are _ to _^^ 
 strophe of protection. Of course the Whigs will be the chief 
 mourners. They cannot but weep for their innocent, though it 
 was an abortion ; but ours was a fine child. Who can forget 
 how its nurse dandled it, fondled it ? What a charming babe ! 
 Delicious little thing ! So thriving ! Did you ever see such a 
 beauty for its years ? This was the tone, the innocent prattle. 
 And then the nurse, in a fit of patriotic frenzy, dashes its brains 
 out, and comes down to give master and mistress an account of 
 this terrible murder. The nurse, too, a person of a very orderly 
 demeanour ; not given to drink ; and never showing any 
 emotion, except of late, when kicking against protection. 
 
SPEECH ON ADDRESS, 1846. 107 
 
 How ungrateful ! F or, God knows, we were more than ohed ienf, t 
 — Y^. were servile. But how is it now ? The most valuable • 
 colleague of the right honourable gentleman — I say so for 
 good reasons — has protested against him. Lord Stanley, who, 
 when the right honourable baronet was in Opposition, was the 
 great adhesion that was to make Conservative principles trium- 
 phant — he, if I have not been misinformed by some one too 
 zealous to hear arigkt,- for I have not had the advantage of 
 hearing that noble lord's speech to-night in another place ; but 
 I am told that that noble lord has stated that he quitted the 
 ministry because he found they were leaving the principles 
 upon which they obtained the confidence of Parliament. 
 
 I say the confidence of Parliament. I am not one of those 1 
 who have ever exaggerated the character, the powers, the privi- I 
 leges of Parliament, or of either separate House ; but, after all, i 
 is it not the constitution of the country ? I want to know what | 
 leading man dare rise in this House — I care not on which side 
 he sits — who will for a moment pretend that he has gained the 
 position he occupies except by the confidence of Parliament ? 
 It is very well to come to us with stories about his sovereign 
 and about posterity ; but where would the right honourable i 
 baronet have been if the House of Commons had not existed. I 
 Now, I say, it is utterly impossible to carry on your Parlia- 
 mentary constitution except by political parties. I say there 
 must be distinct principles as lines of conduct adopted by 
 public men. Away with your talk about going down to 
 Windsor, and finding that Lord John this or Lord William that 
 cannot form a ministry, and saying, ' Then I must form one, 
 and bring all my colleagues to support measures that they 
 entirely disapprove ! ' Is that the constitution that governs 
 England ? If the constitution that governs England be a con- ' 
 stitution that makes men recommend that of which they do'; 
 not approve, then the sooner we get rid of this constitution thel) 
 better. It comes to that; and the noble lord opposite, the 1 
 member for London, who has a respect for the Parliamentary 
 constitution, and who represents a party that are nothing if 
 they do not respect a Parliamentary constitution, ought to resist 
 such a vulgar, ignoble innovation. I can understand an abso- 
 
108 SPEECHES OF THE EAKL OF BEACONSFIELD, 
 
 1 ute sovereign, in a country of high civilisation, governing through 
 a Council of State, selected by his arbitrary but intelligent 
 will from the ablest men of the country ; but we have a Par- 
 liamentary constitution. It may have committed great wrongs ; 
 undoubtedly it has achieved immense and magnificent results ; 
 but this House of Commons still forms a part of the constitu- 
 tion, though how degraded and demoralised it may become, if 
 the principles we have heard to-night are to be acknowledged, 
 I confess I cannot tell. If the principles advocated by the 
 right honourable baronet to-night be once admitted, T ask any- 
 one capable of forming an opinion upon public questions, 
 whether Parliament can be anything but a servile senate. Six 
 hundred men met together without the sympathy of great 
 principles and great ideas, to wield all the power of a country, 
 with all the patronage of the country at the command of one 
 man appointed by the sovereign to direct them as he wills — 
 who can doubt what the result would be ? In a neighbouring 
 country, yet in the infancy of its representative system, and 
 therefore to be looked at in a kind, apologetic spirit, they have 
 no Parliamentary parties ; and at this moment while we are 
 talking of the danger of the Napoleonists and the Kepublicans, 
 the danger is a corrupted senate — an assembly professing to 
 represent the people, and wielding all their power at the 
 command of a single individual. 
 
 Do you aspire to such a position ? You will not be brought 
 to this ; but what may you in the interval have to pass 
 through ? If you had a daring, dashing minister, a Danby or 
 a Walpole, who tells you frankly, ' I am corrupt, and 1 wish 
 you to be corrupt also,' we might guard against this ; but what 
 I cannot endure is, to hear a man come down and say, ' I will 
 rule without respect of party, though I rose by party ; and I 
 care not for your judgment, for I look to posterity.' Sir, very 
 few people reach posterity. Who amongst us may amve~aF 
 that destination, I "p?esume not to vaticinate. Posterity is a 
 most limited assembly. Those gentlemen who reach posterity 
 are not much more numerous than the planets. But one 
 thing is quite evident, that while we are appealing to posterity 
 — that while we are admitting the principle of relaxed com- 
 
SPEECH ON ADDRESS, 1846. 109 
 
 merce, there is extreme danger of our admitting the principles 
 of relaxed politics. I advise, therefore, that we all, whatever! 
 may be our opinions about free trade, oppose the introduction | 
 of free politics. Let men stand by the principle by which they I 
 rise, right or wrong. I make no exception. If they be in the | 
 wrong, they must retire to that shade of private life with which 
 our present rulers have often threatened us. There are always 
 men ready to form a Government ; and if the noble lord had 
 formed one, and the country would not support free trade, that 
 would not show that his principles were wrong ; but it would 
 show a great political fact, important in the state of owe country, 
 that the nation was not ripe for those opinions, or that it was 
 against them. This is a legitimate thing, but i t is not a 
 legitimate trial of the principles of free trade against the 
 principle of protection if a Parliament, the majority of which 
 are elected to support protection, be gained over to free trade 
 by the arts„Df...the very individual whom they were elected to 
 support in an opposite career. It is not fafr to the people of 
 England. 
 
 As for whether the right honourable baronet made the 
 Conservative party, or the party made him, I have no doubt 
 there was a reciprocal influence ; but he is a great Parliamentary 
 leader, and undoubtedly we might, with a leader less able, not 
 have gained such a result as we did. I attribute om: success I 
 at the last election in some degree to the impolicy of the ^ 
 Whigs ; warmly opposed to them as I am, I may say that, 
 though I wish to say nothing against gentlemen who happen 1 
 to be in adversity; but if the right honourable baronet hadJ 
 not led us so many years with most adroit ability ; if, during 
 that term, he had not had recoiu-se to all the arts of party ; ' 
 if he had not proposed subtle resolutions, and even, if necessary, 
 amendments on the Address, if he had not, with a frankness , 
 unusual to him, expressed principles to which the country re- | 
 sponded, would he have been carried into power by an enthu- , ■ 
 siastic people ? Then, how can you, the Opposition, if you 
 are for Parliamentary government, offer him this adulation 
 because he now supports your views ? You may be very glad 
 that an eminent member of the House is on your side : that is 
 
110 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 an historical fact which you may register, and adduce it in 
 evidence of the truth of your views, and the advance of your 
 cause ; but depend upon it you err when you admit the principle 
 that you are to support any man, whoever he may be, who sup- 
 ports your opinions. The minister who attained as he did the 
 position which the right honourable baronet now fills, is not 
 the minister who ought to abrogate the Corn Laws. That 
 feeling, I believe, is not confined to this House. Whatever 
 may be the fate of Government — whether we are to have a Whig 
 administration or a Conservative ; whether the noble lord or the 
 right honourable gentleman is to guide the sceptre of the State ; 
 whatever, I say, may be the fate of cabinets — and they are 
 transitory and transient things ; things which may not survive 
 the career of many men in this House — on Parliament, as an 
 institution, and still a popular institution in this country, is 
 dependent, and not upon the Government, the consideration 
 (of the vast majority of the members of this House. ^ uot, 
 ithen, because you see a great personage giving up his opinions — 
 do not cheer him on ; j^ not) yield so ready a reward to political 
 ij;ergivCTsationu Above all, majintain the line of demarcation be- 
 tween parties ; for it is only by maintaining the independence 
 of party that you can maintain the integrity of public men, 
 and the power and influence of Parliament itself. 
 
Ill 
 
 MR. MILES'S AMENDMENT, February 20, 1846.' 
 
 [On January 27, Sir Robert Peel had moved to go into Com- 
 mittee of the whole House to consider the question of the Corn Laws, 
 and had explained the nature of his measures. The debate was fixed 
 for February 9, when an amendment was moved by Mr. Miles to the 
 effect that the House ' should go into committee that day six months.' 
 
 The debate lasted twelve nights, and ended in a majority for the 
 Government of 97 : the Ayes being 339, the Noes 242. Of the Con- 
 servative party 112 voted with Government. Mr. Disraeli spoke on 
 the sixth night. The reader will be strvick with his remarks on the 
 improbability of other nations becoming converts to Free Trade.] 
 
 J leave the right honourable baronet, the First Minister, to 
 settle the question of the currency with his new supporter 
 to whom we are indebted for a protection speech almost as 
 effective as that delivered by the noble lord the member for 
 Liverpool. The honourable gentleman who has just addressed 
 us seems to think that after the declaration of the Government 
 all is doubtful ; but there is, at least, one point on which no 
 doubt can rest. Whatever may be the opinions of the two 
 parties that now have entered into this great controversy on 
 the main question before the House ; however fervent ma;y be 
 our convictions of the advantages of protection ; however san- 
 guine may be the expectations of honourable gentlemen opposite 
 of the consequences of competition, there is one point on which 
 we are all agreed, and with respect to which there can be no 
 misunderstanding : and it is this — that Her Majesty's ministers 
 have changed their opinions. Whether the opinions they 
 formerly pursued, or the opinions they are now about to follow, 
 are the right ones, the most expedient, and the most calculated 
 to benefit this country — this I apprehend to be the real question 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
112 SPEECHES OF THE EABL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 before the House. This is the question which, with the in- 
 dulgence of the House, I shall endeavour to consider ; and on 
 which I will offer some suggestions, which I hope may induce 
 honourable gentlemen to hesitate before they accede to the 
 great change which is proposed. I shall endeavour to show 
 that the system of protection is not that odious system which 
 it has so long been assumed to be. I pledge myself to meet 
 the question on its merits ; and though I may not be equal to 
 the argument, I will not shrink from it. But before I presume 
 to offer any considerations to the House in support of that 
 system, it will be more convenient to notice the arguments 
 offered by Her Majesty's Government in favour of the change 
 proposed. We have been addressed in support of the measure 
 of the Government by three cabinet ministers. It is due to 
 the right honourable gentleman, the First Minister — due to his 
 position, and to the comprehensive statement which he made 
 of the case of the ministers, that I should, perhaps, in the first 
 instance, notice what that right honourable gentleman said. 
 
 He seemed to complain that the greater part of this discus- 
 sion had been wasted by observations on the conduct of party. 
 I have no wish myself to enter into that subject ; nor should I 
 have noticed it, had not the right honourable gentleman, by 
 the use which he made of the word ' party,' then, as well as on 
 other occasions seemed to entertain on that point ideas very 
 different from those which animate and influence gentlemen 
 on these benches.^' We have, indeed, heard from these benches 
 many comments on the conduct of party ; but we associate with 
 that word very different ideas from those which the right 
 honourable gentleman seems to entertain. We do not under- 
 stand that party is anything but public opinion embodied. We 
 protest against the doctrine of the right honourable gentleman, 
 that there is a distinction between political party and public 
 opinion. We maintain that party is public opinion embodied ; 
 whether it represent the opinion of a majority or a minority, 
 it, at all events, represents the opinion of a great section of the 
 community. In this country, where the nation is divided into 
 parties, and where great results are brought about by public 
 discussion, and by the organisation also, no doubt, of material 
 
ME. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 1846. 113 
 
 interests — in this country, by these two agencies, reason and 
 property, we arrive in times of change at the solution of con- 
 troversies the most difficult. Such are the beneficial conse- 
 quences of this system that, however fierce the controversial 
 strife — however violent the agitation of the nation — still you 
 will always find that when a question is settled by the legiti- 
 mate influence of what the right honourable gentleman calls 
 ' party,' but which is, in fact, national organisation, the nation 
 is content and satisfied with the decision ; and you seldom see 
 a question so settled reopened. We do not complain of the 
 right honourable baronet for having changed his opinion- 
 opinion is not in the power of the human will ; but what we 
 complain of is, not that he has deferred too much to public 
 opinion, but that he has outraged public opinion ; that he has 
 prevented its legitimate action in the settlement of questions 
 by the aid of party, or embodied public opinion ; and that he 
 has arrived at a conclusion, and probably will achieve a result, 
 which will not be, on account of the mode in which it has been 
 brought about, satisfactory to the community. We say, and 
 say with reason, that by the aid of that great mass of public 
 opinion which we represent, the right honourable baronet was 
 raised into power ; and that a Parliament was elected to give 
 effect to that opinion which we represent and the right honour- 
 able baronet has disregarded. If the noble lord opposite, who 
 represents another section of public opinion, had succeeded and 
 been made minister ; if his side had succeeded in becoming the 
 majority, and had settled these questions, we should then have 
 yielded ; because, we should have felt that the solution of these 
 questions had been brought about by constitutional means — by 
 the legitimate operation of public opinion. But we feel that 
 this question is not now settled, and cannot be settled, in a 
 constitutional manner. It is not merely that we have the sad 
 spectacle of the right honourable baronet siurounded by a 
 majority, who, while they give him their votes, protest 
 in their speeches against his policy. Is not that the fact ? I 
 thought there was no doubt about it ; and that the illustrious 
 converts we have heard of, are converts to the policy, and not 
 to the principles, of the right honourable gentleman. There ia 
 
 VOL. I. 1 
 
114 SPEECHES OF THE EAKL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 not only the flagrant scandal of a minister bringing forward 
 under such circumstances a great measure, with, as he has 
 announced himself, the majority of his cabinet against him, but 
 public opinion is not fairly dealt with, and when we complain 
 of the right honourable baronet not treating his party fairly, 
 we do not speak of the 300 gentlemen on these benches, but 
 we speak of the great body of the community whose views they 
 represent, and of that public opinion which is the result of 
 their convictions. 
 
 I have now made the only observations I shall offer in 
 answer to what has fallen on this head from the right honour- 
 able baronet. The right honourable baronet then proceeded 
 to indicate what he considered the proper subject of discussion : 
 and I confess that he, in his description of what should be the 
 proper subject of discussion at once described and indicated 
 the fallacy of his own position and the fatal policy he would 
 have us pursue. The right honom-able gentleman said, ' I call 
 on you not to discuss the party question, but — ' to do what ? — 
 ' to meet an emergency, and to construct a system.' Now, if 
 there be any contrast more complete than another, it must be 
 that between a system, which should be permanent, and an 
 emergency, which, however managed, must to a certain degree 
 be temporary. This was, I think, at once the blot of the 
 position of the right honourable baronet in his very first 
 step. If we were considering' the policy of a minister of a 
 foreign country, and if we brought to that consideration calmer 
 spirits than now animate us, we should at once say that this 
 was a great mistake. I say that it would be a great mistake 
 in the noble Lord opposite, in dealing with a national emer- 
 gency, were he to say, ' I have measures to meet this emer- 
 gency, but at the same time I ask you to reconstruct your 
 commercial policy in accordance' with the policy I have always 
 advocated, and for which, therefore, you are prepared.' But 
 what would you say to a minister who, with an emergency, asks 
 you to reconstruct your commercial system, and at the same 
 time tells you that you must do this in total opposition to all 
 that he has before taught you as wise and politic ? Now, Sir, 
 as regards the emergency— namely, the state of Ireland — I 
 
MR. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 1846. 115 
 
 must protest against anyone in this House warning us not to 
 speak of that country in a tone of levity. I am not conscious 
 of ever having spoken of Ireland in a tone of levity, though I 
 may speak in a tone of levity of a feeble policy with reference 
 to Ireland. 
 
 But before we touch upon this there is one point which 
 it would be well for some member of the cabinet to clear 
 up. I believe there are no more free-trade members of the 
 cabinet to speak ; but perhaps we may be favoured with the 
 opinion of a protection member ; for it is a remarkable charac- 
 teristic of the present anomalous state of affairs that we have 
 at the same time a protection cabinet and a free-trade 
 ministry. The right honourable gentleman told us that he 
 feels the difficulty under which he necessarily labours in him- 
 self proposing these changes in our commercial system ; that 
 he had wished these changes should be proposed by others ; 
 but at the same time he informs us that he proposed these 
 identical measures in cabinet long before he meditated the 
 rupture of that cabinet, or perhaps anticipated the opposition 
 he received in it. How, then, does he reconcile the two state- 
 ments ? How does he reconcile the fact that he did propose 
 these measures to the cabinet which unexpected opposition to 
 them ultimately broke up, with the statement, recently often 
 repeated, that he wished others had brought them forward ? 
 
 I proceed, first, to notice the emergency, ■ I say, then, that 
 we are ready, as regards the emergency, to do all that any minis- 
 ter entitled to the confidence of Parliament would recommend. 
 We are prepared to do for Ireland — I do not say, all that Ireland 
 can desire, but all that human judgment can devise ; but we 
 don't exactly understand the position of the right honourable 
 gentleman with respect to this subject. It has been involved in 
 great obscurity. The right honourable gentleman says, ' I was 
 for opening the ports.' The statement was met with a response 
 of sympathy from these benches ; and then, taking a rapid view 
 of the economical history of the country, proving that the ports 
 had often been opened, and beneficially opened, the right 
 honourable baronet turned round and said, ' Yes, it is very well 
 for you to cheer me, but although I was prepared to open the 
 
 I 2 
 
116 SPEECHES OF THE EAKL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 ports, I was not, prepared to shut them again.' Well, now, it 
 seems from that, the difficulty of the right honourable gentle- 
 man was not as to opening the ports — that, under the circum- 
 stances, he would have had no difficulty about. But the 
 difficulty lay at the bottom of his policy ; the right honourable 
 baronet had resolved that the present system of corn and pro- 
 vision laws should cease. Compare these facts with the 
 declaration that has just been made by a member of the cabinet, 
 not exactly on the hustings, but before a lai-ge body of his 
 constituents in a Midland county — the extraordinary declaration, 
 which I dare say attracted the attention of many, made by the 
 Chief Secretary for Ireland.' He tells them, ' We had wished 
 that this communication should have been made to another 
 Parliament ; ' that is to say, the present Parliament might have 
 gone on — there might have been a renewal, another seven 
 years' lease, of the Conservative majority; and when the 
 general election had taken place, and we had just met, we 
 should have received the announcement which, by peculiar 
 circumstances, has been made too soon. 
 
 Now, I am making no charge ; I am throwing out hints to 
 the protection members of the cabinet who probably may rise 
 in the course of this debate. These are points on which we 
 wish to have information. We want to know whether it was a 
 foregone conclusion, and whether the Secretary for Ireland was 
 authorised in saying that it was not intended to propose these 
 changes until a new Parliament had assembled. We want to 
 know whether it is a fact that, although the right honourable 
 gentleman has more than once said that he deplores that the 
 task has fallen on him, and wishes it had fallen to others, the 
 right honourable gentleman, before the idea could have been 
 conceived by any other human being, had proposed these mea- 
 sures in council and insisted on their adoption. These are 
 two circumstances that require elucidation. When the right 
 honourable gentleman first brought these measures before the 
 notice of the House, he seemed to found them on the observa- 
 tion of the last three years ; but in the last speech he made 
 he found fault with that expression, and the position he then 
 
 ' Lord Lincoln. 
 
ME, MILES'S AMENDMENT, 1846. 117 
 
 laid down was this : — ' I don't say that it was the experience of 
 the last three years that induced me to adopt the measures I 
 now recommend ; but, taking a general view of the commercial 
 history of this country for a long period, I had seen, with gradual 
 and sometimes considerable relaxations of protective duties, and 
 especially during the last three years, under the influence of 
 my tariff, a great simultaneous increase of exports and imports.' 
 I believe that is a fair statement of what the right honourable 
 gentleman said. 
 
 Now, it is very agreeable to hear of a great increase of ex- 
 ports and imports, and if the right honourable gentleman had 
 been only opening his annual budget I would not have been 
 captious. But when a great social revolution is proposed and 
 recommended to us, and that great change recommended on the 
 data afforded by our exports and imports, it becomes the House 
 to be very cautious in their conduct, and analyse very severely 
 the conclusions from those data. Now, Sir, there is one cause 
 with which I dare say the House, and particularly honourable 
 members opposite, are very familiar, but which has never been 
 mentioned in this debate, which operates extremely, and has 
 especially operated upon the exports and imports of this year. I 
 am throwing overboard all consideration of exuberant harvests 
 and magnificent public works — all those featmres of nature and 
 of art — which the right honourable baronet never referred to on 
 the first occasion. I am not taking advantage of these ad- 
 missions. I believe it is universally acknowledged by all 
 persons, whatever opinion they may have upon the great ques- 
 tion, that the basis of the right honourable gentleman's argu- 
 ment was much too limited at first, and the data on which 
 he built utterly fallacious. I throw out of consideration all 
 these circumstances, and I put my finger upon an important 
 agency in this question, to which I call the attention of the 
 House. There is nothing that affects imports especially so much 
 as the state of the seasons. Now, I will show you a case as a 
 commercial transaction, both as regards the imports and exports, 
 which illustrates the agency of this principle. If you look at the 
 exports and imports this year, you will find a very great increase 
 in both in the instance of sugar. It is impossible to suppose 
 
118 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OP BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 that the tariff— the alteration in the sugar duties by the right 
 honourable gentleman — could have influenced to any extent the 
 consignments of sugar that we received, particularly from the 
 more distant ports — from the Mauritius, for instance, and the 
 East Indies ; but there happened to be an abundant crop both 
 in the Mauritius and the East Indies, and owing to that 
 circumstance our imports of sugar from those parts of the 
 world were much greater than usual, and will no doubt figure 
 in the table to be brought forward by the right honourable 
 baronet on some future day, in vindication of his commercial 
 policy. Now, it is a curious circumstance that while there 
 has been that abundant crop in the Mauritius and the East 
 Indies, there has been a total deficiency of the crop at the 
 Havannah. Trace, then, the influence of the seasons upon 
 trade. All the great Eussian refineries are entirely supplied by 
 the Havannah ; and what occurs ? Why, Eussia imported 
 sugar from England ; and thus you see, at the same time, the 
 influence of a good season immensely increases the import of 
 sugar from the Mauritius into this country, and the influence 
 of a bad season in the Havannah produces a great increase in 
 the export of sugar from England to Eussia. No one will 
 pretend that that is the consequence of the Tariff. I say it 
 was the influence of the seasons ; and the same influence may 
 probably be traced in the exports and imports of all the great 
 raw commodities which mainly make up our colonial trans- 
 actions. I know this subject is dry and unpalatable to the 
 House ; but I feel myself bound to enter into it. I want to show 
 the influence of the seasons upon exports and imports. Sup- 
 pose, for example, you had had a very bad cotton crop in the 
 United States, a crop as deficient as one I remember, to the 
 extent of half a million of bales. Do you mean to say that 
 putting an end to the paltry duty you levied upon cotton- 
 wool would have led to the great increase in the import this 
 year ? An exuberant crop has produced an immense import. 
 If you will look into the wool trade, you will find a great in- 
 crease from the same cause ; and whether it be coffee, or sugar, 
 or wool, or cotton — those four great staple articles — the in- 
 fluence of the seasons upon their import must never be over-; 
 
ME. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 1846. 119 
 
 looked. Now, at the risk of wearying the House, I must 
 venture to notice another statement of the right honourable 
 gentleman — one of those that he sometimes makes with his 
 figures aU ready, and with that felicitous manner that seems to 
 augur a favomrable result. The right honourable gentleman 
 has made a battle-horse of the unfortunate silk trade. I really 
 should have thought that the memory of the hand-loom weavers 
 might have prevented a minister, although the most ardent 
 votary of free trade, from putting forward the case of the silk 
 trade. My honourable friend the member for Warwickshire 
 has referred to that trade, and, without now alluding to details 
 with which the House is familiar — throwing out of the calcula- 
 tion all that animal refuse which, compared with real silk, is 
 as a value ranging from 2d. to lOd. per pound is to one ranging 
 from 14s. to i!5s. per pound — I beg the right honourable gentle- 
 man to contrast the import of raw silk in 1844 with the import 
 of what may fairly be considered the last year of a protected 
 trade. In the last year of protected trade, if my memory 
 serves me right, we imported 4,100,064 lbs. of raw silk ; that 
 is exactly twenty-two years ago; and in 1844, after twenty 
 years of the blessings of this relaxed protection, we imported 
 4,020,063 lbs. ; and yet it appeared from the statement of the 
 right honourable baronet, unless he is misreported, that the 
 contrast he drew was between 3,000,000 lbs. under protection, 
 and an import of 6,000,000 lbs. under a relaxed system. But 
 suppose the increase had been such as the right honourable 
 gentleman stated. I cannot believe for a moment that you are 
 to ascribe all the progress in a country like England, with the 
 untiring energies of the English nation, to the principle that 
 may regulate your commercial code. I know that, if the 
 country is prosperous, we are ready to allege the advantages of 
 protection, while honourable gentlemen opposite are equally 
 prompt to urge that the approximation we have made to liberal 
 commerce has benefited the country. I believe, whether we 
 had one system or the other, the country would to a certain 
 extent flourish ; though there may be much class sufiering and 
 much individual misery — the two things we wish to prevent. 
 But the extraordinary circumstance with respect to the silk 
 
120 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 trade is, that it has not thriven. It is the exception that is 
 to prove the rule. If honoxirable gentlemen doubt my state- 
 ment, they will have ample opportunities to contradict me. 
 The fact is not very material to my argument, and I will give 
 you a good reason why. I made these observations, because 
 I thought them deserving of the attention of the House, 
 and especially the effect of the seasons upon imports ; but I 
 am perfectly willing to admit the principle which the right 
 honourable baronet has established in his last speech. Now, 
 what is that principle ? The right honourable baronet says 
 we have been removing prohibition and relaxing protection for 
 thirty years, and the country has been more flourishing than 
 ever. Now, that is my case. I say that the country is flourish- 
 ing because you have given to its trade a just, a judicious, and 
 a moderate protection. But the right honourable gentleman, 
 having proved, especially in his last exposition of the poHcy of 
 Government, that by a just, judicious, and moderate protection 
 England has flourished, turns round very calmly to us, and 
 says, 'I am bound to acknowledge that I have changed my 
 opinion upon this subject of protection; I am no longer in 
 favour of it.' His whole speech, after all, only proved the ad- 
 vantage of protection. It can prove nothing else than the 
 advantage of the principle of a moderate protection. (' Oh ! ') 
 I am sorry. Sir, to have excited that groan from a free trader in 
 distress. I want to ask the honourable gentleman a very im- 
 portant question, Does he believe that he can fight hostile 
 tariffs with free imports ? That is the point. (Hear !) ' Hear ! 
 Hear ! ' from the disciples of the school of Manchester ! A most 
 consistent cheer ! They have always maintained they can ; 
 and if their principles are right, as they believe they are — as I 
 believe they are not — I can easily understand that, their pre- 
 misses being assumed, they may arrive at that conclusion. 
 They believe they can fight hostile tariffs with free imports, 
 and they tell us very justly, ' Let us take care of our imports, 
 and everything else will take care of itself.' But is that the 
 conviction of the right honourable gentleman ? We want to 
 know that, because, if that be his conviction, why all these 
 elegies over defunct diplomatic negotiations to procure com- 
 
MR. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 1846. 121 
 
 mercial treaties ? Why does the right honourable gentleman 
 speak with so much pity and with so much pique upon the 
 question of Jiis diplomatic intercourse on the subject of relaxed 
 commerce ? If he believe that he can meet hostile tariffs with 
 free imports, he need not trouble himself about commercial 
 treaties. But if the right honourable gentleman does not 
 believe that — if he has not the conviction of the school of 
 Manchester — then he is not justified in offering this measure. 
 But how can I believe that the right honourable gentleman 
 has this conviction, which he has never enunciated, when he 
 tells you, as one of the recommendations of this measure, that 
 he hopes great things from a good example ? If he believes in 
 that great principle to which I have just alluded, a good 
 example is of no importance whatever. We must have a pro- 
 tection minister speak upon this subject. We must have a 
 clear declaration from the cabinet upon this important point ; 
 it is the question upon which all hinges. I conclude from the 
 language of the right honourable gentleman that he is not 
 quite satisfied on this head : how otherwise am I to explain his 
 language ? He tells you that Prussia already shakes ; he reads 
 to you the report of an American minister in favour of what is 
 really free trade — an equal interchange of the peculiar products 
 of different countries ; he makes what I must consider very 
 extraordinary statements of opinions on the subject in France, 
 and to which my noble friend the member for Newark has 
 very properly referred. I cannot presume to offer an opinion 
 upon these high subjects of cabinet secrets after such declara- 
 tions froia the right honourable gentleman. It may be because 
 all things are possible — that the Americans are going to change 
 their tariff; that Prussia already shakes ; that the French are 
 votaries of free trade; but I think it my duty, with per- 
 mission of the House, to offer them some facts, from which I 
 leave them to draw their own conclusion. 
 
 In the first place we have been referred to the report of 
 Mr. Walker, the Secretary of the American Treasury. Mr. 
 Walker is a very respectable man ; I believe — I am so informed 
 on authority — that Mr. Walker is not interested in the pro- 
 ^tection of native industry ; and I am sorry to say that in 
 
122 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 America, for the last few years, the question what your material 
 interest is, is almost the only line of demarcation between 
 parties. But before you calculate upon any modification in the 
 tariff of America, it is just as well that the House should clearly 
 understand what is the power of the manufacturing interest — 
 the protected interest — in America. I will not refer to that 
 enormous volume which has already been the subject of 
 criticism ; but an American gentleman residing at Liverpool 
 has sent me the last census of the American population. It 
 was taken in 1840, and I beheve it is the last ; if there be a 
 later one it would be rather more in my favour. Now, what 
 do you suppose is the number of manufacturing operatives in 
 the United States ? In 1840, and since 1840^ — under this 
 tariff, there has been the greatest development of manufactur- 
 ing industry yet known in America — in 1840 the number of 
 the manufacturing operatives in the United States was 800,000, 
 a population exceeding, I believe, the manufacturing popula- 
 tion of our four great staple manufactures in England. The 
 honourable gentleman who is the Secretary of the Treasury 
 there says in his report that the only interests concerned are 
 the interests of 10,000 manufacturers. Now, the importance 
 of an interest is to be calculated from the amount of the popula- 
 tion employed and of the capital invested. The number of the 
 manufacturers may be of very secondary importance ; but there 
 are 10,000 manufacturers in the United States, and I want to 
 know how many there are in England. I know, if you look 
 to the population returns, which were drawn up by a pen not 
 favourable to the agricultural interest, the number of manu 
 facturers does not appear ; probably it was not convenient to 
 mention it ; but I very much doubt if there are 10,000. At any 
 rate, see the importance of the interest you have to encounter.' 
 But that is not all ; I need not dilate on the number of individ- 
 uals in America who are dependent on these 800,000 operatives. 
 But there is no agricultual State in the vicinity of these manu- 
 facturing establishments that is not in favour of protection ; 
 and for this reason, because protection gives them the benefit 
 of a home market. Now, you have to encounter the best 
 organised and probably the most numerous interests in the 
 
MR. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 1846. 123 
 
 United States ; and unless you are aware of the special cir- 
 cumstances in respect to the industry of the United States, it 
 is impossible to comprehend what is going on in that country. 
 I will give an illustration of this. 
 
 The other day I met a noble lord who was once a minister 
 of the Crown, and a most distinguished man. He was in 
 great trouble about the Oregon question, and said, with an 
 expression of surprise — ' Here is the venerable Adams, who was 
 always the advocate of peace, who has made a furious war 
 speech ! ' The noble lord was astonished at this, but he was 
 not aware that in proportion as free trade has become popular 
 in England, has the manufacturing or protected interest in 
 the United States become warlike. They have discovered that 
 war — and I am quoting the argument of a most respectable 
 literary organ of the party, which I only read last night — that, 
 after all, war will be the only protection for the manufacturer. 
 Now, let me pray the House to remember the arguments which 
 have been employed in favour of reducing the tariff for the 
 American markets. It has always been considered a principal 
 peacemaker — the proper way to remove the small cloud on the 
 other side of the Atlantic. But remember that in exact pro- 
 portion as you conciliate the western settlements, you will 
 lose the affections of the great northern States, who are the 
 most powerful part of the American community. I put this to 
 the noble lord who has recently visited that country, and who 
 so much interested us the other night with an account of it — I 
 mean the noble lord ' the member for the West Riding of 
 Yorkshire — who, I must say, I rejoice to see returned to us, 
 even though it be as the member for the "West Eiding. I 
 listened to his speech with great interest ; his descriptions of 
 American landscape were admirable ; all I wi.shed was that he 
 would have entered a little more into certain social details, have 
 given us, for instance, an authentic revision of that famous 
 Transatlantic melody which describes how statesmen may jump 
 from one set of opinions to another. I have endeavoiu-ed to 
 condense my observations on this subject; but I think they are 
 worthy of calm consideration. I cannot say a word when I am 
 
 ' Lord Morpeth. 
 
124 SPEECHES OF THE EAKL OF BEA'JONSFIELD. 
 
 told — oracularly told — that Prussia already shakes. I can only 
 say that I read a book, just published, within this month, where 
 there is no indication of this wonderful shaking. It is written 
 by a man who, on the contrary, testifies to the most obstinate 
 determination on the part of Prussia that this free-trade system 
 must be uncompromisingly resisted. With respect to the 
 Manchester people, he says that they can export at a loss ; and 
 he quotes the pamphlet of Mr. Baines, and a speech of the 
 honourable member to that effect. He says that they can go 
 on exporting at a loss, and thus they will swamp our [i.e. the 
 Prussian] markets, so that these dangerous measures of the 
 English Government render it necessary we should make our 
 [i.e. the Prussian] tariff, if possible, more stringent. We re- 
 quire a more detailed account of the shaking of Prussia, and till 
 we receive it I, for one, shall be extremely sceptical. I have, 
 indeed, read a most mournful representation from the little 
 State of Mecklenburg : they say they have been asked to join 
 the ZoUverein over and over again ; but they have not joined 
 it, in consequence of the remonstrances of the English Minister, 
 to their great injury ; and they say, ' After all the sacrifices 
 we have made, if the ZoUverein are to have free importation 
 to England, we have no advantage whatever, and the best 
 thing we can now do is to join the ZoUverein, and see what 
 measures can be best devised to advance the cause of native 
 industry.' 
 
 Now I come to France, and I admit I never in my life 
 listened to anything with more astonishment than to the pro- 
 spects which the right honourable gentleman held out as to 
 France. Eemember these are prospects held out by the 
 minister, not by gentlemen of the Manchester school, who 
 believe that they may fight hostile tariffs with free imports. 
 He holds out these prospects, but I say without hesitation what 
 is my conviction — and I speak with some knowledge of the 
 public men of France — that, with the exception of an occasional 
 statesman who attempts to humour and conciliate an English 
 minister, I do not beUeve there is a leading individual in France 
 who is not in favoiu- of a high restrictive policy. It is a most 
 curious circumstance which the House should bear in mind — 
 
ME. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 1846. 125 
 
 and my noble friend the member for Newark' has properly 
 alluded to it — that although there is no country in the world 
 where parties are so violent as in France — not looking merely 
 to changes of government, but pointing to changes which make 
 an Englishman recoil — yet you find this curious circumstance, 
 that not only what is called the Conservative party, that which 
 sways the Chambers, the commercial feudality — and of course 
 interested in all the great protected interests — but the Eepub- 
 lican party, the great object of whose struggles is not merely 
 to get rid of a sovereign or a minister, but entirely to change 
 the tenure of property — that party is opposed to what you call 
 free trade as much as the commercial community. You have 
 in France these two great interests, the politico-philosophical 
 and the commercial, all working together against what they 
 call the fatal principle of competition. There was but one way 
 of ever gaining any relaxation of the mercantile system of 
 France, and that was by diplomacy. The French cabinet will 
 do nothing without a treaty. An opportunity for some partial 
 interchange once offered itself, which might have benefited the 
 cutlery of SheflBeld ; but that is all past. 
 
 You now propose to open your ports without condition, and 
 France has no longer an object to negotiate for. I bring it, 
 then, to this point, that if the right honourable baronet is 
 not prepared to meet hostile tarififs with free imports, he has 
 no ground to stand on. And now let us try fighting hostile 
 tariffs with free imports. I will suppose that we have a great 
 increase of importation from the shores of the Baltic ; that, in 
 addition to the commerce we have aheady with those countries, 
 we import a great deal more. Supposing you import 5,000,000Z, 
 more from Eussia than you ever did before, how will you make 
 your payments if they take no more additional goods from you 
 than they do now ? "Will you pay in gold ? Can you ? I know 
 honourable gentlemen opposite will reply, they manage these 
 things by means of bills, and so on ; but that will not improve 
 the case. Suppose, when you have got the 5,000,000i. addi- 
 tional from Eussia, you buy Eussian bills on Brazil or New 
 York to the amount of those 5,000,000^., and you thus com- 
 ' Lord John Manners. 
 
 v^ 
 
126 SPEECHES OF THE EA.EL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 plete your transaction. But you have already supplied the 
 Americans and the Brazilians with as much of your goods as 
 they care to take, and if you want to sell still more to them, 
 you must do so at a great sacrifice. Supposing, for instance, 
 you send out to one of these countries 1,500,000L of goods, and 
 they only require 1,000,000L, then it is clear you must sell 
 the other 500,OOOZ. at an immense sacrifice. Prices fall, profits 
 are reduced, wages are lowered. But the system of the 
 Grovemment, it appears, is a comprehensive system : this pro- 
 cess is going on at the same time in several other markets. Are 
 you prepared to meet the effect it will have on the general dis- 
 tribution of the precious metals ? Every year, and in every market, 
 English labour will receive less in return of foreign articles. 
 But gold and silver are foreign articles ; and in every year and 
 in every market English labour will have less command of gold 
 and silver. If the precious metals become more valuable, 
 prices must fall. But let me' ask how you are to meet your 
 taxation ; how are you to meet the fixed burdens of the country 
 if you bring on a general fall of prices in England ? I confess 
 I see little chance of assistance in the new Banking Bill of the 
 right honourable baronet. That is a measure rather charac- 
 terised by caution than security. 
 
 Now, unless the right honourable baronet is prepared to 
 fight hostile tariffs with free imports, I repeat that he is not 
 justified in bringing forward this measure. And now, Sir, 
 before addressing myself to the principle of protection, I feel 
 myself bound in courtesy to notice the speeches of two right 
 honourable gentlemen who addressed the House during the 
 debate. The first is the speech of the right honourable gentle- 
 man the Secretary at War ; and I must say the spirit of that 
 speech surprised me ; and it was (I do not use the term offen- 
 sively) a League speech — a speech which, if made at the right 
 time, and by the proper person, and under proper circumstances, 
 might have been received with much applause. I can easily 
 understand how some honourable members who are sitting 
 opposite to me at this moment, who entered political life with 
 a deep conviction of the truth of a great economical principle ; 
 who have traced, though in an exaggerated spirit, the many 
 
MR. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 18+6. 127 
 
 evils whicli, according to their view, have flowed from the 
 system to which they are opposed ; I can conceive how, acting 
 under 9, profound and passionate conviction of these, which I 
 believe animates very many gentlemen of the Anti-Corn Law 
 League— I can easily conceive their using such language. But 
 I must say the right honourable gentleman the Secretary at 
 War ' was not the person to address this house as a martyr, 
 when he is only a convert — I was going to say, a recent con- 
 vert, forgetting that he has informed us that in 1841 he was in 
 favour of the principles of free trade : he only objected then 
 to the mode in which the principles were applied ; the mode 
 in which they were then applied was from the opposite side of 
 the table. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman the Secretary at "War 
 congratulated the House upon the fact that the fallacy of cheap 
 bread was discarded by all parties ; while the Secretary of State ^ 
 in his address on the following night, in answer to an appeal 
 from my noble friend the member for Stamford, stated that 
 unless the question before the House involved a cheaper and 
 more abundant supply of food to the people, there was no ques- 
 tion before them. How does the Secretary of State for the 
 Home Department reconcile that with the speech of the Secre- 
 tary at War ? I am not surprised that there should be such 
 distraction in their counsels, when there is such discordance in 
 their speeches. The Secretary at War, also, as respects a most 
 important interest in this comprehensive scheme — which I do 
 not wish now more particularly to advert to, except to say that 
 it is, in my opinion, the most important interest — the right 
 honourable gentleman asks, what do you fear from free im- 
 ports ? Where are they to come from ? Now, I want to avoid 
 making a Corn Law speech ; I shall have other opportunities of 
 doing so ; but at the same time, when an observation of this 
 kind is made, I cannot allow it to pass unnoticed, for I observe 
 that there is a coolness of assertion very prevalent on this 
 subject. 
 
 I read a speech to-day from one whom we all respect, and 
 
 ' Mr. S. Herbert. ' Sir James Graham. 
 
128 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD, 
 
 whom, I believe, we may now call a noble Parliamentary victim.' 
 Addressing the electors, he said, ' What need you care about 
 imports ? Suppose there is an importation of ] ,000,000 
 quarters, there will be a rise of 10s. in the price.' Now, I beg 
 to say that I have investigated the subject as much as I could, 
 and that I have some personal experience of the corn-growing 
 countries, and I have not the slightest doubt that when this 
 system shall be established you will get any quantity of com 
 from those countries that you like. It is ridiculous to tell us 
 that they have no capital. The gentlemen of Manchester will 
 soon lend them some. It is idle to say they have no roads. 
 The member for Sunderland '^ will soon make them some. I 
 will say, also, that there is no fallacy so great as to suppose 
 that prices will rise as soon as there is an established market 
 here in proportion to the demand. This may be true in cases of 
 an uncertain demand ; but the moment you have a settled market, 
 in exact proportion to the demand, prices will fall. This is the 
 inevitable rule. I am prepared to support my assertion with facts, 
 if the House will allow me. Take the article of tea, for ex- 
 ample. The demand for tea has increased year after year, and 
 year after year prices have fallen. Take the article of cotton 
 as another example ; for there is a great analogy between 
 cotton and corn. I remember when there was the same dis- 
 cussion in America respecting the supply of cotton as we have 
 now respecting corn ; and it was maintained in a pamphlet by 
 a member of Congi-ess that under no circumstances could the 
 price of cotton be less than twelve cents per pound. Well, now, 
 the fact has turned out that ever since a regular trade in 
 cotton was established, with scarcely an interval the price of 
 cotton has diminished, and diminished, and diminished, till it 
 has fallen sometimes as low as three cents per pound. You 
 may reject my reasoning as regards corn, but until you refute 
 my examples respecting tea and cotton, you have no right to 
 do so. Well, now, to return to the speech of the right 
 honourable the Secretary at War.^ He asks us. What is the 
 
 ' Lord Lincoln, defeated by Mr. Hildyard, the Protectionist candidate for 
 South Notts (February 1846), by a large majority. 
 
 ' Mr. Hudson. « Mr. Sidney Herbert. 
 
ME. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 18+6. 129 
 
 use of all this agitation about a mere question of the repeal 
 of a duty on one article of imports ? The right honourable 
 gentleman forgets that last year the abolition of this article 
 of import was ' a social revolution.' And then follows the con- 
 sistent Secretary of State, and he tells us that if we refuse 
 to pass this measure we shall bring upon England anarchy, 
 misery, and ruin. 
 
 The right honourable baronet the Secretary of State was, 
 it appears, very much alarmed at the end of last year in conse- 
 quence of a deficiency of potatoes in Ireland. He told us so ; 
 he told us he was also alarmed in consequence of an expected 
 deficiency in the wheat harvest of England ; and he also told 
 us that he was particularly alarmed because it might possibly 
 bring about a state of affairs such as we had in 1842, by which 
 he assured us he was much more alarmed than was imagined 
 at the time. Now, I have observed that ever since the right 
 honourable gentleman has been a minister of the Conservative 
 cabinet, he has annually brought forward a very extensive 
 measure, which has as regularly produced great alarm, and 
 excited great odium in the country ; and that the right honour- 
 able gentleman, alarmed at his own proceedings, has ended by 
 withdrawing the measure. Bold in Opposition — not too scrupu- 
 lous- — it seems a characteristic of the right honourable gentle- 
 man that the responsibilities of office should bring to him, not 
 prudence, but panic. And these are the ministers who tm-n 
 round and say, ' You are alarmed at our measure, but you will 
 not suffer at all except from your own panic' Why, they are 
 the children of panic ; they are an alarmist cabinet. I know 
 not from what cause, but fright is stamped on their every fore- 
 head — whether it arises from a deficiency of food in Ireland or 
 a superabundance of suffrages in Lancashire. And now, if the 
 House will permit me, I will meet the question of protection. 
 I have not deviated from my engagement. I was bound to 
 answer the main arguments that were offered by the Grovem- 
 ment in favour of their new system ; and now I will offer a few 
 remarks in favour of that which they would abrogate. Sir, the 
 noble lord the member for London, in his address the other 
 night — the tone of which, I am sure everyone felt, was alike 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
130 SPEECHES OP THE EAEL OF BEAOONSFIELD, 
 
 equal to the occasion and to, himself— touched on the question 
 of protection in the abstract. He expressed in classic language 
 the usual economical theories on the subject — very valuable, 
 no doubt, in themselves, and very accurate, but theories which 
 never influenced human conduct, and which are incapable of 
 ever doing so. Therefore, all we could admire in the address 
 of the noble lord was the evidence it afforded of his well-read 
 mind. Now, Sir, I don't know what the noble lord means, 
 dealing as we are with England, and with practically existing 
 circumstances — I don't know what he means by the protective 
 system of this country. I don't find that in England the pro- 
 tective system has ever been what he described it to be — pro- 
 tective to every branch of native industry. I don't find that 
 such a system as that ever existed. There was, Sir, once in 
 England a commercial system, founded on principle, definite in 
 its details, and, in a certain sense, beneficial in practice — I 
 mean the colonial system. No doubt it involved some degree 
 of protection to native industry, but it was always auxiliary to 
 the colonial system. I am not, I assure the House, referring 
 to these points as matters of historical curiosity, but in order 
 to see whether it is not possible that we might come to 
 some agreement as to what the principle of protection is. Now, 
 we always had in England, in those good old days of which a 
 noble friend of mine has spoken, a very liberal system of com- 
 merce with the Continent. There were propositions made at 
 Utrecht, which were not carried into effect, for a general 
 system of commercial communication at a very moderate duty 
 — at 10 per cent. That was really the principle of free trade. 
 
 In the middle of the eighteenth century our foreign trade 
 was sacrificed to the upholding of our colonial system. There 
 is no doubt whatever that the range of our transactions in 
 commerce was thereby curtailed ; but the merchants of Eng- 
 land were compensated by more secure markets and larger 
 profits. But at length your colonial system deserted you ; you 
 lost your principal colonies, and then you had to lay down a 
 new principle. It fell to the lot of Mr. Pitt to do that. His 
 speeches, at the end of the eighteenth century, which you all 
 have read, are a development of the real principles of free trade 
 
ME. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 1846. 131 
 
 — a large system of commercial intercourse on the principle of 
 reciprocal advantage. He told the members of this House, 
 ' You must no longer adhere to those old ideas derived from 
 the colonial system, for we have no longer a colonial world to 
 support that system. You must come forward ' — (he was speak- 
 ing to the manufacturers especially ; for the country gentle- 
 men, on commercial subjects, were far more docile and en- 
 lightened) — ' and give up your colonial system.' What did Mr. 
 Pitt do ? He brought forward a new Tariff, as the right 
 honourable gentleman did. He came down to the House and 
 said, ' Here is my new Tariff ; these are the terms of inter- 
 change with Europe. They are liberal terms. I want to have 
 a free intercourse ; and I have entered into commercial treaties 
 with various Powers, and I have begun with France.' Then 
 came your revolutionary war, which upset all this system. But 
 the moment it was over you returned again to the principles 
 then laid down. Mr. Huskisson and Lord Liverpool pursued 
 the same system further, and at last we again find it recurred 
 to by the right honourable baronet. For myself, I gave a con- 
 scientious vote for the Tariff of the right honourable baronet, 
 as embodying a system of moderate, just, and judicious protec- 
 tion, one which was in complete harmony with what I think 
 are the true commercial principles of this country. We know 
 what a contrary policy would have effected. We are not with- 
 out examples. We know what a system of absolute prohibition 
 will accomplish ; for we have the example of Spain always before 
 us ; and we know, also, there is another country where there 
 has been a complete application, for a long term, of the system 
 of unmitigated competition — not, indeed, from any philosophical 
 conviction of its policy, but rather from the haughty indiffer- 
 ence with which a race of conquerors are too apt to consider 
 commerce. There has been free trade in Turkey for a long 
 time ; and what has it produced ? It has destroyed some of the 
 finest manufactures in the world. As late as 1812 these manu- 
 factures had existed ; but they have been destroyed. Now, 
 that was the consequence of competition in Turkey, and its 
 effects have been as pernicious as the effect of the contrary 
 principle in Spain. You have had the same impossibility of 
 
 K 2 
 
132 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 ^ggi-egating capital — the same impoverishment of the people. 
 And one of the great causes of the financial difficulties of the 
 Porte has been, that there the effects of unbridled competition 
 have been as pernicious as those of excessive protection in 
 
 Spain. 
 
 When a great minister has to deal with the general arrange- 
 ments of the commercial affairs of a country, he has two main 
 objects to attain — first, how to employ the people ; and, secondly, 
 to secure them variety of employment, which, in case of the 
 failure of any particular branch, may prevent their being left 
 without resource. I think the right honourable baronet said 
 that there was a very great difficulty in arguing against the 
 principles of free trade, because they had a prima fade case 
 in their favour. Sir, I never care much about pri'ma fade 
 cases. It would be just as easy for me to say that there was a 
 prima fade case for protection as for the right honourable 
 baronet to say that there was one in favour of free trade. To 
 protect the industry of our fellow-subjects is certainly, prima 
 fade, desirable. Well, now, the right honourable baronet has 
 announced, officially announced, that the principle of protection 
 is for ever relinquished by his cabinet. We think that prin- 
 ciple a beneficial one. Mind, I don't say I am now proving it 
 to be so. We might call on him to prove the contrary. That 
 onus probandi lies on him. Nevertheless, on that ground, I 
 will now meet the gentlemen of the Anti-Corn-Law League. 
 I heard the able speech of the honourable member for Man- 
 chester ; ' I unfortunately lost the speech of the honourable 
 member for Durham,^ but I have been careful to make myself 
 acquainted with it, as, indeed, I was bound to do. I have con- 
 sidered those two speeches ; and I must say I cannot extract 
 from either of them a single principle which can guide me in 
 this maze, or a single reasonable objection to the principle of 
 protection. I admit, however, that as those honourable gentle- 
 men have made so many other speeches, it is not fair in me 
 thus to single out an isolated one. 
 
 Now, I declare that I wish to meet their case in the fairest 
 manner possible. I confess I have great difficulty in doing so, 
 ' Mr. Milner Gibson. ' Mr. John Bright. 
 
MR. MILES'S AMENDMENT. 18i6. 133 
 
 because I find that the arguments of the League have per- 
 petually changed. It is a curious fact that, although they have 
 been working now for seven years, they commenced by jjromising 
 cheap bread to the labourer, and have ended by promising high 
 rents to the landlord. I am not stating this as a charge against . 
 the League. I can understand that if I were engaged in work- 
 ing out a great principle, and placed it in every possible light, 
 I might constantly see contrary effects produced ; and I willingly 
 believe that the League all this time, when we thought they 
 were instructing the people, have been only educating them- 
 selves. And I will tell the gentlemen of the League another 
 reason why I am able to trace this ingenuous development of 
 their mind. I have in my possession a printed circular, a sort 
 of manifesto, of the Chamber of Commerce of Manchester, 
 issued in 1839, which gives a most melancholy account of the 
 commercial condition of England at that time. I examined 
 that document, and I found that the panacea proposed for all 
 these evils was a change, not in the Corn Laws, but in the 
 currency. But you say, what is the Chamber of Commerce at 
 Manchester to the Anti-Corn-Law League ? Now, it so happens 
 that the gentlempn who drew up that circular are the principal 
 members of the League. If you doubt it, look upstairs, and 
 you will see in a book which contains the evidence before your 
 Committee on Joint Stock Banks in 1840 or 1841 — I forget the 
 year — that some of the most distinguished members of the 
 League — some of them holding seats in this House — you 
 will find that they then had not an idea about repeal of the 
 Corn Laws, but that they were the sworn friends of the member 
 for Birmingham. (Mr. Muntz : ' No, no ! ') Do you mean to 
 say that Mr. Eichard Cobden, now the member for Stockport, 
 did not give evidence before that Committee ? That he did 
 not then trace all the evils of the country to the currency ? 
 (Mr. Muntz : ' I do not mean to say he never did ; but I never 
 did.') I always thought the honourable member was one of the 
 school of Gemini.' It seems, then, the League have been con- 
 sidering all the great questions. Having exhausted the currency, 
 they then turned round on the landlords. Continue the agita- 
 ' Reference to pamphlets on the Currency published with that signature. 
 
134 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 tion, and perhaps the next person they will attack will be the 
 fundholder. Perhaps we are only a link in the chain ; it will 
 want a new victim ; I think, therefore, we should promote the 
 agitation, because if we promote the agitation, it may attack a 
 new interest. But now I am going to state the case of the 
 League against the protectionists; and I take it from the 
 speeches delivered by members of that body. They say : ' Pro- 
 tection aims at two objects— to feed the people, and to employ 
 the people. It has failed. It does not feed the people, because 
 you are obliged to import com. It does not employ the people, 
 because you are obliged to' send them to the towns that they 
 may earn their bread. Therefore, protection is a failure.' Now, 
 we say, we can feed the people, and employ the people. You 
 may doubt our success ; but though protection has failed, you 
 must at least admit that free trade is untried. There are 
 ancillary arguments, but can you deny that such is your main 
 argument ? No. Well, silence is consent. 
 
 Now, in the first place, have we failed in feeding the people ? 
 We have no agricultural statistics, which I deplore ; but we 
 have what are called some great facts to guide us. We know 
 that fifty years ago the population of this country was not half 
 of what it is at present. We know that at that time we could 
 not feed our people ; that we imported as much as one fifth 
 part of the com consumed. We know that now, in average 
 years, we succeed in feeding the people, though their numbers 
 are double what they then were ; and we now supply them with 
 food at a cheaper rate than we did then. That is a prima 
 facie case in our favour. It is said protection is the bane of 
 agriculture. I don't see how protection can be the bane of 
 agriculture, unless you mean to assert that the agriculture of 
 England is inferior to that of any other country. Now, I want 
 to know where are superior systems of agriculture to be found ? 
 You will not tell me that there is a superior system of agri- 
 culture in Kussia. The agriculture of that country has been 
 described by a graceful and graphic pen, and the passage must 
 be so fresh in the recollection of the House that I need not 
 repeat it. I believe the agriculture of Eussia remains much 
 in the same state as it was at the time of that description. 
 
ME. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 1846. 135 
 
 Will you say that the agriculture of G-ermany is superior ? I 
 admit you may go over the world and take a small district — it 
 may be in Flanders, or Tuscany, or Styria, in the south of Ger- 
 many — where a system of agriculture may be pursued superior 
 to the general cultivation of this country. I believe, however, 
 that we have districts in Lincolnshire, in the Lothians, equal to 
 any of these favoured spots. But what I want to know is, is 
 there any breadth of land in the world capable of sustaining the 
 population of a first-rate State, with an agriculture which can 
 compare with that of Great Britain ? You won't take me to 
 the north of Germany. Take a rural town there, with its one 
 shop, perhaps that of an apothecary, who sells not only drugs, 
 but everything else. Compare that rural town in the north of 
 Germany with the rural towns of England- — the smallest rural 
 towns of England — with their many great shops, their six or 
 seven large establishments abounding in Manchester goods. 
 Then you understand what is a home market. I will take a 
 country very near this, the country of our rival and our friend 
 — I will take France. That is a country blessed with g;reat 
 natural advantages — an exuberant soil, a fertile climate. It 
 labours under none of the disadvantages which the gentlemen of 
 the League are perpetually reminding us agriculture is exposed 
 to in this country. There is no primogeniture, no hereditary 
 peerage, no law of entail, and no game. I ask, is the agricul- 
 ture of France to be compared with that of England ? It seems, 
 then, that under the system of protection, the agriculture of 
 England is not so very bad. Though the population has doubled 
 within fifty years, it has contrived to feed the people at a lower 
 rate. 
 
 But you say that there is no application of capital to the 
 land in this country. I deplore the want of agricultural sta- 
 tistics. We must make researches, and from a number of 
 facts deduce our inference. It is quite impossible to travel 
 over England without being convinced that there is a greater 
 application of capital to land in this country than in any 
 other. It is quite impossible that the fact should be other- 
 wise. There is not an Englishman working in any of our 
 colonies, there is not a resident at the Court of an Indian 
 
136 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Prince, the great object of whose ambition is not to return 
 to England, purchase land, and become a justice of the peace, 
 or deputy-lieutenant. Eiding on elephants, surrounded by- 
 slaves, he is always dreaming of quarter sessions. The land 
 of England is not only supported by the capitalists of England, 
 but it is the land of that country which is the metropolis 
 of the world. It receives the tribute of the world. You 
 say there is a deJBcient application of capital to the land of 
 England. Why, inquiries have been made, and statements, 
 duly authenticated, are on record, which show that the imports 
 of guano during the last two years amount in value to a million 
 sterling, or a million and a quarter. No doubt, if you secured 
 a mercantile profit, you might have a more orgauised appUeation 
 of capital to land. But the peculiarity is that here, where 
 wealth has so many channels of employment, land gives no more 
 than a return of three per cent. I have often been asked by 
 foreigners, what is the reason why, when so many means are 
 open for the employment of capital, people in this country 
 should be so ready to invest their capital in land. It is what 
 no foreigner can understand. It is your territorial constitution 
 that has invested the possession of land with an honour peculiar 
 to itself, and, giving to the landowner a position which is 
 superior to that of any other class, will always secure the invest- 
 ment of capital in the soil of England. 
 
 Now, let me assume two events, both of which I fear are 
 probable. I will assume, in the first place, that the present 
 Com Laws will be repealed ; and, in the second, that after the 
 lapse of a few years we may be involved in a European war. 
 What will be our position ? The past may guide us, I want 
 honourable gentlemen to consider the position of England at the 
 time of the rupture of the treaty of Amiens. At the time 
 of the rupture of the treaty of Amiens we had a virtual free 
 trade in com ; we had long been in the habit of receiving a large 
 portion of our supply from the Continent, when that great 
 war commenced which concluded with Waterloo. What was 
 the consequence? You tell me now, what does it signify 
 whether we are independent or not of a foreign supply ? we 
 obtained a supply even from France in time of war. I believe 
 
ME. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 1846. 137 
 
 in 1812 we did receive some xorn from Holland and France. 
 But if you base your theory on that isolated fact, you not only 
 fall into error, but misapprehend the real circumstances. I 
 affirm that you were long prevented by that war from having 
 supplies from the Continent ; and it was only by gradually 
 obtaining the dominion of the seas that you were able to secure 
 any. But was that all? From the absolute want of corn, 
 England at the time offered the greatest possible inducement 
 to investments in land. You had then all those thousands of 
 Enclosure Acts, of which we have so often heard. You had an 
 enormous rise of prices; wheat was 110s. the quarter; you 
 raised loans at 110s. per quarter, and you had to pay the interest 
 on those loans when wheat was at 55s. per quarter. Such were 
 the unnatural excitement and subsequent depression which 
 arose from your having neglected to secure a sufficient, or nearly 
 sufficient, home supply of corn. Now, I want to know, remem- 
 bering all these circumstances — remembering the state of 
 England with respect to our means of subsistence, at the 
 rupture of the treaty of Amiens ; remembering, at the com- 
 mencement of that terrific struggle, that this country did 
 receive a great portion of its supply from abroad ; remembering 
 that the importation of grain from foreign countries during that 
 struggle was never secured till we had gained the dominion of 
 the seas, a dominion which it would rather be a proof of our 
 patriotic spirit than our political sagacity again to count upon ; 
 remembering that in this interval there were two occasions 
 when absolute famine was impending over England, the quartern 
 loaf in 1812 selling at Is. lid. — remembering all these cir- 
 cumstances, which ought to warn us against being dependent 
 on foreign supply, and seeing that still, with all her immense 
 increase in population, England has succeeded in mainly sup- 
 porting herself ; remembering all this, I want to know whether 
 it would be politic again to incur such risks, and whether it can 
 with truth be maintained that protection is the bane of agri- 
 culture, and has failed in its first office of sustaining the popu- 
 lation of this country ? 
 
 And now I will meet the gentlemen of the League on the 
 second point of their allegation. They say this system has 
 
138 SPEECHES OE THE EARL OE BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 failed to employ the population. The right honourable gentle- 
 man the Secretary at War' has touched upon this delicate 
 subject. He said, only cultivate the hills of Wiltshire, and there 
 will be sufficient employment for the whole population of that 
 county. I ask the right honourable gentleman why the hills of 
 Wiltshire are not cultivated ? It is a legitimate question to 
 ask of one whose proud boast it is that he is the representative 
 of that county ; still more it is a legitimate question to ask of 
 one descended from an illustrious family that has been long 
 planted in its soil. On him and his, among others, rests the 
 responsibility of the want of cultivation in that county. You 
 talk to me of Goatacre and Bremhill ; you tell me of the miser- 
 able condition of the peasantry ; it is not here alone I have 
 attempted, however weakly, to call public attention to the 
 condition of the people ; but when you come here with your 
 cool assumptions and daring charges ; when you say, ' Look at 
 the condition of the peasantry, and see what pvoteetion has done 
 for them,' why, I call on you for facts and dates : I ask you what 
 was the condition of the peasantry of England before the 
 influence of this system of protection ? I say that, even with 
 this accumulated mass of population, it was worse than that at 
 present. I have read details of the condition of the peasantry 
 of England, especially in the western counties, during the last 
 years of the Eevolutionary War, when we had a free importation 
 of corn from France and Holland ; I have seen descriptions of 
 their state at that time, and in nothing was it less miserable than 
 their present condition, except that there was then a wild and 
 indiscriminate assistance, given by irresponsible persons in the 
 name of poor-rate, which only sustained the wild and reckless, 
 to the injury of the industrious and orderly. You bring for- 
 ward your Groatacre meetings ! 
 
 The right honourable baronet the other night compared an 
 honourable member on this side of the House to Anacharsis 
 Cloots. That reminds me of a story I have read of that distin- 
 guished personage, who once announced to the French Conven- 
 tion that a deputation had arrived from all the nations of 
 Europe, anxious to express their gratitude to that illustrious 
 
 ' Mr. Sidney Herbert. 
 
MR. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 18i6. 139 
 
 body for their visions of philanthropy, and their efforts in 
 behalf of the human race. The Convention was impressed with 
 awe at the solemnity of their position ; the deputation appeared, 
 introduced by Anacharsis Cloots, in appropriate costume, each 
 one wearing the dress of his own country. The circumstance 
 produced a great sensation throughout Paris. To the whole of 
 Europe the wonderful event was announced, and after the 
 deputation had been received they dined together at the Cafe 
 de Paris, and probably, at night, danced at the bal coatumS in 
 the same carnival costumes. Now, I think the deputation from 
 Goatacre comes from the same market. It, is not because I 
 advert to these hackneyed acts of faction that I wish to draw 
 away your attention from the condition of Wiltshire and the 
 western counties of England. Let them be as miserable and 
 wretched as you say ; paint the wretch who lives in a hovel, 
 badly fed and badly clothed ; admit all — but when you turn 
 round and say, ' Protection is the cause of this,' I ask. Why do 
 you not go to the manufacturing districts ? Enter with me 
 into a factory at Stockport or Manchester, and I will show you 
 human suffering ; I will show you human degradation ; I will 
 bring you to a hovel where the exhausted slave curses the life 
 which he cannot quit. I might say, ' Competition has done 
 this.' Can I, could I do this ? No, because I am too well 
 acquainted with the noble industry of the manufacturing 
 counties to condescend to such a representation. I could point 
 to a factory where I believe you would find people in as wretched 
 a condition as any of those in the villages to which you refer; 
 but I know that the industry of Lancashire is a well-ordered and 
 a noble industry ; I know that this ease, though not isolated, is 
 in truth only one of the exceptional cases of a great and 
 beneficial system ; and I would not condescend to such vile 
 arts of faction. 
 
 If protection has given the peasant of Wiltshire 7s. a week, 
 protection has equally given the peasant of Lincolnshire an 
 ample remuneration for his toil. If you accept one case, you 
 must take the other. They prove that the misery is in spite of 
 protection, and infer, therefore, that its withdrawal might 
 aggravate it. Well, then, we find the people employed, though 
 
140 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 not so well as we could wish; we find their condition, in 
 many instances, bad, but superior generally, to that of the 
 other nations of Europe ; and we cannot assent to your bold 
 assumption that you will imj)rove their condition by introducing 
 foreign labour into competition with theirs, or to your second 
 proposition, that you will elevate their character by diminishing 
 their wages. I know how you will respond to that ; that you 
 will tell me that the wages of labour do not depend on the 
 price of corn ; those are axioms of which we have heard to 
 weariness. I am not going to enter into that now. (Hear ! 
 Hear !) Well, then, I will enter into it. I had taken into 
 consideration the hour of the night ; but as the honourable 
 member taunts me, I will deal with that question. I will 
 admit, then, for the purpose of the argument, that the wages of 
 labour are not dependent on the price of com, but that the 
 price of corn, as was said by the right honourable baronet, acts 
 rather in an inverse ratio ; how, then, can the price of corn 
 injure the manufacturers ? It can't increase the price of then- 
 article. The higher the price of corn the cheaper ought to be 
 their article, because the lower are wages. But if the position 
 which the right honxjurable baronet takes — and yours, for he 
 borrowed it from you- — if that position be correct, and if it be 
 true that the wages of labour do not depend on the price of 
 corn, suppose you have four millions of quarters imported 
 from the Baltic, but wages are not increased — and remember, 
 they would not be increased, because the wages of labour do 
 not depend on the price of corn — why should the consumption 
 be greater ? And if not greater, what, then, would be the 
 effect of importing four millions of quarters from the Baltic ? 
 If the consumption were not greater, you must substitute the 
 four millions of quarters from the Baltic for four millions of 
 English quarters, and at the same time you must have a pro- 
 portionate displacement of the wages of labour ; and then the 
 labour so displaced must go and mix with manufacturing 
 labour, and then according to your own principle, that the rate 
 of wages depends on the demand and supply of labom- — wages 
 must be reduced, wages must fall. That is the dilemma in 
 which I leave you. 
 
MK. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 1846. 141 
 
 Another point of great importance with reference to this 
 question is the effect of sudden importations on our monetary- 
 system. I will not, at this late hour, trace all the consequences 
 of the contraction of our currency, which are familiar to us all. 
 You attribute them to the Corn Laws ; we, on the other hand, 
 say that they are owing to your system of importing com from 
 abroad ; and you rejoin that if the trade were regular, the 
 supply would be regular. I admit it ; I will admit that if 
 the trade were regular, the supply would be regular. In dis- 
 cussing this question throughout, I have endeavoured to admit 
 as axioms the assumptions on which you rest, and I admit this 
 one. But suppose there is a great deficiency in England at any 
 gi.ven time, you would still, under your new system, have to 
 import an extra supply in* addition to that ordinarily imported — 
 you would require two or three millions of quarters more than 
 was expected ; and for that you must pay in gold, and your 
 currency be subject to the same derangement. The only dif- 
 ference is, that under the present system you hold out a bonus 
 to your granaries, while, generally speaking, as soon as you 
 have a regular supply, it will never be more than sufficient for 
 the average demand. So that the very argument on which 
 you rest is fatal to your case. 
 
 I have now nearly concluded the observations which I shall 
 address to the House. I have omitted a great deal which I 
 wished to urge upon the House, and I sincerely wish that what 
 I have said had been urged with more ability; but I have 
 endeavoured not to make a mere Corn Law speech ; I have 
 only taken corn as an illustration ; but I don't like my friends 
 here to enter upon that Corn Law debate which I suppose is 
 impending, under a mistaken notion of the position in which 
 they stand. I never did rest my defence of the Corn Laws on 
 the burdens to which the land is subject. I believe that there 
 are burdens, heavy burdens, on the land ; but the land has great 
 honours; and he who has great honours must have great 
 burdens. But I wish them to bear in mind that their cause 
 must be sustained by great principles. I venture feebly and 
 slightly to indicate those principles, principles of high policy, 
 on which their system ought to be sustained. First, without 
 
142 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 reference to England, looking at all countries, I say that it is 
 the first duty of the minister, and the first interest of the State, 
 to maintain a balance between the two great branches of 
 national industry ; that is a principle which has been recog- 
 nised by all great ministers for the last two hundred years, and 
 the reasons upon which it rests are so obvious that it can hardly 
 be necessary to mention them. Why we should maintain that 
 balance between the two great branches of national industry 
 involves political considerations, social considerations, affecting 
 the happiness, prosperity, and morality of the people, as well as 
 the stability of the State. But I go further : I say that in Eng- 
 land we are bound to do more. I repeat what I have repeated 
 before, that in this country there are special reasons why we 
 should not only maintain the balance -between the two branches 
 of our national industry, but why we should give a prepon- 
 derance — I do not say a predominance, which was the word 
 ascribed by the honourable member for Manchester to the noble' 
 lord the member for London, but which he never used — why 
 we should give a preponderance, for that is the proper and 
 constitutional word, to the agricultural branch ; and the reason 
 is, because in England we have a territorial constitution. We 
 have thrown upon the land the revenues of the Church, the 
 administration of justice, and the estate of the poor; and this 
 has been done, not to gratify the pride or pamper the luxury of 
 the proprietors of the land, but because, in a territorial consti- 
 tution, you, and those whom you have succeeded, have found 
 the only secmrity for self-government, the only barrier against 
 that centralising system which has taken root in other countries. 
 I have always maintained these opinions. My constituents are 
 not landlords ; they are not aristocrats ; they are not great 
 capitalists : they are the children of industry and toil, and they 
 believe, first, that their material interests are involved in a 
 system which favours native industry, by insuring at the same 
 time real competition ; but they believe also that their sopial 
 and political interests are involved in a system by which their 
 rights and liberties have been guaranteed : and 1 agree with 
 them — I have the same old-fashioned notions. 
 
MR. MILES'S AMENDMENT, 1846. 143 
 
 I know that we have been told, and by one ' who on this 
 subject should be the highest authority, that we shall derive 
 from this great struggle, not merely the repeal of the Com Laws, 
 but the transfer of power from one class to another^ — to one 
 distinguished for its intelligence and wealth — the manufacturers 
 of England. My conscience assures me that I have not been 
 slow in doing justice to the intelligence of that class ; certain 
 I am that I am not one of those who envy them their wide and 
 deserved prosperity ; but I must confess my deep mortification 
 that in an age of political regeneration, when all social evils are 
 ascribed to the operation of class interests, it should be sug- 
 gested that we are to be rescued from the alleged power of one 
 class, only to sink under the avowed dominion of another. I, 
 for one, if this is to be the end of all our struggles — if this is 
 to be the great result of this enlightened age — I, for one, protest 
 against the ignominious catastrophe. I believe that the 
 monarchy of England, its sovereignty mitigated by the ac- 
 knowledged authority of the estates of the realm, has its root 
 in the hearts of the people, and is capable of securing the 
 happiness of the nation and the power of the State. But, Sir, 
 if this be a worn-out dream — if, indeed, there is to be a change, 
 I, for one, anxious as I am to maintain the present polity of 
 this country, ready to make as many sacrifices as any man for 
 that object — if there is to be this great change, I, for one, hope 
 that the foundation of it may be deep, the scheme comprehen- 
 sive, and that instead of falling under such a thraldom, under 
 the thraldom of capital — under the thraldom of those who, 
 while they boast of their intelligence, are more proud of their 
 wealth — if we must find a new force to maintain the ancient 
 throne and immemorial monarchy of England, I, for one, hope 
 that we may find that novel power in the invigorating energies 
 of an educated and enfranchised people. 
 
 ' Mr. Cobden. 
 
144: SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 THIED EEADING OF THE CORN IMPORTATION BILL, 
 
 May 15, 1846.1 
 
 [Mr. Disraeli, who did not apeak on the second reading of the Corn 
 Importation Bill, spoke as follows on the third. This speech ex- 
 cited great enthusiasm and closed amid cheers such as have seldom 
 been heard within the walls of the House of Commons.] 
 
 SIR, the Secretary of State, in the speech lie made on the 
 first night of this discussion, reminded gentlemen sitting 
 on these benches, and professing opinions favourable to the 
 protection of the industry of their country, that in the various 
 and prolonged discussions which during late years have 
 occurred with regard to great commercial changes they have, 
 nevertheless, found it necessary to abandon many of the 
 opinions they professed, and to give up many of those dogmas 
 which they previously upheld. Sir, I acknowledge the fact ; I 
 believe that to be the necessary result of all discussion : nor 
 can I understand the iise of public discussion at all, if it be not 
 to correct erroneous impressions, or if at the conclusion both 
 parties are to take refuge in the cry that they have not 
 changed a single opinion which they held before the question 
 came under debate. 
 
 Sir, I do not claim for myself, and I think I may ven- 
 ture to say none of ray friends around me claim, an infalli- 
 bility in argument. We listen with attention and respect to 
 every argument brought against the opinions which we advo- 
 cate ; and if we find that any argument thus advanced cannot 
 be satisfactorily answered, we feel the necessity of no longer 
 maintaining an opposite and untenable conclusion. But if this 
 rule applies to our party, I think I could without difficulty show 
 
 > This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
THIED EEADINa OF COEN IMPORTATION BILL, MAY 1846. 145 
 
 to the Secretary of State that it is a quality not peculiar to us. 
 I rather imagine that some opinions loudly advocated and long 
 ably maintained by honourable gentlemen opposite — I still 
 address myself to honourable gentlemen opposite, for though 
 this discussion was commenced by Her Majesty's Grovernment II 
 always remember who were really the originators of the ideas — 
 I say, I think that some of the opinions formerly advocated by 
 honourable gentlemen opposite, are now no longer upheld, and 
 are therefore to be placed in that category of abandonment to i 
 which the Secretary of State referred. 
 
 I might begin with cheap bread. "We heard a minister of 
 the Crown, a member of the cabinet, even in this year, in this 
 important session when all the opinions of Her Majesty's 
 Government must doubtless be so well matured and so well 
 considered, with all the advantages of four cabinet meetings 
 in a week — we heard a member of Her Majesty's Government 
 announce that the clap-trap cry of cheap bread was given up by 
 all parties. The right honom'aable gentleman ^eemed to hold | 
 it, as his noble colleague, the Secretary for Ireland, did a few i 
 years back, as ' the fugitive cry of a dying faction.' Even the '. 
 honourable member for Stockport, the highest authority on the 
 point, announced that the cry of cheap bread had never been 
 his. Well then, that is one great opinion abandoned. We 
 shall presently find that there are others in the same predica- 
 ment. ^■'■['■i.'"i .} 
 
 I believe it is no longer maintained that our Com Laws are 
 productive of very extraordinary fluctuations in the price of 
 corn. And yet that was an opinion which was once very indus- 
 triously disseminated in this country, one perpetually introduced 
 into the discussions of this House, and which has unquestion- 
 ably influenced the existing public opinion on the main ques- 
 tion ; yet I believe it is now admitted that the tendency neither 
 of the present nor even of the late Com Laws has been to 
 produce extraordinary fluctuations in price. Well, that is 
 another great opinion that has been abandoned. 
 
 Then we were told that these same Corn Laws were the 
 bane of agriculture. That opinion is certainly given up. We 
 have shown you — and you have admitted the facts^from the 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 evidence of the best authorities, the most intelligent valuers 
 under the Tithe Commutation Act, and the most skilful land- 
 agents in the country — we have shown you that in England the 
 average produce of an acre is twenty-eight bushels of wheat. 
 We know by a report prepared by a public commissioner that 
 the average produce per acre in Eussia is sixteen bushels ; while 
 we have evidence that the average amount in France is fifteen 
 bushels. But I have got a document here which is very much 
 at the service of honourable members opposite. It is the Eeport 
 in 1845 of the Agricultural Society of New York, giving the 
 average produce of sixty-nine counties in that State, and it 
 appears from this report that the average produce of wheat per 
 acre in the United States is fourteen bushels. Does it, then, 
 appear from these figures that protection is indeed the bane of 
 agriculture ? These statements show that England produces 
 more com per acre in a great degree than any other country. 
 
 This, then, is a third opinion that has been abandoned. 
 Again, there is another opinion which has been put forward 
 
 I with much pertinacity. It has been long loudly and diligently 
 asserted that the population in this country increases in a greater 
 ratio than its production. That opinion has been given up. You 
 came down to the House, and told us always that the population 
 was increasing a thousand a day, or 365,000 a year, and after 
 your fashion you asserted the country could not feed the people. 
 "We have shown you — or rather you have shown us, for it has been 
 one of the circumstances adduced by the minister in favour of 
 the measure — that the price of wheat for years has regularly de- 
 clined. If we divide the current century into three equal por- 
 tions of fifteen years each, you will find the price of wheat lowest 
 in the last division ; so that while the population has been in- 
 creasing in the ratio you allege, the means of production have 
 been increasing in a still greater ratio : the population has been 
 increasing in this degree, and at the same time the price of the 
 necessaries of life has been decreasing. 
 
 I There is another dogma which has also much influenced 
 public opinion ; and that is, that our Corn Laws have produced 
 hostile tariffs. This opinion also is, I believe, now abandoned. 
 
 ^ Every day's experience assures us, whatever may be the policy 
 
THIRD BEADING OE CORN IMPORTATION BILL, MAY 1846, ]47 
 
 of the Grovernment of this country, that Continental nations [ 
 and manufacturing countries are not to be influenced by it- j 
 But, according to the new school of philosophy we need not 
 dwell on this; it does not signify whether other nations are 
 influenced by our policy or not, we are quite independent of all 
 such considerations. 
 
 There is yet another opinion which I have observed fre- 
 quently advanced in speeches out of the House ; and speeches 
 out of this House, be it remembered, have had much influence 
 on conduct within it. It has often been urged at public meet- 
 ings by the honourable member for Stockport, whose speeches I 
 always read with attention, that the amount of freight alone 
 would be a sufficient protection to land. The honourable member 
 has been in the habit of assuring his audience that the average 
 rate of freight was 10s. &d. per quarter of corn, and that to this 
 extent a protection was afforded to agriculture. I believe hon- 
 ourable gentlemen have even made the same declaration in this 
 House ; and I believe, had it been made in this House a year ago, 
 we should all of us have believed it. Now, I doubt whether there 
 is any freight which amounts to 10s. &d. I doubt whether at 
 present we pay 10s. 6d. per quarter even from Odessa. But, 
 generally speaking, it is now universally admitted that freightj 
 is no protection at all, for it is just as expensive to transport a! 
 quarter of corn from one English port to another as to bring it \ 
 from any of the contiguous foreign ports from which your chief* 
 supply is anticipated. 
 
 I will say one word on a topic which I have already touched 
 upon lightly, because I heard a cheer from an honourable mem- 
 ber opposite when I m^entioned that the tendency of the present 
 Corn Laws was not to produce great fluctuations in price. I 
 do not mention these topics merely in retort to the Seereta.ry 
 of State, but because I think it not an inconvenient mode to 
 clear the course of all collateral topics before I address myself 
 to the main question. We maintain, then, with regard to the 
 present and even the late Corn Laws, that they have not pro- 
 duced extraordinary fluctuation in price ; on the contrary, we ' 
 maintain that the fluctuation of price in England has been less '■>. 
 than in any other country in the world. I will establish this ' 
 
 L 2 
 
148 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 fact on data that are incontrovertible. Understand, I lay this 
 down as a fact, that every country, rich or poor, in Europe or 
 America, has in respect of the important necessary of life, 
 grain, been subject to much greater fluctuation of price than 
 England. Mr. Secretary Gladstone recently moved for an im- 
 portant return — a return which I notice is never alluded to by 
 honourable gentlemen opposite. It is a return, from 1834 to 
 1840 inclusive, of the highest and lowest weekly prices of 
 wheat per imperial quarter in most of the principal capitals of 
 the United States. Now, I take one of these capitals, Philadel- 
 phia, because the peculiar circumstances of that capital tell the 
 least for my argument. Philadelphia is the capital of one of 
 the wealthiest and most populous States of the American union ; 
 and it has this peculiarity, that it is a State that does not com- 
 monly produce sufficient corn for the supply of its inhabitants. 
 It should be observed that little or no corn or flour was imported 
 from America into England during the first five years of this 
 period, and that the importation in 1839 and 1840 tended to 
 raise the low prices of these years, and so to diminish the ex- 
 treme limits of their fluctuation. Philadelphia, too, is a great 
 mart of commerce, communicating freely with every region of 
 the world, and its corn trade is free, being subject only to a 
 moderate fixed duty — a moderate fixed duty of 8s. 8c^. per quar- 
 ter. Now, Sir, what are the facts? It appears by this return 
 of I\Ir. Secretary Gladstone that the average annual difference 
 between the highest and lowest prices of wheat in Philadelphia 
 is 47 per cent, while during the corresponding period in Eng- 
 land it was only 33 per cent. ; and while the extreme difference 
 between the highest and lowest prices of wheat in this septen- 
 nial period was 270 per cent, in Philadelphia, it was only 227 in 
 England. And yet no septennial period could have been chosen 
 which would have exhibited, under the operation of the Com 
 Laws, such extensive fluctuation of prices. 
 
 It may be objected to this return that it only gives the ex- 
 treme weekly prices of wheat, and it may be possible that local 
 and peculiar causes may have had an effect on those prices. 
 Well then, here is a return of the average annual prices of 
 wheat in Philadelphia from 1830 to 1838 inclusive, and I find 
 
THIED EEADING OF COEN IMPOETATION BILL, MAY 1816. 149 
 
 the difference between the highest and lowest price of wheat at 
 Philadelphia to be 121 per cent., while the corresponding dif- 
 ference during the same period in England is only 69 per cent. 
 The reports from every considerable port and corn market in 
 Europe have been analysed, and the result I find to be of exactly 
 the same character. But it will be urged that the prices of 
 com abroad are disturbed by the action of our Corn Laws, and 
 that we cannot form a correct idea of the price of grain when 
 trade flows in its natural course. But this will not impair our 
 argument. The noble lord the member for Lynn has antici- 
 pated this objection, and he says : — ' I will take rye, because 
 that is the food of the Continental people, and cannot be in- 
 fluenced by our Corn Laws ; and I will show you equal fluctua- 
 tions in the price of rye.' Now, Sir, I also have a return of the 
 prices of rye at Warsaw and at Dantzic. We have been told to- 
 night that Dantzic is in favour of a fluctuating scale, but that at 
 Warsaw they are devoted to free trade. Yet the difference in 
 the annual price of rye, during the years from 1834 to 1839, in 
 the market at Warsaw sometimes amounted to 149 per cent., 
 whereas in Dantzic the difference was only 65 per cent. In all 
 the great Prussian markets the difference during the same 
 period between the annual prices of rye was 100 per cent. I 
 think, therefore, we may fairly conclude that the objection! 
 urged against the system of graduated protection with regard [ 
 to its producing fluctuation in prices is no longer an argument i 
 for this House. But I must remind the House that the instances | 
 which I have adduced, and the inferences which I have drawn 
 from these instances, are under the influence of the late law, a 
 law much more tending to fluctuation than the present. The 
 scale of the late law was originally well devised. It was planned 
 by Mr. Canning, but altered for the worse by the present First 
 Minister : let it always be remembered, altered for the worse by 
 the present First Minister. If I had taken the experience of 
 the present scale, the result would have been still more favour- 
 able ; but, the result being favourable enough, I am content 
 with the former scale. 
 
 It seems, therefore, that some arguments have been aban- 
 doned by honourable gentlemen opposite as well as by us. It is 
 
150 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 possible that both sides may have abandoned many important 
 opinions without losing faith in the principles on which their 
 respective systems are upheld. But I defy gentlemen opposite, 
 who have had for years such free warren of sarcasm against 
 the advocates of protection, to bring forward a catalogue of pro- 
 nounced opinions on the subject which can compete with the 
 one I have sketched, and yet left imperfect, before the House. 
 What, then, are we to do with these opinions, these exhausted 
 argunif nts, these exploded fallacies ? Our great poet conceived 
 the existence of a Limbo for exploded systems and the phan- 
 tasies of the schools where we might hang up all those argu- 
 ments that have served their purpose and which have turned out 
 to be sophistries. Yes, but these are the arguments that have 
 agitated a nation and have converted a ministry. It is all very 
 well to say, after six or seven years' discussion, ' We have dis- 
 covered them to be false and there is not a single gentleman 
 opposite prepared to maintain them ; ' but these are the agencies 
 by which a certain amount of public opinion has been brought 
 J to bear on great economical questions; that public opinion 
 
 !has changed the policy of a Grovernment, and according to our 
 belief is perilling the destinies of a great people. 
 
 Now, Sir, I must fairly acknowledge that one of those falla- 
 cies must be resuscitated by myself. Notwithstanding the high 
 authority of the Secretary at War, notwithstanding the influ- 
 ential adhesion to his opinion of the still higher authority of 
 |the member for Stockport, I must raise on this occasion the cry 
 
 iof ' cheap bread.' I do believe the effect of the present Corn 
 Laws is to raise the price of the necessaries of life to the com- 
 munity. That is my opinion. But I believe, and I think I can 
 show, that they increase in an infinitely greater ratio the pur- 
 chasing powers by the community of the necessaries of life. I 
 hope r am meeting the argument fairly. The Secretary of State 
 did me the honour to say that I had on another occasion fairly 
 expressed the question at issue ; and I wish strictly to address 
 myself to it. Now, how am I to prove my proposition ? The 
 first witness I shall call is a high authority. It is a work cir- 
 culated under the immediate authority of that great commer- 
 cial confederation, the power of which is acknowledged, written, 
 
THIRD BEADING OF COEN IMPORTATION BILL, MAY 1846. 151 
 
 I believe, by a gentleman who was once a member of this House, 
 and, I believe I may add, who would have been a member of 
 tTiis House now if I had not had the pleasure of beating him in 
 the first election I won — Colonel Thompson. In his ' Corn Law 
 Catechism ' it is maintained that the Com Law is a tax upon 
 the community, because, assuming a certain number of quarters 
 of corn are produced every year in this country — say, for in- 
 stance, fifty millions of quarters — the Com Law, by artificially 
 raising the price of that com Is., 8s., or 10s. per quarter, on 
 an average acts as a tax on the community, we will say, of 
 20,000,000L Another economist, an equally celebrated and 
 more successful free trader, has fallen foul of the calculations of 
 this work, which is a great authority with the Anti-Com-Law 
 League, and he has shown the gallant calculator that he has 
 omitted to deduct the number of quarters that are required for 
 seed, for the sustenance of the agriculturists themselves, for the 
 support of their horses ; and so at once the critic cut down the 
 estimate of the Colonel to a tax of nine or ten millions on the 
 public. But I will give, as is my custom, an advantage to my 
 opponents, and take the first calculation. The conclusion of 
 the Colonel, and of the school of which he is so distinguished 
 a champion, is, that it is better for England not to raise a single 
 quarter of com, and then the whole of this tax might thus be 
 saved. You will say this is an extreme statement ; but the state- 
 ment is not mine, and an extreme case tests the truth of a 
 principle. Let us suppose, then, that England imports fifty | 
 millions of quarters of com : let us suppose that she thus saves 
 ten or twenty millions of taxation. We will admit it for the 
 purpose of discussion. But you cannot deny that England has 
 lost the wages of labour that would have produced these fifty 
 millions of quarters ; you cannot deny that England has lost the 
 rent that this cultivation would have afforded after paying those 
 wages of labour and furnishing these profits of capital. What is 
 their united amount ? It would be a light estimate to place it 
 at twenty times that of the imaginary tax. In the proportion 
 that united amount bears to the assumed tax the purchasing 
 power of the community created by the law exceeds the tax on 
 the community alleged to be occasioned by the law. 
 
152 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 I am ready to acknowledge that the honourable member for 
 Stockport never addressed any public assembly with these 
 opinions. He is a practical man : he knows very well there 
 is no chance of changing the laws of England with abstract doc- 
 trines, and he says very properly, 'I don't admit your con- 
 clusion. We don't suppose any land will be thrown out of culti- 
 vation ; there may be a reduction of price or not ; but what we 
 'say is, you are creating that artificial price for the first neces- 
 saries of life in the country, and you are creating that artificial 
 price for the benefit of a class ; and therefore the reduction of price 
 is, at the worst, the destruction of rent.' That is the position 
 he takes up. Now, for my own part, I see no difference between 
 a territorial class and the handloom weavers. If you show me that 
 there is a law kept up merely to give a revenue to any class in this 
 country, and that by putting an end to that law the great mass of 
 the people can be fed better and be as well employed, I cannot 
 imagine anything like a Com Law can be maintained. Well 
 then, we are brought to the gist of the question. Will this 
 change occasion a great displacement of labour ? And if so, can 
 you supply new employment for those who are displaced ? It 
 (Seems to me. Sir, impossible to arrive at any conclusion on this 
 head, unless we form some estimate of the probable price of 
 corn in this country after the measures of the ministry have 
 fairly come into play. It is vain to make this inquiry of the 
 right honourable gentleman, and therefore we must be thrown 
 on our own elements of calculation. 
 
 If we can show to you that for the futiure the price of com 
 must necessarily be such as to render it impossible in the greater 
 part of this country to cultivate wheat or other grain with a pro- 
 fit, you must acknowledge there will be a great displacement 
 of labour. We will endeavour to meet you with facts, and 
 protest against your answering us with assiunptions. I will 
 not trouble the House by referring to those countries whose 
 names have been long so familiar in these debates ; if I allude 
 to them it is only because I do not wish the House to suppose 
 that I depreciate the productive power of these countries. 
 
 My honourable friend the member for Somersetshire said 
 that the surplus produce of Eussia was 28,000,000 quarters 
 
THIED BEADING OF CORN IMPORTATION BILL, MAY 1846. 153 
 
 of com ; whereupon the Secretary of State rose to express his 
 incredulity, amid the sympathising derision of gentlemen oppo- 
 site. Why, Sir, the authority for that statement is the ofBcer 
 of the Government — (loud cheers) — the functionary who is em- 
 ployed by you to analyse the tariffs and resources of foreign 
 countries, and probably the Secretary of State is the minister 
 who laid his Eeport on the table of the House. The authority is 
 Mr. McGregor. I allude to it in passing — not that I value the 
 authority of Mr. McGregor a rush — but it is right that it should • 
 be known that the statement of my honourable friend was de- 
 rived from your own Blue Books, and prepared by one of your 
 own officers. What is the object of publishing these Blue Books 
 except to furnish us with the elements of opinion ? 
 
 I will not, however, enter into the Empire of All the Eussias : 
 I know that it contains about twenty principalities, that more 
 than one of these has an area greater than the United Kingdom, 
 and that every one produces corn. I cannot forget the rich 
 valley of the Volga, or the exuberant plains of the Ukraine. I 
 won't take you to the valley of the Mississippi, though I have a 
 statement here made by a high authority on this subject, who 
 declares that its produce may be indefinitely extended, and that 
 its wheat can be supplied, with a high estimate for freightage, in 
 London at 30s. per quarter. But what I wish, to bring before 
 the notice of the House are the markets that are never men- 
 tioned, but which I believe will exercise a high influence on 
 the price of corn. There is one market which has never been 
 mentioned in the course of these discussions, and that is 
 Hungary. Hungary is a plain which consists of 36,000 English 
 square miles. It is the richest soil in the world ; the soil of a 
 garden varying in depth from one foot to seven feet. You 
 may go hundreds of miles together and not find a stone in it. 
 If you deduct one-third of that area for morasses, there are 
 24,000 square miles of the most fertile soil in the world under 
 the influence of a climate admirably adapted to the growth of 
 corn. I have had a return sent to me of the production of one 
 province in 1844 — 12,000,000 bushels : in Croatia the produce 
 was 1,500,000 quarters. Yet thousands upon thousands of acres 
 are uncultivated. But honourable gentlemen will say, how are 
 
154 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 we to get this com from Hungary ? That is what I am going 
 to tell you. 
 
 Here is a letter from the greatest corn-merchant in Hun- 
 gary, He lives at Sisseck on the Swave, the great com. 
 depot of the corn trade of that country. I will not give 
 you the prices of this year, which is a year of scarcity, but I 
 will give you the average of the last five years. An English 
 quarter of Hungarian wheat — which, it should be remembered, 
 ranks with the highest classes of Dantzic wheats, costs in 
 English money from 18s. to 20s. per quarter. It is sent from 
 Sisseck by the river Kulpa to Carlstadt for 4d. per quarter, and 
 from Carlstadt by land for Is. 8d. per quarter. The person 
 who gives this information is a practical man. He says . ' Only 
 give me a regular trade with England and I will send you from 
 
 i Sisseck 500,000 quarters in the first year.' I will soon show 
 you what is the efiect of a steady market on increased supply 
 and decreased price. 
 
 I will take another market, a very interesting one — that of 
 the Danubian provinces. In the year 1 842 at the two ports of 
 the Danube, Gralatz and Ibrail, there were 1,350 ships laden 
 with the produce of those countries, and only eight of them were 
 English. That is a remarkable fact. We are the greatest com- 
 mercial country in the world, and yet, in an active scene of 
 commerce where an almost absolute freedom of trade is enjoyed, 
 it appears by a return dated since the accession of the present 
 Grovemment to ofiice, that out of 1,350 merchant ships laden 
 in the two ports of the Danube, only eight were English. A 
 house at Galatz has written to a house in England on the sub- 
 ject of supplying this country with corn, and the writer says : — 
 'I will undertake to lay down, if secured a price of 18s. per 
 quarter, in any English port 200,000 quarters of wheat from 
 this particular district, at from 28s. to 30s. ; but if you will 
 secure me a certain market, I will double that quantity next 
 year.' From the same place another house asserts that if you 
 will ensure a regular trade they can supply 1,000,000 quarters 
 of wheat at 18s. per quarter ; and if this measure passes, they 
 undertake at the end of seven years that that quantity shall 
 be doubled and sent to England at a reduced price. I speak of' 
 
THIRD EEADING OF CORN IMPORTATION BILL, MAY 1846. 155 
 
 mercantile letters, and can give honourable gentlemen opposite 
 the names of the firms, 
 
 I feel I must not dwell too long on this point: but yet, 
 under the head of unenumerated markets, which have not been 
 the subject of discussion in the House, I may mention Spain — 
 which will not act greatly on this country — Egypt, and Sicily. 
 Each of those countries, when the new measures are fairly in 
 play, will be able, I believe, to furnish this country with as much 
 corn as they have required in years of deficiency. My opinion is | 
 that in exact proportion as your demand for wheat and for vari- i 
 ous kinds of grain increases, in the same proportion the price | 
 will diminish. I believe it may be laid down as a principle of i 
 
 commerce, that where an article can be progressively produced 
 to an indefinite extent, precisely as the demand increases the 
 price will decrease. I am aware that that is exactly contrary to 
 the opinion of the honom-able gentlemen opposite, and to the 
 opinion of the Government. We have had it announced from 
 the hustings that exactly as you import a million of quarters of 
 wheat from Continental markets, prices abroad will rise 10s. per 
 quarter. That which was announced by a great authority is only 
 the echo of the Manchester school, and has been accepted by 
 the Government. The honourable member for Montrose stated 
 the other night that the result of those contemplated changes 
 was only to equalise prices — we shall equalise prices by the 
 demand, but we shall not lower prices. The gist of the ques- 
 tion is the accuracy of this opinion. Is it true ? The question 
 whether England can maintain her character as an agricultural 
 country — the question whether there will be a great displace- 
 ment of labour depends upon the accuracy of this opinion. 
 
 I referred on a former occasion to the instance of tea. I 
 said, in that case, that an increased demand had decreased 
 the price. That intimation was received — rather it was not 
 met by any argument or decided fact ; but subsequently it 
 was contradicted, and in a very unsatisfactory manner. I will j 
 now show the House how far I was justified in that statement. 
 I wrote to a mercantile house which is more largely connected 
 with the China trade than any other house in the country. I 
 placed before them the assertion I had made, and the reply it 
 
156 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 had met. Wkat was the answer I received ? Here it is : — ' I 
 hand you enclosed the price per pound of sound common 
 Congou tea, which is the sort most consumed in this country, 
 from which you will be able to observe that there has been a 
 great fall in the price since the year 1831.' What, then, was 
 that fall in price per pound of Congou tea — the sort most 
 consumed in this country ? In the year 1831 Congou tea was 
 2s. 2d. per pound; in the year 1846 it is 9d. per pound. I 
 know very well that the price of tea in 1831 was to a certain 
 degree artificial. The mercantile influence of the Honourable 
 East India Company still prevailed, and the supply was 
 limited. But that influence was not greater than that of the 
 China War, and, it will be observed, those disturbances only 
 affected the market for a couple of years. In 1832, tea was 
 2s. l^d.; in 1833, Is. lid.; 1834, Is. 7^d.; 1835, ls.4d.; 
 1836, Is. Id.; 18B7, Is. Id.; 1838, Is. 2d. And then we 
 come to the disorders in China, which had the effect of raising 
 the price in 1839 to 2s. 5d. ; it then fell in 1842 to Is. 3^d ; 
 1843, to lid.; 1844, to lOd.; 1845, to d^d.; until in 1846 
 we flnd it reduced to 9d. per pound ; and all this time the 
 import of tea from that country, which, from its being solely 
 produced there, enjoys a quasi-monopoly, was increasing by 
 millions of pounds. And then. Sir, I am told that by the 
 last accounts from Canton the price of tea is rising ; and that 
 is called an answer. Why, Sir, if by the last accounts from 
 Canton the price of tea had been falling, I should not have 
 adduced that as an argument in favour of the principle I am 
 upholding. The price of tea will fall and will rise according to 
 the circumstances of the market : there must always be undu- 
 lation in price. But the question is what, if I may use the 
 expression, is the gradient of price— what the inevitable and 
 unmistakeable tendency of price during a series of years ? 
 
 The next instance I shall take is one which is more favour- 
 able to our case, but at the same time strictly legitimate. It 
 is one which bears more analogy to corn — namely, cotton. The 
 price of cotton upland per pound in the year 1836 was lOfcZ. ; 
 in 1837, 8d.; 1838, 8^^; 1839, 6|i.; 1840, 6^^.; 1841, 5|d.; 
 1842, 5Ad.; 1843, 5^d.; 1844, 4^^ ; and in 1845, from id. 
 
THIRD BEADING OF CORN IMPORTATION BILL, MAT 1846. 157 
 
 to 4|d[. per pound ; and in these ten years of progressive fall 
 in price the import of cotton into England had risen from 
 350,000,000 pounds to 597,000,000 pounds, while, during the 
 same period of a falling price, other manufacturing countries, 
 including the United States, had increased their consumption 
 of that article from 282,000,000 pounds to 439,000,000 pounds. 
 
 It seems, therefore, j;o be demonstrable that where there is j 
 no artificial or natural cause to check the progress of pro- 
 duction, prices will proportionately fall. Now, in the article I (, 
 am about to refer to there are these causes in o]jeration, and 
 the whole state of the sugar trade is so anomalous that I might 
 fairly have omitted it from the application of the test. But it 
 occurred to me that it might be tried with reference to the 
 production of East India sugar since the duties were equalised. 
 What is the result ? At the end of the year 1 841, the price of 
 brown Bengal sugar was 47s. to 52s. ; 1842, 45s. to 51s. ; 1843, 
 47s. to 55s.; 1844, 39s. to 49s.; 1845, 38s. to 42s.; 1846, 
 37s. to 42s. ; and with that falling price the amount imported 
 increased from 24,000 tons in the first year to 62,000 tons in 
 the last year. With respect to the price of the same sugar the 
 price fell from 69s. to 74s. down to 52s. to 56s. during the 
 same period. Therefore, the instance of sugar is in perfect | 
 harmony with the general and ruling principle I have laid !, 
 down. ' 
 
 The case of coffee I find to be still more satisfactory. I 
 must apply my rule again to East India production in this 
 case, owing to the anomalous state of our West India colonies. 
 Let us, then, take Ceylon coffee, and we shall find that the 
 importation has greatly increased. The price of that article in 
 1840 was, per bag, 90s. to 94s. 5d. ; in 1846, it fell to 44s.; 
 and in the first year the quantity imj)orted was 53,000 bags ; 
 in the last year, 133,000 bags. Then take the case of Mysore 
 coffee during the same time. In the first year the price was 
 70s. to 80s. per cask ; in the last year, 36s. to 48s. per cask ; 
 the quantity imported being in the former year 48,000 casks, 
 in the latter, 65,530. There are many other important articles 
 which it would be wearisome to refer to in detail, but which I 
 mention that gentlemen may have an opportunity of investi- 
 
158 SPEECHES OP THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 gating this important principle. Look at the instances of 
 indigo, salt, iron, coal, and fruits, ever since the alteration of 
 the law, and you will iind this principle is invariably observed, 
 universally demonstrated. 
 
 Well, Sir, is it, then, unreasonable for me to ask what 
 there is in com to make it an exception to this general rule ? 
 I want that question to be answered. It is a fair question. 
 Why, I repeat, is com to be an exception to this rule. Is it 
 because corn is produced in every country and under every 
 clime ? I want to know where it is you will not produce corn. 
 We have had by late arrivals accounts of the price of wheat 
 in Persia, where we find it is at present 5s. per quarter. True, 
 you can't very easily import corn from Persia ; but there are 
 countries lying at each point of the compass from Persia where 
 you may purchase corn at from 10s. to 20s. per quarter. The 
 rest is an affair of the cost of transport in an age when t^Je 
 principle of locomotion is bringing all articles to a level. 
 Now, Sir, before I estimate the consequences of these pro- 
 posed changes, I will first advert to the parallel which has 
 so often been drawn between the importation of foreign corn 
 and foreign cattle, in order to show how ill-founded may be 
 our fears. It does not appear to me that there is much analogy 
 between these two instances which are always treated as the 
 same. In the first place Continental countries have been corn- 
 growing countries long before England became so. But they 
 have never been to any extent cattle-feeding countries. The 
 very fact of the prevalence in them of the Koman Catholic 
 religion, which prevented the consumption of meat to the same 
 extent as in Protestant countries, alone has discouriged it. 
 Besides, the pastures of England have always, even in the old 
 days, been unrivalled. Nor should we forget the difficulties 
 and dangers of transport in the commerce of live stock. It 
 appears, therefore, that the analogy between those cases is very 
 imperfect. 
 
 I say, then, assuming, as I have given you reason to assume, 
 that the price of wheat when this system is established ranges 
 in England at 35s. per quarter, and other grain in proportion, 
 this is not a question of rent, but is a question of displacing 
 
THIRD EEADING OF CORN IMPORTATION BILL, MAY 1S46. 159 
 
 the labour of England that produces corn, in order, on an 
 extensive and even universal scale, to permit the entrance 
 of foreign corn into this country — produced by foreign labour ! 
 "Will that displaced labour find new employment? The 
 Secretary of State says that England is no longer an agri- 
 cultural but a commercial and manufacturing country, and 
 the right honourable gentleman, when reminded by the noble 
 lord the member for Grloucestershire of his words, said, ' No, 
 I did not say that ; but I said that England was no longer an 
 agricultural country.' Why, Sir, the commerce of England is 
 not a thing of yesterday ; it is more ancient than that of any other 
 existing country. This is a novel assumption on the part of the 
 Grovernment, to tell us that England has hitherto been a strictly 
 agricultural country, and that now there is a change and that it 
 is passing into a commercial and manufacturing country. I doubt 
 whether, in the first place, England is a greater commercial 
 country now than she has been at other periods of her history, 
 I do not mean to say that she has not now more commercial 
 transactions, but that with reference to her population, and the 
 population of the world, her commerce is not now greater than 
 at other periods of her history : for example, when she had her 
 great Levantine trade ; when the riches of the world collected 
 in the Mediterranean ; when she had her great Tm-key mer- 
 chants and her flourishing Antilles, and her profitable though 
 in some degree surreptitious trade with the Spanish main. But 
 then it is also said that England has become a great manu- 
 facturing country. I believe. Sir, if you look to the general 
 distribution of labour in England, you will find she may be less 
 of a manufacturing country now than she has been. Well, I 
 give you my argument : answer it if you can. I say, looking to 
 the employment of the people, manufacturing industry was 
 more scattered over the country a hundred years ago than it is 
 now. Honourable gentlemen have laid hold of a word uttered 
 in the heat of speaking. I say, manufacturing industry was 
 more dispersed over the country then than now : there were 
 more counties in which manufactiires flourished than at the 
 present moment. For instance, in the west of England manu- 
 factures were more flourishing : and your woollen manufacture 
 
160 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 bore a greater ratio in importance to the industrial skill of 
 Europe 300 years ago than it does to the aggregate industry of 
 Europe at the present moment. That manufacture might not 
 have been absolutely more important ; but as a development of 
 the national industry it bore a greater relative importance to 
 the industry of Europe then than at the present moment. You 
 had then considerable manufactures in various counties — 
 manufactures a hundred years ago which are now obsolete or 
 but partially pursued. You have, no doubt, now a gigantic 
 development of manufacturing skill in a particular county 
 which is unprecedented. It is one of those developments which 
 confer the greatest honour on this country ; which has been a 
 great source of wealth — a development of which England should 
 be justly proud — but, generally speaking, it is confined to one 
 Icounty. And now ministers tell us we must change om: whole 
 ! system, because, forsooth, England has ceased to be an agri- 
 j cultural country, and has become a commercial and manufac-' 
 jturing one. That is to say, that we must change our whole 
 system in favour of one particular county. Sir, that is an 
 extremely dangerous principle to introduce. I have heard of a 
 repeal of the Union, but we may live to hear of a revival of the 
 Heptarchy if Her Majesty's ministers pursue this policy — if 
 those portions of the country which are agricultural or suffering 
 under the remains of an old obsolete manufacturing population 
 are to be told that we must change our whole system because 
 one county, where there is a peculiar development of one branch 
 of industry, demands it. But what are the resources of this 
 kind of industry to supply and support the people, supposing 
 the great depression in agricultiu-al produce occiu- which is 
 feared : that this great revolution, as it has appropriately been 
 called, takes place — that we cease to be an agricultural people 
 — what are the resources that would furnish employment for 
 two-thirds of the subverted agricultiaral population, in fact from 
 3,500,000 to 4,000,000 of people ? Assume that the workshop- 
 of-the-world principle is carried into effect ; assume that the 
 attempt is made to maintain your system both financial and 
 domestic, on the resources of the cotton trade ; assume that, 
 in spite of hostile tariffs, that already gigantic industry is 
 
THIRD BEADING OF CORN IMPORTATION BILL, MAY 1846. 161 
 
 doubled — a bold assumption, even if there be no further 
 improvements in machinery, further reducing the necessity of 
 manual labour — you would only find increased employment for 
 300,000 of your population. Perhaps mechanical invention 
 may reduce the number half, and these only women and 
 children. What must be the consequence ? I think we have 
 pretty good grounds for anticipating social misery and 
 political disaster. 
 
 But then, I am told, immense things are to be done for 
 the agriculturist by the application of capital and skill. Let 
 us test the soundness of this doctrine. When a man lends 
 me capital, he looks to the security he is to have and to 
 what is to pay the interest. Is the complexion of these 
 measures such as to render men more ready to lend money on 
 landed estates ? The mortgagee, when he advances money on 
 land, looks to the margin in the shape of rent for his security. 
 Will any man rise and maintain that the tendency of those 
 measures is to increase that margin ? But you are not only 
 diminishing the opportunity of obtaining loans on your own 
 estates, but you are creating for capital an investment which 
 will be more profitable for it in the estates of the foreigner. 
 Look at the relations in which you will place the foreign mer- 
 chant with his London correspondent. He has no longer to 
 fear the capricious effects of the sliding scale ; he has got a 
 certain market ; he goes to his London banker with an increased 
 security for an advance ; he obtains his loan with ease : he 
 makes his advances to the country dealers on the Continent as 
 he makes his advance of English capital now in the foreign 
 wool-trade between the clip and the great fairs ; and thus i 
 while you diminish the security of the landed proprietor you 
 are offering to the English capitalist a better and securer I 
 interest and investment. ' 
 
 But then you tell us of the aid to be had by the agri- 
 culturist from skill. It is not easy to argue on a phrase so 
 indefinite as skill, but I think I can show you that the English 
 agriculturist is far more advanced in respect to skill than even 
 the English manufacturer. I don't mean to say that there are 
 not English formers who might cultivate their lands better and 
 VOL. I. M 
 
162 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 with more economy than they do ; but the same may surely 
 be said in their respective pursuits of many a manufacturer 
 and many a miner ; but what I mean to say is, that an English 
 farmer produces more effectively and wastes less, is more 
 intelligent and more industrious, than the manufacturer. I 
 will prove this by the evidence of a member of the Anti-Corn 
 Law League — Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey says that the competition 
 is so severe that he almost doubts the possibility of the English 
 manufacturer long maintaining that competition with the 
 Continental or American manufacturer, who approach them 
 nearer every day in the completeness of their fabrics and the 
 economy of their productions. But no such thing can be said 
 of the English agriculturist who, I have shown you, can produce 
 much more per acre than the French, Eussian, or American 
 agriculturist. So much, then, for the argument with respect to 
 skill. 
 
 There is one argument, or rather appeal, which I know has 
 influenced opinion out of this House, and also within it. You 
 bring before us the condition of the English peasant. It is 
 too often a miserable condition. My honourable friend the 
 member for Shaftesbury has gained and deserves great credit 
 for investigating the condition of the Dorsetshire labourer. He 
 has introduced it into this discussion. Now, the condition of the 
 Dorsetshire labourer is one of the reasons which induce me to 
 support this law. It is very easy to say that the condition of 
 the agricultural labourer, when compared with the general state 
 of our civilisation, is a miserable and depressed one, and that 
 protection has produced it. If I cannot offer you reasons which 
 may induce you to believe that protection has nothing to do 
 with it, I shall be perfectly ready to go to-night into the same 
 lobby with Her Majesty's ministers. I asked you the other 
 night, if protection has produced the Dorsetshire labourer at 
 7s. per week, how is it that protection has produced the 
 Lincolnshire labourer with double that sum? I do not say that 
 is an argument : it is a suggestive question which I will endea- 
 vour to follow up. 
 
 Mr. Huskisson made an observation in conversation with an 
 acquaintance of mine which has always struck me very forcibly. 
 
THIRD BEADING OF CORN IMPORTATION BILL, MAY 1846. 163 
 
 When Mr. Huskisson first settled in Sussex, his attention was 
 naturally drawn to the extraordinary state of pauperism in 
 that county, and after giving the subject all the meditation of 
 his acute mind, he said that he traced it to the fact that Sussex 
 had formerly been the seat of a great iron trade, and that 
 agriculture had never been able to absorb the manufacturing 
 population. Now, apply that principle to the western counties, 
 and don't you think it will throw some light upon their 
 condition? They also have been the seat of manufaetm-es, 
 many of them obsolete, and many of them only partially pur- 
 sued. . There, too, you will find that the manufacturing popula- 
 lation has never been absorbed by the agricultural — that is, 
 agriculture does not bear its ratio in its means of support to the 
 amount of the population which it has to sustain, but which it 
 did not create, ' 
 
 And now go to Lincolnshire. I will rest our case on Lincoln- 
 shire. It is a new county ; it is a protected county. Lincoln- 
 shire is to agriculture what Lancashire is to manufactures. 
 The population there is produced by land and supported by 
 land in the same manner that the population of Lancashire 
 has been produced and is supported by manufactures. Let us 
 picture to ourselves for a moment that celebrated tower that 
 looks over that city which my gallant friend' and his ancestors 
 have represented since the time of the last Stuart. Let us 
 picture him for a moment placing the archfiend of political 
 economy in that befitting niche, and calling his attention to the 
 surrounding kndscape. To the north, extending to the Humber, 
 an endless tract of wolds rescued from the rabbits, once covered 
 with furze and whins, and now with exuberant crops of grain ; 
 to the south, stretching for miles, is what was once Lincoln 
 Heath, where in the memory of living men there used to be a 
 lighthouse for the traveller, and which even in the recollection of 
 the middle-aged was let to the warrener at 2s. 6d. an acre — now 
 one of the best farmed and most productive corn districts in the 
 kingdom. Then, turning from the wolds and the heaths east- 
 ward reaching to the sea, he might behold a region of fens, the 
 small ones drained by the steam engine, with the East and West 
 ' Colonel Sibthorpe. 
 M 2 
 
1G4 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 and Wildmore fens, once more than half the year under water, 
 now cleared by large canals, and bearing magnificent wheat 
 and oats ; with the great Witham and Black Sluice drainage — 
 districts, one extending over 60,000 and the other over 
 90,000 acres, admirably reclaimed and drained, and bearing, and 
 creating, and well sustaining a large and industrious and thriving 
 population. And all under the faith of protective Acts of Par- 
 liament. I am told that it is the contiguity of manufactures 
 that makes Lincolnshire so prosperous. But, Sir, the frontiers of 
 Wilts are nearer that great manufacturing district of which 
 Birmingham is the centre than those of Lincoln are to Lan- 
 cashire. Now, see what Lincolnshire has produced under pro- 
 tection : there you see the protective system fairly tested. But 
 when you find the labourers in the western counties wretched 
 and miserable, do not say that protection has been the cause of 
 it when protection is perhaps the reason why they exist at all ; 
 but see if you cannot find other causes for their poverty, and 
 means to counteract it. I must say that nothing astonished me 
 more than when the noble lord the member for Falkirk' asked 
 the farmers in Newark market, 'What has protection done for 
 you ? ' Why, that market is supplied with the wheat of Lincoln 
 Heath, the intrinsic poverty of whose soil is only sustained by 
 the annual application of artificial manures, but which produces 
 I the finest corn in the kingdom. What has protection done for 
 them ? Why, if protection had never existed, Lincolnshire 
 1 might still have been a wild wold, a barren heath, a plashy 
 marsh. 
 
 There are one or two points to which I could have wished 
 to call the attention of the House, but which time will only 
 permit me to glance at; I will not presume to discuss them. 
 But you cannot decide this question without looking to your 
 colonies. I am not one of those who think it the inevi- 
 table lot of the people of Canada to become annexed to the 
 United States. Canada has all the elements of a great and in- 
 dependent country, and is destined, I sometimes believe, to be the 
 Eussia of the Nt w World. The honourable and learned member 
 for Bath,2 in answering the speech of the noble lord the member 
 ' Lord Lincoln. 2 Mr. Koebuok. 
 
THIRD READING OF CORN IMi'ORTATION BILL, MAY 1846. 165 
 
 for Lynn,' last night treated our commerce with Canada very 
 lightly, rather as a smuggling traf36c than legitimate commerce. 
 That is an argument for keeping the Canadas. I have no desire 
 to see a smuggling trade if we can have any other. But I will 
 ask the gentlemen of Manchester to consider what may become 
 of the transatlantic market for their manufactures if the 
 whole of that continent belong to one Power ? But I must not 
 dwell on the colonies, and I shall scarcely touch the case off 
 Ireland : it is too terrible, especially if there be truth in the ! 
 opinion of the noble lord whose conversion has been so much a 
 matter of congratulation to the Government, that their measures 
 must be fatal to small farmers. Why, Ireland is a nation of 
 small farmers. There was, however, one observation made by 
 the honourable member for Stockport, which, considering the 
 effect it has had, I cannot help noticing. The honourable gentle- 
 man says, ' Ireland an argument in favour of the Corn Laws ! Of 
 all countries in the world, I never should have supposed that Ire-| 
 landwouldhavebeenbroughtforward insupportof theComLaws!' I 
 That is a saucy and gallant sally; but is it an argument? What 
 does it prove? The population is reduced to the lowest sources 
 of subsistence. Admitted : but how do they gain even their 
 potato except by cultivating the soil, and by producing that 
 wheat and those oats which they send to England ? I should 
 be very glad if that wheat and those oats remained in Ireland ; 
 but, I ask, what will be the state of Ireland if the effect of that 
 measure on your market be such as I have assumed ? You say; 
 that capital will flow into the country and that manufactures 
 will be established. What length of time will elapse beforel 
 these manufactures are established ? Perhaps before that time| 
 the iron trade will revive in Sussex, or we shall see the drooping 
 energies of the Dorsetshire labourer revived by his receiving the 
 same wages as are paid at Rochdale and Stockport. 
 
 Believing that this measure would be fatal to our agricultural 
 interests ; believing that its tendency is to sap the main ener- 
 gies and springs of our manufacturing prosperity ; believing that 
 from a merely financial point of view it will occasion a new dis- 
 tribution of the precious metals, which must induce the utmost 
 ' Lord G. Bentiuck. 
 
166 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 social suffering in every class, I am obliged to ask myself, if the 
 measure be so perilous, why is it produced ? Sir, I need not ask 
 why so many gentlemen, both in and out of this House, have 
 already asked, what was there in the circumstances of this 
 country to authorise the change ? If we are only a commercial 
 and manufacturing people, all must admit that commerce was 
 thriving and that manufactures flourished. Agriculture was 
 ialso content, and even had it been suffering and depressed^ 
 what does it signify, since England has ceased to be an agri- 
 cultural country ? Obliged, then, to discover some cause for 
 this social revolution, I find that a body of men have 
 risen in this country eminent for their eloquence, distin- 
 guished for their er.ergy, but more distinguished, in my 
 humble opinion, for their energy and their eloquence than 
 for their knowledge of human nature or for the extent of 
 their political information. Sir, I am not one of those 
 who here or elsewhere, in public or in private, have spoken with 
 that disrespect which some have done of that great commercial 
 confederation which now exercises so great an influence in this 
 country. Though I disapprove of their doctrines, though I 
 believe from the bottom of my heart that their practice will 
 eventually be as pernicious to the manufacturing interest as to 
 the agricultural interests of this country, still I admire men of 
 abilities, who, convinced of a great truth and proud of their en- 
 ergies, band themselves together for the purpose of supporting 
 it, and come forward devoting their lives to what they consider 
 to be a great cause. Sir, this country can only exist by free 
 discussion. If it is once supposed that opinions are to be put 
 down by any other means, then, whatever may be our political 
 forms, liberty vanishes. If we think the opinions of the Anti- 
 [ Corn-Law League dangerous ; if we think their system founded on 
 error and must lead to confusion, it is open in a free country * 
 like England for men who hold opposite opinions to resist 
 them with the same earnestness, by all legitimate means — by 
 the same active organisation, and by all the intellectual power 
 they command. But what happens in this country ? A body 
 of gentlemen, able and adroit men, come forward and profess 
 contrary doctrines to those of these new economists. They place 
 
THIRD READINa OF GOEST IMPORTATION BILL, MAY 18i6. 167 
 
 themselves at the head of that popular party who are hostile, 
 to the new ideas, and professing their opinions, they climb and 
 clamber into power by having accepted, or rather by having 
 eagerly sought, the trust. It follows that the body whom they 
 represent, trusting in their leaders not unnaturally, slumber at 
 their posts. They conclude that their opinions are represented 
 in the State. It was not for us or for the millions out of the 
 House to come forward and organise a power in order to meet 
 the hostile movements of the honourable member for Stockport. 
 No, we trusted to others — to one who, by accepting, or rather by 
 seizing, that post, obtained the greatest place in the country, 
 and at this moment governs England. Well, Sir, what happens? 
 The right honourable gentleman the First Minister told his 
 friends that he had given them very significant hints of the 
 change of his opinions. He said that even last year Lord Grey 
 had found him out, and he was surprised that we could have been 
 so long deluded. 
 
 Sir, none of the observations of the right honourable gentle- 
 man applied to me. More than a year ago, I rose in my 
 place and said that it appeared to me that protection was in 
 about the same state that Protestantism was in 1828.' I 
 remember my friends were very indignant with me for that 
 assertion, but they have since been so kind as to observe that 
 instead of being a calumny it was only a prophecy. But I am 
 bound to say, from personal experience, that, with the very 
 humble exception to which I have referred, I think the right 
 honourable baronet may congratulate himself on his complete 
 success in having entirely deceived his party, for even the noble 
 lord the member for Lynn himself in a moment of frank con- 
 versation assured me that he had not till the very last moment 
 the slightest doubt of the right honourable gentleman. The 
 noble lord, I suppose, like many others, thought that the right 
 honourable gentleman was, to use a very favourite phrase on 
 these benches in 1842, ' only making the best bargain for them.' 
 I remember when the Whig budget was rejected and the right 
 honourable gentleman was installed into office, the changes 
 which he proposed at the time created some suspicion ; but all 
 ' March 17, 18i5. Of. page 80. 
 
168 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 suspicion was hushed at the moment, because the right honoiu'- 
 
 able gentleman was now looked upon as the man who could niake 
 
 the ' best bargain for his party.' I want to know what gentlemen 
 
 I think of their bargain now. Suddenly, absolute as was the con- 
 
 ; fidence in the right honourable gentleman, the announcement 
 
 i' was made that there was to be another change : that that was to 
 occur, under his auspices, which only a few months before he had 
 aptly described as a ' social revolution.' And how was that an- 
 nouncement made ? Were honourable gentlemen called together, 
 or had the influential members of either House any intimation 
 given to them of the nature of it ? No, Sir. It was announced 
 through the columns of a journal ■ which is always careful never to 
 insert important information except on the highest authority. 
 Conceive the effect of that announcement on foreign countries 
 and on foreign ministers. I can bear witness to it : I happened 
 to be absent from England at the time, and I know of great 
 potentates sending for English ambassadors and demanding an 
 explanation : and of English ambassadors waiting on great 
 potentates and officially declaring that there was not the 
 \ slightest truth in the announcement. And all this time, too, 
 members of the Government — I have some of them in my eye 
 I — were calling on other newspapers devoted to the Grovernment 
 i and instructing them that the whole was an ' infamous fabri- 
 feation.'^ How ingenious was the conduct of Her Majesty's 
 Government — or of that minister who formed the omnipotent 
 minority of the cabinet, I leave the House to decide. But was 
 it not strange that, after so much agitation, after aU these 
 Maclua£dlias__manffiuvreSi when the minister at last met the 
 House and his party, he acted as if we had deserted him in- 
 stead of his having left us ? Who can forget those tones ? 
 Who can forget that indignant glance ? 
 
 Vectabor humeris tunc ego inimicis eques : 
 Meaeque terra cedet insolentise : 
 
 which means to say, 'I, a protectionist minister, mean to 
 govern England by the aid of the Anti-Corn-Law League ; and 
 
 • Times, Dec. i, 1845. s Standard, Dec. 5, 1845. 
 
THIRD READING OF CORN IMPORTATION BILL, MAY 1846. 169 
 
 as for the country gentlemen, why, I snap my fingers in their 
 faces.' 
 
 Yet even then the right honourable gentleman had no] 
 cause to complain of his party. It is very true that on a sub- 1 
 sequent occasion 240 gentlemen recorded their sense of his 
 conduct. But then he might have remembered the considerable 
 section of converts that he obtained even in the last hour. 
 Why, what a compliment for a minister — not only to vote for 
 him, but to vote for him against your opinion and in favour of 
 opinions which he had always drilled you to distrust ! That 
 was a scene, I believe, unprecedented in the House of Commons. , 
 Indeed, I recollect nothing equal to it unless it be the conver- j 
 sion of the Saxons by Charlemagne, which is the only historical j 
 incident that bears any parallel to that illustrious occasion.; 
 Eanged on the banks of the Ehine, the Saxons determined to' 
 resist any further movement on the part of the great Csesar ; 
 but when the Emperor appeared, instead of conquering he con- 
 verted them. How were they converted ? In battalions — the 
 old chronicler informs us they were converted in battalions, and 
 baptised in platoons. It was utterly impossible to bring these 
 individuals from a state of reprobation to a state of grace with 
 a celerity sufficiently quick. When I saw the hundred and 
 twelve fall into rank and file I was irresistibly reminded of that 
 memorable incident on the banks of the Ehine. 
 
 And now, Sir, I must say in vindication of the right hon- 
 ourable gentleman that I think great injustice has been done 
 to him throughout these debates. A perhaps justifiable mis- 
 conception has universally prevailed. Sir, the right honour- 
 able gentleman has been accused of foregone treachery-^ of' 
 long-meditated deception — of a desire unworthy of a great, 
 statesman, even if an unprincipled one — of always having in-; 
 tended to abandon the opinions by professing which he rose to' 
 power. Sir, I entirely acquit the right honourable gentleman] 
 of any such intention. I do it for this reason, that when I ex- 
 amine the career of this minister, which has now filled a great 
 space in the Parliamentary history of this country, I find that 
 for between forty and fifty years, from the days- of Mr. Horner 
 to those of the honourable member for Stockport, that right 
 
170 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEAGONSFIELD. 
 
 honourable gentleman has traded on the ideas and inteUigence 
 of others. His life has been one great Appropriation Clause. 
 I He is a burglar of others' intellect. Search the index of Beatson 
 (from the days of the Conqueror to the termination of the last 
 reign, there is no statesman who has committed political petty 
 larceny on so great a scale. I believe, therefore, when the 
 right honourable gentleman undertook our cause on either side 
 of the House that he was perfectly sincere in his advocacy; 
 but as in the course of discussion the conventionalisms which 
 he received from us crumbled away in his grasp, feeling no 
 creative power to sustain men with new arguments, feeling no 
 spontaneous sentiments to force upon him conviction, the 
 right honourable gentleman— reduced at last to defending the 
 noblest cause, one based on the most high and solemn prin- 
 ciples, upon ' the burdens peculiar to agriculture ' ' — the right 
 honourable gentleman, faithful to the law of his nature, im- 
 bibed the new doctrines, the more vigorous, bustling, popular 
 and progressive doctrines, as he had imbibed the doctrines 
 of every leading man in this country for thirty or forty 
 years, with the exception of the doctrines of Parliamentary 
 Eeform which the Whigs very wisely led the country 
 upon and did not allow to grow sufficiently mature to fall 
 into the mouth of the right honourable gentleman. 
 : Sir, the right honourable gentleman tells us that he does not 
 : feel humiliated. Sir, it is impossible for anyone to know what 
 are the feelings of another. Feeling depends upon tempera- 
 ment : it depends upon the idiosyncracy of the individual : it 
 depends upon the organisation of the animal that feels. But 
 this I will tell the right honourable gentleman, that, though 
 he may not feel humiliated, his country ought to feel humi- 
 liated. Is it so pleas 'ng to the self-complacency of a great 
 nation, is it so gratef il to the pride of England, that one who 
 from the position he 1 contrived to occupy must rank as her 
 foremost citizen, is one of whom it may be said, as Dean Swift 
 said of another minister, ' that he is a gentleman who has the 
 perpetual misfortune to be mistaken ' ? And, Sir, even now, in 
 
 ' The words in inverted commas were uttered in a tone of sarcasm which, 
 elicited very great laughter. 
 
THIRD READING OF CORN IMPORTATION BILL, MAY 1846. 171 
 
 this last scene of the drama, when the party whom he uninten- 
 tionally betrayed is to be unintentionally annihilated — even now, 
 in this the last scene, the right honourable gentleman, faithful I 
 to the law of his being, is going to pass a project which I be- 
 lieve it is matter of notoriety is not of his own invention. It j 
 is one which may have been modified, but which I believe has 
 been offered to another Grovernment and by that Government 
 has been wisely rejected. Why, Sir, these are matters of 
 general notoriety. After the day that the right honourable i 
 gentleman made his first exposition of his schemes, a gentle- ] 
 man well known, to the House, and learned in all the political i 
 secrets behind the scenes, met me and said, ' Well, what do you 
 think of your chiefs plan ? ' Not knowing exactly what to say, 
 but taking up a phrase which has been much used in the 
 House, I observed, ' Well, I suppose it is a great and compre- 
 hensive plan.' ' Oh ! ' he replied, ' we know all about it ; it 
 was offered to us. It is not his plan ; it's Popkins's plan. 'I 
 And is England to be governed by Popkins's plan ? Will he go 
 to the country with it ? Will he go with it to that ancient and 
 famous England that once was governed by statesmen — by 
 Burleighs and by Walsinghams ; by B^lmgbrdjea and by Wal- 
 poles; by a Chatham and a Canning — will he go to it with 
 this fantastic scheming of some presumptuous pedant ? I 
 won't believe it : I have that confidence in the common sense, 
 I will say the common spirit, of our countrymen, and I believe 
 they will not long endure this huckstering tyranny of the j 
 Treasury Bench — those political pedlars that bought their party j 
 in the cheapest market and sold us in the dearest. ■ 
 
 I know, Sir, that there are many who believe that the time 
 is gone by when one can appeal to those high and honest im- 
 pulses that were once the mainstay and the main element of 
 the English character. I know. Sir, that we appeal to a people | 
 debauched by public gambling — stimulated and encouraged byl 
 an inefficient and shortsighted minister. I know that the > 
 public mind is polluted with economic fancies : a depraved de- j 
 sire that the rich may become richer without the interference! 
 of industry and toil.. I know. Sir, that all confidence in pub-| 
 lie men is lost. But, Sir, I have faith in the primitive and 
 
172 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEAOONSFIELD. 
 
 enduring elements of the English character. It may be vain 
 now, in the midnight of their intoxication, to tell them that 
 there will be an awakening of bitterness ; it may be idle now, 
 in the springtide of their economic frenzy, to warn them that 
 there may be an ebb of trouble. But the dark and inevitable 
 hour will arrive. Then, when their spirit is softened by mis- 
 fortune, they will recur to those principles that made England 
 great, and which, in our belief, ean alone keep England great. 
 Then, too, perchance they may remember, not with unkind- 
 ness, those who, betrayed and deserted, were neither ashamed 
 nor afraid to struggle for the ' good old cause ' — the cause with 
 which are associated principles the most popular, sentiments 
 the most entirely national, the cause of labour, the cause of 
 the people — the cause of England. 
 
173 
 
 AYLESBURY, June 26, 1847. 
 
 [At the General Election of 1847 Mr Disraeli was returned for 
 Buckinghamshire, and in the course of his canvass made several long 
 speeches to the county electors. They all of course turn on the 
 policy of the Government. At two o'clock in the morning of June 26th, 
 
 1846, Sir Robert Peel had been defeated on the Irish Coercion Bill; 
 and Lord John Russell had succeeded to his place. The dissolution of 
 
 1847, like the dissolution of 1852, was an appeal to the country on 
 the principles of Free Trade, which in each case were decisively en- 
 dorsed. The following speech, delivered at Aylesbury on June 26th, 
 contains many characteristic passages, especially the comparison be- 
 tween Liberal opinions and popular principles.] 
 
 MY honourable friend, the member for the county, has been 
 pleased to allude to me in terms which only his courtesy 
 can justify, but for which I am very sensible that I am 
 indebted to that kindness and good feeling which has ever 
 characterised his behaviour to me, both in public and in 
 private. I think I may, without presuming to bandy compli- 
 ments with my honourable friend, remind you that during the 
 years we have both been members of the Parliament of this 
 country — I think I may say that on every public occasion of 
 interest or importance, there has never existed between my 
 honourable friend and myself the slightest difference of opinion : 
 we have divided under the same banner ; we have counted 
 in the same lobby ; we have struggled, sometimes in triumph, 
 and sometimes in defeat, in the same cause ; and this also 
 have I to say for my honourable frieiid and myself, that in 
 our triumphs we have triumphed over our enemies, and that 
 when we have been defeated we have been discomfited by our 
 friends. I appear before you to-day under different circum- 
 
174 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 stances from those which I have hitherto had the honour on 
 more than one occasion to address the members of the Protec- 
 tion Society of Bucks. I appear to you this day to decide on 
 my claims to the representation of your county, as it were to a 
 grand jury of the county of Bucks, and I ask you to decide 
 upon my claims on the opinion you have formed of my prin- 
 ciples as interpreted by my past career. I owe the fact of my 
 appearing here this day to the invitation of the electors, under 
 circumstances of almost unparalleled political interest. The 
 people of England, who, whether right or wrong, had formed 
 opinions which they had solemnly sanctioned at the late general 
 election, found themselves last year suddenly deserted by those 
 whom they had elected as their chiefs. Still confident in the 
 opinions they had at all times advocated, the people of Eng- 
 land saw that body of men, an army without discipline, almost 
 without officers, suddenly form themselves into a band, present 
 a front to the enemy, choose with spontaneous feeling men for 
 their leaders, and enter into a campaign which, though un- 
 successful, was not inglorious. Honourable men who sym- 
 pathise with our cause came from the country to our assist- 
 ance, and marking me in the crowd, of which I was one of the 
 humblest but not the least energetic, they invited me to 
 become a candidate for the suffrages of the county of Bucks. 
 
 These persons were not found among the ancient aristocracy 
 or the territorial proprietary of the county — though many of 
 those, I am proud to say, will now exercise their just and legiti- 
 mate influence to my support — but they were found among the 
 yeomanry and farmers of the county of Bucks. It was they 
 who formed the deputation that, in the crisis of 1846, came up 
 to London ; they joined with us in the campaign ; they assisted 
 us with their counsel ; they witnessed our exertions, and they 
 at last told me that they thought the industry of the county of 
 Buckingham would find in me a representative who would 
 certainly be faithful, and who might not be incapable. But, 
 far from listening to these suggestions, I shrank from such a 
 step until I was led to believe that it would be received with 
 no disfavour from the great body of the proprietors of the 
 county. 
 
AYLESBUEY, JUNE 1847. 175 
 
 It is not necessary for me to assure you, gentlemen, that 
 I do not appeal to your confidence on the extent of my acres 
 or the antiquity of my family. Even if my acres were as ex- 
 tensive as those of Stowe, of which I am said to be the nominee, 
 I hope I have that proper pride in me that would prevent my 
 appealing to any portion of my fellow-subjects on the score of 
 property ; and I have yet to learn that now in the nineteenth 
 century a man is to be allowed to occupy any position which he 
 wishes to fill on any other general ground than this, that he by 
 his actions has been proved to have both capability and capacity. 
 X am not for a moment disposed to admit that my pedigree is 
 not as good as and even superior to that of the Cavendishes ; 
 but as my opponent and his representative have chosen to 
 narrow the question to that issue, I accept the ground on which 
 he is prepared to fight. Let him pride himself on his blood ; 
 I have confidence in my brains — and I am not alarmed as to the 
 result. This I can tell the silent candidate and his two loqua- 
 cious champions, that if he appeals to ancestry, I have a father, 
 more than eighty years of age, who is a freeholder of the county 
 of Buckingham, and who intends to record his vote for his son 
 when the day of election arrives. I would not change that 
 father, who for half a century has laboured to forrn the tastes 
 and instruct the minds of his fellow-countrymen, for any Duke 
 aUve or dead, even if that Duke were a Duke of Devonshire. 
 
 There is another point which is deeply interesting to you, 
 and which I wish to touch upon without passion — I mean the 
 relation between this country and the Papal See ; and to this 
 question I shall address myself briefly, but I hope clearly and 
 explicitly. I have now been in Parliament ten years, and during 
 that time I can truly say I have not given a vote which did not 
 tend to secure to the Roman Catholics social, political, and civil 
 equality. Nay, when such a question was put, I thought it my 
 duty to view it in a large and generous light. I never thought, 
 T never nursed the idea, after what had passed in 1829, that we 
 were living under a Protestant constitution. This may be a 
 very splendid phrase : it may serve for our solace in our political 
 and convivial meetings ; but I early felt that it was necessary 
 to discriminate between phrases and facts. But though we do 
 
176 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 not live under a Protestant constitution, I thank God that we do 
 live in a Protestant country. You allowed the Eoman Catho- 
 lics to enter Parliament, and the moment you did that it is a 
 mockery to pretend that you live under a Protestant constitution. 
 The Eoman Catholic member makes the minister ; the minister 
 makes the bishop ; and the only security to the Protestantism 
 of this country is that it is a Protestant country. These are my 
 opinions. I know that they are founded on truth. If the people 
 of this country have confidence in their own feelings, they are 
 safe ; but if apathy should influence them on this point, then 
 there is no security for that Protestantism in which they are so 
 deeply interested. After the great change of 1829, then, I 
 thought it my duty to award to the Roman Catholics social, 
 civil, and political equality. You must admit this conclusion 
 — you cannot resist it if you would — it is only on the intro- 
 duction of new principles that you can make any stand. The • 
 grant to MajTiooth appeared to me to be a question of this nature. 
 It was brought forward by a most adroit man in a most in- 
 sidious speech. He told us that in this grant no question of 
 principle was involved, because the principle was conceded — 
 that it was simply the difference between the expenditure of 
 20,000Z. and the expenditure of 30,000i. — ^that, in fact, it was 
 only a question of detail. And therefore the party which was 
 not only the most powerful that this country has ever witnessed, 
 but which I must say, though I myself was a member of it, was 
 the most imscrupulous — that, party did not hesitate to concede 
 the vote. 
 
 What was my conduct ? Though I had every opportunity 
 to give a vote favourable to the Grovernment ; though my con- 
 stituency did not altogether agree with me in my opinion; 
 though my own personal friends, men to whom I was bound by 
 every tie, not of political feeling alone, but of personal aSection 
 — half a dozen men who rallied round my banner to oppose the 
 most powerful minister of the country — though these men 
 thought that this was a question of mere detail ; though my 
 wishes were and had been, after 1829, that the concession to 
 the Eoman Catholics, social, political, and civil, should be without 
 limit; though I thought, and am bound to repeat, that you 
 
AYLESBUEY, JUNE 1847. 177 
 
 have destroyed the Protestant constitution of this country, yet 
 I did believe and do believe that England is a Protestant country, 
 and I was forced to the consideration, both by the speeches of 
 the minister and by his opponents, who succeeded him in 
 power, and who said that the real question was the endowment 
 of the Eoman Catholic Church — I was forced to the consideration 
 that my duty at the moment was to oppose the minister and 
 place myself in painful collision with my constituents — though 
 they have since voted a resolution of unlimited confidence in me 
 — to place myself in collision with my personal friends, and 
 ultimately to break up' that small but most influential body of 
 men who were the first who shook Sir E, Peel from his high 
 pedestal : and at all these sacrifices I opposed the measure and 
 denounced the principle which was really though secretly con- 
 tained in it. I rested my speech upon a broad basis : I rested 
 it upon the principle of opposing the State endowment of any 
 creed. A reverend gentleman, indeed, has supposed, in con- 
 sequence of this, that I was opposed to the union of Church and 
 State. But I never can admit that the Church of England was 
 endowed by the State of England. The ecclesiastical estate is 
 the patrimony of the Church. I am not one of those who ap- 
 prove of any change in the present connection between Church 
 and State ; but the Church existed and flourished before that 
 connection, and though I cannot speculate on such a catastrophe 
 as to suppose the Church would cease to exist after its dis- 
 solution, I cannot even admit that the Church would then 
 cease to flourish. I cannot conceive an idea more fallacious 
 than to suppose that the safety of the Church depends on the 
 protection of the State. When did the people ever plunder the 
 Chm-ch? The Church has been plundered by monarchs who 
 were galled by her restraints ; by a rapacious aristocracy who 
 were ravenous for her estates ; by gentlemen of Liberal opinions 
 who found her authority inconvenient; but never by the 
 people, of whom the Church is the natural protector. 
 
 The Church is founded upon popular principles, not upon 
 Liberal opinions. Since I made this distinction at Newport, a 
 
 ' It appears from this that Mr. Disraeli's speech and vote on the Maynooth 
 Bill broke up the Young England party in the House of Commoas. 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
178 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 month ago, it has been described as sheer nonsense by. all the 
 Liberal journals of the country. Grentlemen, real nonsense 
 does not require the abuse of a whole month — silence is rather 
 its appropriate doom. Depend upon it when a man and a phrase 
 are much abused, there is something in both. Liberal opinions 
 are the opinions of those who would be free from certain con- 
 straints and regulations, from a certain dependence and duty 
 which are deemed necessary for the general or popular welfare. 
 Liberal opinions are very convenient opinions for the rich and 
 powerful. They ensure enjoyment and are opposed to self-sacri- 
 fice. The holder of Liberal opinions, for example, maintains that 
 the possession of land is to be considered in a commercial light 
 and no other. He looks to the income which it will afiford him. 
 It is not a Liberal opinion that the holder of land should incur 
 the duty of executing justice and maintaining truth among the 
 multitude for nothing. That, gentleman, is a popular principle, 
 a principle of government for the benefit of the people, not a 
 Liberal opinion. A poor law is also founded upon a popular 
 principle ; Liberal opinions are entirely adverse to its enactments. 
 Grentlemen, I might pursue, and will take every opportunity of 
 pursuing, these illustrations. It might be drawn from every 
 province of our social system. As it is not the interest of the 
 rich and the powerful to pursue popular principles of govern- 
 ment, the wisdom of great men and the experience of ages have 
 taken care that these principles should be cherished and per- 
 petuated in the form of institutions. Thus, the majesty that 
 guards the multitude is embodied in a throne ; the faith that 
 consoles them hovers round the altar of a national Church ; the 
 spirit of discussion which is the root of public liberty flourishes 
 in the atmosphere of a free Parliament. But, instead of royalty, 
 a gentleman of Liberal opinions would prefer that the supreme 
 executive should be entrusted to a person of his own class, with 
 the title of a President, and perhaps to have the chance of 
 becoming President himself; instead of a national Church he 
 prefers to choose and pay for his own minister of religion, if he 
 has a wish for one ; and although he is not adverse to the theory 
 of representative government, provided the representation is 
 absorbed by his own order, he encourages the real transaction 
 
AYLESBURY, JUNE 1847. 179 
 
 of affairs to be conducted by paid commissioners and select 
 committees. 
 
 Against these opinions I have ever struggled ; I believe 
 that under them all national greatness must wither. To rescue 
 this country from their degrading yoke I wish to enter Parlia- 
 ment as your representative : not that I should gain the votes 
 of those merely who are present in this room ; not that I wish 
 to gain the influence of your friends ; not that I wish to become 
 member for the county through the force of personal gratitude, 
 or as if it were some personal object I had to accomplish. I 
 want you to understand that in the present contest more than 
 this is at stake, and that your exertion of the suffrage in my 
 favour will give a higher moral weight to my advocacy of these 
 opinions. I come before you, gentlemen, with none of those 
 aristrocratic recommendations by which the candidate of the 
 neighbouring tavern aspires to represent the county. Though 
 no one can be more sensible of their legitimate social influence 
 than myself, no one has done more by his speeches or his pen 
 to uphold those loftier influences which regulate society. I 
 appeal to this great, it may be this aristocratic, constituency. 
 I say. Return me to Parliament, not because I am a relative to 
 the Duke of Devonshire — not because my broad lands stretch 
 from Buckingham to Aylesbury — but because my public cha- 
 racter and my Parliamentary reputation have shown you that I 
 may be trusted, and, what is more, that I am capable. I put 
 this without the gloss or the gaudy veil with which a practised 
 speaker might put it before you. I have placed the question 
 before you in its naked truth. It is better that it should be so 
 — better that you should plainly understand why it is that I 
 ask your confidence. I do not pretend to be a man of great 
 family or fortune ; but I have proved to you that I am capable 
 of advocating your interests. The time is come in which you 
 should understand that- — and that is the question on which I 
 go before the country. I might say there is another — there is 
 a subject which is personal to myself; but which, because it is 
 personal to myself, I shall not do more than refer to. But I 
 think it also deeply concerns the honour of the county of Buck- 
 ingham. You are the first great constituency which has been 
 
 V 2 
 
180 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 appealed to by any man of mark or likelihood that has taken an 
 eminent part in the recent industrial struggle. It is certainly 
 not here— not in this presence — that I will utter one word of 
 acerbity or criticism upon that great minister from whom, in 
 your conflict, I have not shrunk. In the House of Commons, 
 and in the House of Commons alone, am I prepared to meet 
 Sir Robert Peel : not in this hall, not on the hustings, shall any 
 word of criticism or captious comment fall from my lips as to 
 the conduct of that eminent individual. I have met him in 
 that field which the public opinion of this country has long 
 recognised as the only one where a true knight can win his 
 golden spurs, and I will not desecrate the recollection of the 
 combat by allowing it to degenerate into a squabble. But I 
 tell you that at a time when there was in this country the most 
 powerful party combination which England ever witnessed, with 
 the ablest and most adroit men at the head of that confedera- 
 tion — I came forward certainly at a time when I little thought 
 of becoming member for Buckinghamshire, and I expressed in 
 the senate of the country those opinions which I have advocated 
 in this hall. I was supported in that struggle by many of the 
 gentlemen of England — by none more zealously than your hon- 
 ourable member. In that contest what had I not to endure ? 
 The sneers and slanders of hirelings, repeated everywhere but 
 in my presence. What had I not to encounter ? But I did not 
 comjilain ; I was confident in English justice — confident in the 
 sympathies of my fellow-countrymen which I believed such a 
 course would insure. Well then, will you by your votes prove 
 that I was wrong ? If you prove that I was wrong, what must 
 be said of our public spirit ; what of the spirit of the county of 
 Buckingham — a county which boasts of that eminent person 
 who quitted the cabinet in vindication of your principles ? 
 What will your answer be when it is said that I came here a 
 year after the crisis, demanding your sufirages on account of my 
 Parliamentary conduct, and that you refused me ? I cannot 
 believe that such will be the result. Support me, and you will 
 raise the tone of public spirit. Acknowledge that I have a 
 thousand deficiencies — that I am not the son of a duke — that 
 I am not a man of vast estate — that I have nothing but my 
 
AYLESBUEY, JUNE 1847. 181 
 
 ability, the position which I have achieved, or the confidence 
 and sympathy of my fellow-countrymen. But if you return me 
 as your representative, you will read a lesson which will not soon 
 be forgotten. You will give a tone of public feeling — nay, you 
 will elevate the tone of public feeling, for you will tell England, 
 ' Let a man be prepared to act with capacity, fidelity, and con- 
 scientiousness, and he will find support from the people of 
 England ; and we, the electors of Buckinghamshire, have proved 
 that the highest reward of public men in this land is the appro- 
 bation of their fellow-countrymen.' 
 
182 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACOI^^SFIELD. 
 
 INCOME TAX, March 10, 1848.' 
 
 [In this speech Mr. Disraeli denies that Sir Robert Peel in 1845 
 was carrying out the commercial principles he had inaugurated in 1842. 
 The principles of 1842 were, he said, pure Tory principles — ^the prin- 
 ciples of Mr. Pitt and the principles of Lord Shelburne and Lord 
 Bolingbroke. The policy proclaimed by the minister on his first 
 accession to office contemplated a large system of commercial treaties ; 
 and was in fact a policy of reciprocity. True Free Trade did not mean 
 open ports on the one side against hostile tarifis on the other. In this 
 debate Mr. Gladstone spoke strongly in favour of reciprocity as an 
 abstract principle, lamenting only that other countries would not 
 respond to our overtures. In other words, the original scheme of 
 commercial treaties having fallen through, Sir Robert Peel had found 
 it necessary to go on to Free Trade without them.^ 
 
 After questioning some of the figures of the speaker who had 
 preceded him, Mr. Disraeli addressed himself to the main point of 
 his speech.] 
 
 SIR, fhe honourable member has also observed that the late 
 minister, in 1845, confirmed and called upon the House to 
 confirm the commercial principles which, under his advice, they 
 adopted in 1842. Now, Sir, here again I entirely differ with 
 the honourable gentleman. I deny that the commercial prin- 
 ciples which were propounded and carried into law by the 
 ministers in 1845 were the commercial principles which they 
 introduced into our notice in 1842. Sir, when the minister 
 came forward with his measures in 1842, he found himself in 
 this situation. I advert very briefly to circumstances with 
 which we are all now so familiar. He had to supply a consider- 
 able deficit in the revenue, and he wished to revive commerce 
 by a reformation of our tariff. His instrument for tMs purpose 
 
 • This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
 ^ Hansard, toI. xovii. ,3rd series, p. 440. 
 
INCOME-TAX, MARCH 1848. 183 
 
 was an income-tax. Now, Sir, it is not for me to say what were 
 the motives of the right honourable gentleman when he first 
 introduced the income-tax to our notice, after what he stated 
 the other night. The right honourable gentleman's own ver- 
 sion is surely the one we ought to accept, and I trust, therefore, 
 that no controversy on that point will arise again. The right 
 honourable gentleman has given in his adhesion to the prin- 
 ciple of indirect taxation, and I am obliged to him for it ; as to 
 entering into the question of German translations of his letters , 
 to foreigners, it really is of very slight importance. The fact 
 remains, and, unless we succeed in our amendment to-night, I 
 fear, will remain, that we have an income-tax. But however 
 obscure may have been the expressions with which the income- 
 tax was first proposed, no one can deny that the minister was 
 quite frank and explicit as to the principles on which his com- 
 mercial changes were proposed in 1842. To terminate pro- 
 hibitions, to reduce protective duties in practical amount, to 
 raise a revenue by moderate duties on raw materials, and to 
 admit the manufactures of other countries at duties varying 
 from 12 to 20 per cent. — these were the principles laid down by 
 the right honourable gentleman in 1842 ; and I am not sur- 
 prised that, generally speaking, the House sanctioned those 
 principles, and adopted them by an almost unanimous concur- 
 rence. (Sir E. Peel : My plan was to levy 5 per cent, on raw 
 materials.) Exactly so — to levy a revenue by moderate duties 
 on raw materials. But allow me to remind the Committee of a 
 very important portion of the scheme of the right honourable 
 gentleman which was also promised us. This abrogation of 
 prohibitions — this reduction of protective duties — this scheme 
 of raising a revenue at very moderate rates on raw materials, 
 and permitting foreign manufactures to enter on reasonable 
 terms, was accompanited by an announcement to the House that 
 the minister was already in communication with several foreign 
 nations for treaties of commerce. This was a prime and im- 
 portant element in these measures and our discussions. Sir, 
 in all this the right honourable gentleman acted as great 
 ministers had acted before him. He acted exactly as Mr. Pitt 
 did in 1787. He followed entirely the example of Mr. Pitt, 
 
184 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 who pursued the principles of other great men who had preceded 
 him^-Lord Shelbume and Lord Bolingbroke. And thus the 
 right honourable gentleman, when he proposed his commercial 
 changes in 1842, announced at the same time that he was 
 bringing all the influence of his justly powerful name, and of 
 his singularly powerful Government, on foreign Courts, in order 
 to obtain a reciprocal commercial intercourse between this and 
 other countries. Sir, I gave to the right honourable gentleman 
 on that occasion a humble, but a sincere and hearty support. 
 I never shall regret it. And I only allude on this occasion to 
 a circumstance of such very slight importance because, in a 
 pamphlet entitled ' Pitt and Peel,' ' the author — who, for aught 
 I know, may be sitting at this moment in the House —has done 
 me the too great honour of referring to my conduct on that 
 occasion ; and therefore I tell him that I gave that support to 
 the measxu'es of the right honourable gentleman because they 
 were founded on the principles which I have stated and held 
 out the promises to which I have referred. 
 
 But now we come to 1845, a period of time singularly gUded 
 over by the honourable gentleman the member for Westbmy,^ who 
 seems not so much the advocate of free trade as the late admini- 
 stration of free trade. On the subject of our present debate, I 
 address a few observations to the Government. I have a great 
 respect for the present Government for many reasons ; but with 
 respect to principles on economical subjects they have none, or 
 if they have any they are embalmed in a very valuable budget 
 which the right honourable gentleman near me prevented passing 
 in 1841. The present principles of the Government on these 
 subjects are mimetic — mimetic of the late Government; and 
 again, the principles on these subjects of the late Government 
 are not original, for they are converts. Therefore, when I 
 discuss the principles of the new commercial system, I address 
 myself to the gentlemen opposite below the gangway. They 
 were proudly responsible for those principles when it was sup- 
 posed they would increase the prosperity of the country ; and 
 they ought not now to avoid the moral, although they may the 
 
 > The pamphlet was attributed to Mr. (now Viscount) Cardwell. 
 * Mr. James Wilson. 
 
INCOME-TAX, MAECH 1848. 185 
 
 official, responsibility of having advocated those principles. I 
 must therefore remind the honourable member for Westbury — 
 who was not in the last House of Commons, but who is so great 
 an accession to the present — of what took place in 1845. During 
 that period a great commercial confederation had arisen, very 
 completely organised and conducted by very able men. They 
 made great way in the country, and they promulgated opinions 
 on commerce very different from those propounded by the late 
 minister in 1842. They were not the opinions of Mr. Pitt, of 
 Lord Shelburne, or of Lord Bolingbroke. They were not the 
 opinions of free trade which I am prepared to support. Yes, 
 I am a free-trader but not a free-booter — honourable gentle- 
 men opposite are free-booters. The great leaders of the school 
 of Manchester never pretended for a moment that they ad- 
 vocated the principles of regulated competition or reciprocal 
 intercourse ; on the contrary, they brought forward new prin- 
 ciples, expressed in peculiar language. They laid down this 
 principle, that you were to buy in the cheapest and sell in the 
 dearest market. I deny that that is the principle of commerce. 
 Commerce is barter. The principle of buying in the cheapest 
 and selling in the dearest market is the principle of retail trade, 
 and of a huckstering retail trade. Another principle laid down 
 by these gentlemen was, that you were to take care of your im- 
 ports and let your exports take care of themselves. These new 
 principles were totally opposed to the principles of free trade. 
 These were the principles, however, for which the country was 
 agitated; and in 1845 the late minister gave his adhesion to 
 them. And here I must observe that during the whole period 
 that elapsed between 1842 and 1845, the late minister never pro- 
 duced one of those commercial treaties which he promised us in 
 1 842. (Mr. Grladstone : Because foreign Powers would not agree 
 to them.) I want no more important admission than that which 
 I have just received from a late Secretary 'of State. The 
 attempt to induce foreign Powers to enter into commercial 
 treaties failed ; and therefore the late minister adopted a prin- 
 ciple which denied the expediency of obtaining such treaties. 
 That was the state of affairs in 1845. Now, I maintain that 
 the principles then acted upon were not the principles of Mr. 
 
186 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Pitt. However, by virtue of the new dogmas which had been 
 propagated by a powerful confederation out of doors, and which 
 were directly opposed to the principles which Her Majesty's 
 Grovernment had theretofore professed, the House was again 
 induced to renew the impost of the income-tax, and at the 
 same time to cut off a revenue of more than four millions and a 
 half of money. 
 
 I have not stated precisely the difference between the min- 
 isterial principles of 1842 and 1845. After having, as I believe, 
 injured the revenue, or at least, as all admit, diminished the 
 revenue to the amount of 6,500,OOOL, the late minister came 
 forward in the next year, 1846, and still acting, I suppose it 
 will be said, in conformity with the principles of 1 842, repealed 
 the Corn Laws, and then again diminished the revenue by the 
 repeal of other customs' duties to the further amount of 
 1,200,000^., making a total diminution during his administra- 
 tion of more than 7,500,OOOL ; and then he retired from office. 
 And here it is due to the right honourable baronet to refer to 
 an apparently triumphant statement which he addressed to the 
 nation though his constituents only a few months back, on the 
 success of his commercial measures, which he sought to estab- 
 lish by a reference to the state of the revenue previous and 
 subsequent to his great changes. Perhaps I may be able to 
 make the Committee hesitate before they accord to this state- 
 meat the epithet of triumphant. I believe in that vindication 
 is involved a great fallacy. I admit that at the first glance, 
 especially in the heat of a contested election, nothing would be 
 calculated to tell better than a statement from the late head of 
 an administration that he had reduced imports to the amount 
 of 7,600,OOOi., and that, notwithstanding, the revenue (allowing 
 for the effect of the reduction of the sugar duties by the Whig 
 Government) had suffered only to the extent of about 700,OOOJ, 
 compared with the revenue of 1841, the period when he 
 assumed office. That statement produced a great effect at the 
 time, somewhat diminished since both our revenue has 
 decreased and our exports have fallen off. Sir, I believe that 
 a great fallacy pervades the line of argument adopted by the 
 right honourable gentleman in his address of last July. I deny 
 
INCOME-TAX, MARCH 1848. 187 
 
 that the state of the revenue is a correct test of commercial 
 legislation. The truest and indeed the only test of commercial 
 legislation is commercial prosperity. A minister may think fit 
 to cut off several millions from the revenue of the country, 
 principally raised by duties on foreign articles, and yet the 
 revenue may be supported by some peculiar internal and 
 exceptional cause. The state of the revenue all that time 
 would be no test of the state of the commerce of the country ; 
 and this will happen, that when the peculiar internal and excep- 
 tional cause ceases to operate, the minister will suddenly find 
 himself with exports on the one hand diminished, and revenue 
 on the other hand rapidly falling away ; and that I believe to be 
 the real state of things in England at the present moment. 
 Sir, I believe our foreign trade is declining, because our com- 
 mercial system is founded on a principle injurious to our native 
 labour, and opposed to the increase of the national capital. I 
 remember once asking the late minister whether he were pre- 
 pared to fight hostile tariffs with free imports, and I never could 
 get from him a very definite reply on this head. Yet in the 
 solution of that problem, I cannot but believe, the cause of our 
 present commercial difficulties may mainly be discovered. 
 
 Sir, I apprehend that the result of a trade carried on between 
 a country which pernaits free imports and one which maintains 
 hostile tariffs, is, that the exports of the former are diminished 
 in proportion to the amount of those tariffs, without diminish- 
 ing, in the unprotected country, the demand for the productions 
 of the people by which the duties are imposed. What is the 
 consequence ? The country of free imports is obliged to give 
 more labour for the production of the country which guards 
 against interference with its labour by hostile tariffs. Thus 
 England, by playing the game of free imports against hostile 
 tariffs, entails upon the subjects of Her Majesty the necessity 
 . of labom-ing more to obtain the same foreign products ; or, if 
 labouring the same, receiving a less quantity of them in ex- 
 change. Our labour becomes less effective. What is this but 
 the degradation of labour ? But our new commercial system 
 not only renders the labour of this country less valuable ; it 
 operates in another sense fatally on our fortunes, as we are ex- 
 
188 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 periencing at this moment. As it renders the cost of all foreign 
 products, measured by our labour, more dear, it enhances the 
 price of the precious metals, which are also foreign products. 
 The same rule applies to gold and silver as to other foreign 
 articles. Under the present system of free imports the country 
 is obUged to labour more to obtain the same quantity of the 
 precious metals than it had to do before. The honourable 
 gentleman the member for Manchester taunted me the other 
 night with having said that if the Corn Laws were repealed, all 
 the gold would go out of the country ; and yet, he added, the 
 gold had come back again. Such observations may do very 
 well for Covent Grarden, but will scarcely suit the House of 
 Commons. The gold has certainly come back; we know how 
 it came back, and at what cost. It will go out again, and it 
 will come back again, and by a process still more costly. On 
 every occasion you will have to pay more for the precious 
 metals ; and the consequence will be that, gradually as your 
 command over the precious metals diminishes, the range of 
 your prices will proportionately lower, and the distribution of the 
 precious metals throughout the world will be altered. I doubt 
 whether, under such circumstances, you will be able to main- 
 tain those establishments the expenditure of which is now so 
 much criticised. I doubt still more whether under such cir- 
 cumstances you will be able to pay the interest on your public 
 debt ; I may even venture to suggest to you whether in such 
 a change you will be able to maintain yotir standard of value. 
 At all events, two results must, iu my mind, inevitably occur — 
 the degradation of the national labour and a new distribution 
 of the precious metals opposed to all our previous economical 
 relations. 
 
 The member for Westbiiry seemed to regret that foreign 
 countries had not manifested a reciprocal sympathy with us 
 in our commercial changes. But if the honourable gentleman . 
 believes in his principles — if he really believes that we are to 
 take care of the imports and let the exports take care of 
 themselves — why should he regret it? True it is that the 
 right honourable gentleman the late minister, even in the 
 fatal year of 1846, when he advocated the most extravagant 
 
INCOME-TAX, MARCH 1848. 189 
 
 doctrines of the Manchester school, and seemed to delight even 
 in overstating his opinions, in order as it were to mortify us — 
 true it is that even then the right honourable gentleman seemed 
 to have some slight misgivings on this subject of reciprocity, 
 and, notwithstanding his dogmatic independence of the 
 principle, was accustomed to hold out some cheering hopes 
 of its occurrence. Did we not hear that Prussia was shaken ? 
 Did he not read to the House' an address of Mr. Walker, the 
 Secretary of the Treasury in the United States, promising a 
 new Treasury Bill to Congress, founded on greatly reduced 
 custom-house duties ? Well, what has been the result ? 
 Has Prussia been ' shaken ' ? My answer is, look to the recent 
 legislation of the Zollverein. Where is Mr. Walker's new 
 Treasury Bill ? What is it ? I can recall a passage in the 
 Message of the President in December 1846 describing that 
 measure. The President said the measure had been miscon- 
 ceived ; and he assured Congress that by its arrangements foreign 
 commodities imported into America in no case paid a duty less 
 than one-third of the cost of the production of those commodities. 
 That was in December 1846. What has happened since ? 
 Look to the Message of last year. Eead the comments on the 
 President's congratulations on the prosperity of the manufac- 
 turing interest in the Grovernment journal which I have in my 
 hand. The President congratulates the manufacturing interest 
 on their fears being dispelled ; and the journal shows them that 
 the protection they have always enjoyed, though changed in 
 form, is only rendered more effective — that it is only a redistri- 
 bution of protection — and that there is an average ad valorem 
 duty of 28 per cent. So much for Prussia and the United States, 
 from whom we were promised so much. Well, then, how is it 
 with France ? Have otu- hopes there been better realised. I 
 remember on this subject the right honourable baronet making 
 a very remarkable observation about France. He said it was 
 not the people of France who were opposed to a more liberal 
 commercial intercourse with us, but the manufacturing and 
 commercial aristocracy of that country. Well, the French have 
 got rid of their commercial and manufacturing aristocracy. 
 The people are lords paramount in Paris ; but I must be per- 
 
190 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 mitted to doubt whether their recent acts are indicative of that 
 strong desire for reciprocal commercial intercourse for which 
 the right honourable gentleman gave them credit. We have 
 not been favoured lately with any remarkable evidence of the 
 friendly feelings of the French people for English industry. 
 
 I remember a noble friend of mine, unhappily no longer a 
 member of this House, Lord John Manners, warning the late 
 minister on that occasion that he might be deceived, and 
 quoting the opinion on the subject of a writer who, my noble 
 friend rightly said, expressed the real feelings of the working 
 classes of France. The writer was M. Louis Blanc. M. Louis 
 Blanc is now a leading member of the Provisional Government 
 of France ; but if I am to judge from his speeches and his 
 writings, he is not exactly the man who will come forward and 
 propose such a commercial treaty with England as France was 
 prepared to enter into with Mr. Pitt, in 1787. I make these 
 observations in answer to the speech in favour of the late 
 Government delivered by the honourable member for West- 
 bury. I must, notwithstanding his address, express my opinion 
 that the present commercial distress, and the financial dis- 
 order that is so rapidly arising, are to be ascribed to the new 
 commercial system ; that, if that system be persisted in, our 
 commercial distress and financial embarrassment will increase ; 
 and that if our financial embarrassment has not sooner arrived, 
 it has been prevented by exceptional circumstances which have 
 nothing to do with the new commercial system, but which, on 
 the contrary, are of a character totally opposite to it. That is 
 my position, and I am prepared to prove my case if the House 
 will permit me. One advantage of discussing it fully now will 
 be to prevent its recurring, and you will be able to pass your 
 measures by those triumphant majorities that in a short time 
 will ruin the country. I will not blink the question in the least. 
 I will not bring forward a solitary item out of a tariff of 1,200 
 or 1,300 articles, and tell you that such an article was selling 
 at so much before you abolished or lowered the duty upon it, 
 and that you promised it would be so much cheaper, though 
 that promise has never been fulfilled. I will meet the question 
 completely — I will take as the territory on which I wish to 
 
MAECH 1848. 191 
 
 investigate the consequences of your new system, the very 
 scene of that noble industry that produces the chief staple 
 manufacture of the country. I will go to the province that is 
 the fatal author of these pernicious principles, and I will show 
 you the state of its population. I will show you the causes 
 that have produced that state, and the hopeless condition which 
 awaits them if you do not entirely change all the principles of 
 your legislation. 
 
 We will enter, the county of Lancaster. It is scarcely 
 necessary to enter into the general question of our exports. 
 That there has been a considerable falling- off no one denies. 
 I believe that they have been completely made up and pub- 
 lished within these few hours by the Board of Trade, and 
 that the falling-off is somewhere about 2,500,000^. But, not 
 to press upon that point, you recollect perfectly well that 
 when the right* honourable gentleman the member for Tam- 
 worth made his protection speeches and carried everything 
 before him, and referred to the state of our exports, the gentle- 
 men opposite used to say, ' You know nothing about it ; the 
 flourishing state of our exports to which you appeal is a proof 
 of our poor condition — it is a proof of our manufacturing and 
 commercial distress.' If, therefore, I were not to press this 
 point upon them, they might say that the state of our exports 
 at present is the very best proof of their prosperity. There is, 
 as I have said, a decline to the amount of 2,5OO,000L ; and I 
 am sorry to say that that great amount must be taken from the 
 general exports of Lancashire. Here is a picture of the state 
 of the principal districts, drawn by free-traders, for I quot^ 
 from free-traders only. One of the most consistent free-traders 
 states that within the last month — I quote from the Morning 
 Chronicle — unprecedented distress has become general ; and it 
 speaks of meetings of operatives being held in all parts of 
 Lancashii^e, Derbyshire, and parts of Yorkshire. Among these 
 meetings there is one of a somewhat novel character; for, in- 
 stead of discussing the rate of wages, the meeting confined 
 itself to a consideration of the means of emigrating the surplus 
 hands among them to the United States. The project was 
 adopted unanimously, and it was fixed to commence in a fort- 
 
192 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 night from that day. I am assuredly not surprised that it was 
 adopted unanimously, as I have been favoured with a document 
 that throws some light on the state of Manchester at the close 
 of the years ending December 1846 and 1847. The amount 
 paid to the poor in the year ending December 1846, at Man- 
 chester, to 48,000 persons, was 19,243?.; in the year ending 
 December, 1847, there was paid to 149,504 persons the sum of 
 45,000?. ; showing you the state of the operatives in that dis- 
 trict. This shows the state of the trade and of the operatives. 
 I will now enter upon the question of the cause of this con- 
 dition. We have heard that the exports from Manchester have 
 fallen off, and I am ready to show that there has been a de- 
 crease in almost all the foreign markets to which the goods of 
 Manchester go. To Hamburg— which port supplies Prussia 
 and Hanover — there is a great decrease of all kinds of cotton 
 goods (except cords and jeans) as well as of yarn. To Holland 
 there is also a great decrease, and that without the exception 
 of a single article. To Belgium there is a decrease of cotton 
 yam, thread, and cotton sundries, but an increase of plain and 
 printed calicos, cambrics, and muslins. To Denmark there is a 
 slight decrease of goods and yam, but a slight increase of thread. 
 Sweden and Norway give exactly the same results as Denmark 
 To Prussia there is a decrease of cotton yarn, cotton sundries, 
 printed cottons, cambrics and muslins, cords and jeans, but an 
 increase of cotton thread and plain calicoes. To J'rance there 
 is a decrease of every description of cotton goods, as well as of 
 yam and thread. To Naples there is a decrease in yarn and 
 plain calicoes, but an increase in cotton thread and printed 
 goods. To Sardinia, Tuscany, and Trieste, there is a decrease 
 of every article except cotton thread. To Egypt there is a 
 decrease of yarn and plain calicoes, but an increase of thread 
 and printed calicoes. To Gibraltar and Spain there is a decrease 
 in every article. To Portugal and Madeira there is also a de- 
 crease of all. To Chili and Peru there is a general increase. 
 To Mexico there is a very great decrease. To Columbia also. 
 To the Brazils there is an increase of cotton yarn and thread, 
 of printed calicoes, and of cambrics, but a decrease of plain 
 calicoes. To the British West Indies there is a decrease in all 
 
INCOME-TAX, MARCH 1848. 193 
 
 articles. To the foreign West Indies, and the neutral port of 
 St. Thomas, there -is generally a decrease. To British North 
 America there is a small decrease in most articles. To India 
 there is a decrease in the exports of everything except cotton 
 thread. The decrease in the exports of plain calicoes is up- 
 wards of 64,000,000 yards, and that of printed calicoes upwards 
 of 4,000,000. The decrease in the export of yarns is nearly 
 6,000,000 lbs. To China, Manilla, and Singapore there is a 
 decrease in everything except cotton yarn. To Mauritius and 
 Batavia there is an increase in yam and plain cottons, and a 
 decrease in every other kind. To the coast of Africa and the 
 Cape, there is a great increase both in plain and coloured 
 cottons, and also in yarn. To Australia there is an increase of 
 cotton sundries and plain calicoes, but a decrease of other goods. 
 _ To New Zealand and the South Sea Islands there is a decrease 
 of all kinds of goods, and also of yarn. Now, as to the United 
 States : there is an extraordinary increase in the exports of all 
 articles to the United States. Though the exports generally 
 from this country show a deficiency of 2,500,000?. this year, I 
 admit that there is an increase in the exports of British manu- 
 factures to the United States to the amount of 2,OOO,000L ; 
 but I am informed by one able to give correct information, 
 that so far as the industry of Lancashire is concerned — and it 
 is a rule that, I fear, will apply to every kind of British produce 
 exported to America-^the manufacturers of those goods have 
 not received more than 67 per cent, of their outlay. Now, 
 what is the cause of this ? I find that cause in what is called 
 oux free-trade legislation ; and as an instance is worth a hun- 
 dred arguments, I will take one of the most celebrated, and, 
 apparently, most successful measures of the new system, and 
 trace in detail its working in the county of Lancaster, and its 
 influence on profits and wages. I will take the last and most 
 important alteration in our sugar duties — a measure from which 
 very considerable benefit was anticipated, both to commerce 
 and the working classes. 
 
 Now, I want to show the immediate effects of the change 
 on the industry of which Manchester is the centre. For this 
 purpose I will take two periods of eighteen months — the first 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
194 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 period being from February 1845 to August 1846; and the 
 next from August 1846 to February 1848- During the first 
 of these periods, and before the change of the sugar duties, 
 there were exported to the British West Indies, Mauritius, 
 Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, goods to the value of 5,800,000i., 
 and there was left for profits and wages 4,000,000?. In the 
 second period there were exported goods to the value of 
 4,650,000?., and there was left for profits and wages 2,600,000?. 
 To Cuba, Porto Rico, and Brazil in the first period the value of 
 the goods exported was 2,400,000?., and there was left for 
 wages and profits 1,700,000?. In the second period the value 
 of the goods was 2,800,000?., leaving for wages and profits 
 1,800,000?. If the whole amount of wages and profits during 
 the second period be deducted from the amount during the 
 first— that is, if we deduct 4,400,000?. from 5,600,000?., it 
 will be found that, with the advantage of the change in the 
 sugar duties, allowing a consumption of 23^1b. of sugar per 
 head, the factory population, 700,000 in number, while they 
 have gained 68,542?. on the one hand, have lost in wages, 
 on the other, no less that 1,161,695?. To that amount 
 have you robbed the people of Manchester by giving them 
 cheap sugar. Now, here is another equally significant state- 
 ment on the same subject, for which I am indebted to a very 
 intelligent man, Mr. Burn, the author of that valuable statisti- 
 cal work ' The Commercial Glance,' of which I will give only 
 the results. It is the statement of the exports of plain and 
 printed calicoes to the sugar-growing countries during the 
 same period to which I have already referred. And it appears 
 that, while to the British West Indies, Mauritius, and the three 
 markets of India, we sent in the second period of eighteen 
 months — namely, the period subsequent to the alteration in 
 the sugar duties -more than 62,000,000 yards less of plain 
 calicoes, and nearly 33,000,000 yards less of printed calicoes, 
 than in the first period of eighteen months — namely, the period 
 preceding the alteration — our increase in exports of plain 
 calicoes to the Brazils, Cuba, and Porto Eico, was only 
 1.^,000,000 yards, while the quantity of printed calicoes to 
 these markets was stationary; so there was a total deficiency o» 
 
INCOME-TAX, MAECH 18-18. 195 
 
 all the exports to the sugar-growing countries on these heads, 
 since the alteration of the duties, of 49,000,000 yards. But I 
 shall be told, ' You are speculating on the industry of a district 
 the prosperity of which depends upon the supply of cotton, and 
 that supply during the last year has been of an unprecedented 
 scantiness.' By no means unprecedented. In the first place, 
 I do not mean to maintain that the quantity of the cotton crop 
 is not an important element in the question. The cotton crop 
 of 1847 exceeds that of 1839 by 440,000 bales. It was 
 superior in amount, I apprehend, to the crops of 1841 and 1842. 
 It scarcely could be the want of the raw material that arrested 
 your manufactures last year, since you yourselves exported of 
 that raw material double the quantity to the continent of 
 Europe that you did in previous years. I admit, however, 
 that the price of the raw material is injuriously high. What 
 has occasioned it ? Your free-trade legislation. It is the 
 admission into this country of slave-grown sugar that has 
 given a new impulse and direction to the energy and 
 enterprise of the American planter. He has transferred to 
 the production of sugar a considerable proportion of the 
 capital and labour that were before employed in producing 
 cotton. 
 
 Here is the trade circular of Wylie & Egana of New Orleans, 
 dated the end of October 184fi, three months after the admission 
 into England of slave-grown sugar. It tells you how that altera- 
 tion in our tariff has roused the energy and enterprise of the 
 American planters. Ninety-four new sugar-estates had been 
 established, and many plantations were passing from cotton to 
 sugar. Yes, it is the transference of American capital to the 
 production of sugar that reduces the quantity of cotton, and 
 that transference has been occasioned by one of the principal 
 measures of your new commercial system. Now, here is a 
 letter from a noble lord, for a long time a member of this 
 House, and who has a personal experience of our plantations. 
 It is dated within these three days. Speaking of the planters 
 of the United States, he says : — 
 
 ' They are now withdrawing the slaves from the cultivation of 
 cotton, and throwing their labour upon the sugar estates, owing 
 
 o 2 
 
196 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 to the increase of price on sugar. The consequence, and as 
 reckoned upon, -will be the running up the price of cotton from 
 5 cents to 10 cents or even 15 cents per pound, thus increasing 
 the cost of the raw material to our manufacturers.' 
 
 And this leads us to another of the great measures of the 
 commercial system, and one of those which principally led to 
 the continued infliction of the income-tax. When the right 
 honourable gentleman in 1846 fully adopted the deleterious 
 doctrine of the Anti-Corn-Law League, that if we took care of 
 the imports the exports would take care of themselves, he tried 
 his hand on cotton. He took off the light duty on cotton, and 
 at one blow deprived the revenue of 640,000Z. Let us see 
 how this change benefited the country. The duty was re- 
 duced on March 19, 1845. The duty was five-sixteenths of a 
 penny. The price rose in the first three months four-sixteenths 
 of a penny. 
 
 [Here follows a table of the prices of cotton-wool in the 
 Liverpool market in each three months of the years 1848, 
 1844, 1845, 1846, 1847, 1848] 
 
 Thus when the duty of five-sixteenths of a penny was taken 
 off, the price from 3d. to 5^d. mounted to 6d. : that is to say, 
 instead of falling five-sixteenths of a penny it immediately 
 rose four-sixteenths of a penny per pound. While joii are 
 suffering from the injuries inflicted by your new system, you 
 are attributing them to other causes. You are suffering under a 
 grosser monopoly than any you have destroyed ; for a greater 
 monopoly than that of the American planters does not exist. 
 You talk of free trade. Here is a very recent City article of 
 the Times, an advocate of free trade, which has always sup- 
 ported your views :■ — 
 
 ' There are very strong indications,' it is said, ' that planters 
 will use every exertion to withhold their crops from market much 
 longer this season than ever before. The high prices ruling 
 during the delivery of the last two crops have placed planters in 
 an unusually independent position, and it now seems a contest 
 between the consumer and producer as to which can wait the 
 longest ; the former heretofore has always prevailed, but if he 
 only knew it, the latter has the power — he could, if he would, 
 
INCOME-TAX, MAECH 18i8. 197 
 
 live without his cotton crop longer than the spinner could or 
 would without annihilation lay on his oars.' 
 
 Of course he could. You turned up your noses at East India 
 cotton, as you have done at everything colonial or imperial. 
 The American planter commands his price. His price is facti- 
 tious ; he regulates the supply, and transfers his surplus labour 
 to the production of slave-grown sugar. We are always taunted 
 with not proving our case ; but I have taken you to your own 
 district, and traced the consequences of two of the great mea- 
 sures of your new commercial system. You say they have not 
 had a fair trial. They have had a fair and a full trial and an 
 ample refutation. By removing the duty on cotton, you lost a 
 great branch of revenue, and produced financial embarrassment. 
 By changing the sugar duties, you have produced commercial 
 distress. Are these not sufficient ? What more do you want ? 
 Do you want the Manchester workhouse still fuller ? — the poor 
 rates still higher ? Do you want cheaper sugar still ? But 
 though in the instance of the cotton duty we have lost so much 
 revenue by the representations of the school of Manchester 
 acting on a nervous minister, we are told there is compensation 
 for this fallacious and pernicious step in the financial conse- 
 quences of the measure respecting the sugar duties introduced 
 by the present minister in 1846, and which the late minister 
 somewhat grudgingly supported. The 640,000L per annum 
 which we have lost by permitting free imports of cotton has 
 been gained by allowing free imports of sugar. Yes, but in 
 one of our ruined colonies, in one single colony, we have been 
 obliged to supply rice for the support of the population, and to 
 make advances on their coming crop, which was estimated at 
 not less than 450,000Z. What, then, becomes of the profit to 
 the revenue ? I say nothing of the merchants in this branch 
 of commerce who have failed, in consequence of your legislation, 
 to the amount of 6,000,000L sterling. I cannot presume, at 
 this hour, to enter into any other item of the tariff, although 
 there are several which might be cited as illustrative of the 
 pernicious tendency of our commercial system, and the conse- 
 quences of which, if not so extensively disastrous as those to 
 which I have referred, have yet proved economically as false and 
 
198 SPEECHES OF THE EABL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 fallacious. I might take the trade in timber, for instance. At 
 this moment the class of Baltic timber mostly used in this 
 coimtry, which before the late minister altered the tariff was 
 selling in bond at 46s. Gd., is now selling at 59s. lOd., a rise 
 in price which I do not think the most brilliant advocate of the 
 late administration will be able to account for by the stimulus 
 given to trade by the altered customs' duty. I think I have 
 now thrown some light on the causes which have plunged Man- 
 chester into distress. I think I have brought facts to bear 
 upon the causes which have produced such false results in that 
 confiding and ill-used district. 
 
 I think I have shown that those results have sprung from 
 the operation of two of the greatest measures of the Manchester 
 school. Now, in speaking of these subjects, it must not be for 
 a moment supposed that I mean to visit upon the present ad- 
 ministration the responsibility of the peculiar circumstances 
 which surround them. I look upon them in the light of a 
 hero in a Greek tragedy — as the victims of overpowering 
 necessity. That necessity, whether it existed in the shape of 
 protection or free trade, could not be resisted ; ministers were 
 obliged to fulfil their destiny. Neither am I anxious to visit 
 xipon the right honourable gentleman (Sir Eobert Peel) the 
 moral responsibility of measures which have proved so disastrous. 
 The responsible parties, if they must be pointed out, sit yonder 
 [referring to the free-traders]. As it is impossible to say what 
 those parties will not do if they be not checked, I think it is im- 
 portant, after the experience we have had, that we should keep 
 quite awake as to the measmres which they may yet propose. 
 At present, however, the question is, what is now to be done ? 
 My friends say, ' Yes, it is all very well. We agree with what 
 you say, that free trade is a great mistake, and the country is 
 on the point of ruin. But what is to be done ? We have a 
 deficiency of 8,000,000L to fight against.' The exact sum — and 
 this is the moral of the administration of the right honourable 
 baronet — this is the exact sum of which he deprived the 
 . revenue. This is the result of the doings of the great financial 
 minister who boasted of lightening the springs of industry. 
 But the springs are broken. The machine no longer operates. 
 
INCOME-TAX, MAECH 1848. 199 
 
 "We are told that the disasters which have overtaken us are 
 a consequence of overtrading. Now, nobody can accuse the 
 manufacturers and spinners of Manchester of having over- 
 traded, because they have exported no goods, and have no 
 stocks on hand ; they have been the victims of a transatlantic 
 monopoly and your sugar legislation. We are told, how- 
 ever, that overtrading is the cause; but nobody can tell us 
 what it is. I want to know, before coming to the ways and 
 means — I want to know from the right honourable gentle- 
 man (Sir Eobert Peel) how it is, when proposing these fatal 
 measures, which cut off an amount of revenue equal to the 
 present deficiency, that he always recommended his measures 
 on the groiind that they would give an impetus to commerce ? 
 Why should he have adopted such a course, if there was already 
 a fatal tendency to overtrading? When he addressed the 
 electors of Tamworth, he congratulated them and himself — 
 them, that they had him for a representative ; and himself, that 
 he had been able to lighten the springs of industry and give 
 new wings to commerce. Yet we find him, not more than six 
 months afterwards, asserting that overtrading had been the 
 cause of our commercial misfortunes. I do not believe that those 
 misfortunes are to be attributed to overtrading. But I want 
 to know, if they are, who are responsible for it ? Is it the 
 minister who boasted of having lightened the springs and 
 stimulated the activity of industry ? Or is it those who are the 
 secret authors of all the mischief who came to the minister 
 and complained that they were ' cabined, cribbed, confined ' in 
 the exercise of their manufacturing and commercial industry, and 
 who told him that all would be right if he followed their 
 advice and made free trade ? The minister believed them. He 
 imbibed their opinions. He gave freedom to commerce, and I 
 want to know where it is ? Free she may be, but she is wan- 
 dering about, and no human being knows where to find her. 
 Well, we have a considerable deficiency, through your new 
 commercial legislation ; and I wish to state who I think the 
 persons are who ought to supply the ways and means for that 
 deficiency. I think the obligation of making good what has 
 been lost falls upon the gentlemen who have caused the mis- 
 
200 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 chief. Now, the mischief —I will not say the whole, but the 
 greater part of the mischief — has been occasioned by a work 
 which may be styled the greatest work of imagination of the 
 nineteenth century — the evidence taken before the Import 
 Duties Committee. 
 
 If the right honourable gentleman (Sir Eobert Peel) will 
 come forward magnanimously, and instead of saying that he 
 will never change his opinion — I always thought, by the by, 
 that on economical subjects a man might be justified in changing 
 his opinions — if the right honourable gentleman, I say, were to 
 come forward and admit, for example, that the experience of 
 the last three years had convinced him that he was wrong ; if 
 the noble lord would come forward with the same candour ; and 
 if the school of Manchester would come forward and say they 
 have been ruined by their own act — why, then I will agree to 
 your income-tax. But if you obstinately adhere to your 
 opinions ; if the Grovemment assert that its commercial policy is 
 perfectly right ; if the Manchester school will acknowledge no 
 change of opinion, I will take your assertions as your genuine 
 belief; and I maintain that there is no necessitywhatever for your 
 income-tax, and that you have ample resources in the alleged 
 consequences of your enlightened legislation. I find these 
 resources in the work I have already referred to — a work cer- 
 tainly of the highest authority, for the right honourable gen- 
 tleman the member for Tamworth declared that it was the basis 
 of his financial. legislation. I should first notice the gentleman 
 to whom I have already made an allusion, as it would seem he 
 challenges me to do so — I mean the honourable gentleman the 
 member for Glasgow (Mr. M'Gregor). He seems to think that 
 on a previous occasion I have grievously misrepresented his 
 opinions. Now, all that I said was this, that the right honour- 
 able gentleman, in his evidence before the Imports Committee, 
 stated, in substance, that if the corn and provision laws were 
 repealed it would be a gain equal to 100,000,000L a year to 
 the country — that is to say, about 2,000,000Z. a week. (Mr. 
 M'G-regor : I did not say that.) I will tell you what the right 
 
 honourable gentleman's words were. I find at page 80 
 
 (Mr.. M'Gregor rose.) I hope the honourable gentleman will 
 
INCOME-TAX, MARCH 1848. 201 
 
 not interrupt me ; I shall hear what he has to say with the 
 greatest patience when he addresses the House. I can assure 
 him he shall not be misrepresented. I shall quote his evidence 
 as reported by the shorthand writer, and corrected by the 
 honourable gentleman himself. I hope that will satisfy him. 
 
 Mr. M'Gregor was asked, ' Taking the gross amount of the 
 revenue paid into the Treasury at 50,000,000^., have you been 
 able to form an opinion of what proportion this additional tax 
 upon the food of the country would be ? ' 
 
 Mr. M'Grregor answered, ' I consider- the taxation imposed 
 on the country by our duty on corn and the provision duties, 
 and prohibitions as far greater, probably much more than double 
 the amount of the taxation paid to the Treasury.' 
 
 I know the honourable gentleman said, the other night, 
 that he included in his estimate tea, tobacco, and other articles, 
 and wished to convey the idea that I had given too limited a 
 meaning to his expressions. I am sorry to say, however, that I 
 cannot allow the honourable gentleman to get off so easily. He 
 was not content with giving his evidence — -he was not content 
 with his five days' examination. The honourable gentleman 
 favoured the committee with a tariff of his own, and that tariff 
 was considered so valuable that it was printed in the appendix. 
 Now, so good an opinion had the honourable gentleman of the 
 duties on tea and sugar, that he left them untouched ; and as 
 regarded tobacco, he actually added to the duty 6d. per pound. 
 So the honourable gentleman cannot ride off on that horse. I 
 do not wish by any means to misrepresent him, and the reason 
 why I have singled him out is, that he is one of the prime 
 authors of those measures whose effects and consequences we are 
 considering. Ever since I have had the honour of sitting in 
 this House, I have heard the honourable gentleman spoken of 
 as one of the highest authorities on financial and trade ques- 
 tions. I believe that, as an author, the honourable gentleman 
 is the most voluminous in the English language. If you add 
 the works of St. Thomas Aquinas to those of St. Bernard you 
 will scarcely equal him in number. I had always regarded him 
 as the writer who had formed the statistical spirit of the age. 
 I have read his works, but I will not say I have risen from their 
 
202 SPEECHES OF THE EABL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 perusal ' a wiser and a better,' though perhaps a duller man. 
 But the honourable gentleman has done more than form the 
 minds of members of Parliament ; he has actually formed the 
 minds of Prime Ministers. He is confessedly and avowedly the 
 author of the fatal measures of 1845 and 1846. I certainly 
 have not for this statement the words of the honourable gentle- 
 man reported by a shorthand writer, and corrected by himself; 
 but I have his declaration, copied from his own newspaper, with 
 the attention of the public called to it in a leading article 
 written by a pen with which it sqemed to me I was familiar. 
 I must quote this declaration to the House, because if I have 
 a weakness for anything, it is for modest merit ; and I like no 
 man to be deprived of the fame which is his due, even though 
 it be for burning down a temple. It appears that when the 
 honourable gentleman was canvassing the electors of Glasgow, 
 a gentleman of the name of Andrew Grow relieved the tedium 
 of a public meeting of the supporters of the honourable gentle- 
 man by asking him if he had not prepared the tariff of Sir 
 Eobert Peel ? It is stated in the report that the abruptness of 
 the question rather took the meeting by surprise, and that con- 
 siderable uproar occurred, which was not allayed till the honour- 
 able gentleman, against the wishes of the majority of the 
 meeting, expressed his willingness to answer the question, 
 which he did as follows : — 
 
 ' If Sir Eobert Peel had been in office, and if he (Mr. 
 M'Grregor) had been in the office of the Board of Trade, no 
 consideration would have induced him to answer the question. 
 But as Sir Robert Peel was not in power, and as, before coming 
 to Glasgow, he had resigned his connection with the Board of 
 
 Trade ' (The report went on to say that this remark elicited 
 
 tremendous applause, which lasted for several minutes, and pre- 
 vented the completion of the sentence. Silence was at length re- 
 stored, and Mr. M'Gregor proceeded : — ) ' I say that, Sir Robert 
 Peel being out of office, and I no longer in the office of the 
 Board of Trade, I have no hesitation in informing the gentleman 
 who put the question, and this meeting, that I had the honour 
 of preparing the whole of the schedules, the report and the 
 resolutions which were submitted to Parliament on the subject 
 
INCOME-TAX, MARCH 1848, 203 
 
 of the tariff, and in this arduous task I was assisted by no man 
 but my private secretary, Mr. Lack.' 
 
 I must own, that the reading of this report produced no 
 little impression on me ; and I regretted some things which had 
 been said in connection with those schedules and resolutions, 
 and which originated in the erroneous impression that the 
 professed author was the real author, and not merely the organ 
 of another. It appeared that the right honourable gentleman 
 the member for Tamworth had not only not been the originator 
 of the new tariff, but he had not in its construction filled even 
 as responsible a position as ' my private secretary, Mr. Lack.' 
 Let the honour of the recent charges be attributed to the real 
 author. When the honourable gentleman made the statement 
 which I have just read, he perhaps thought this country was in 
 a state of great prosperity ; but even now, when its great dis- 
 tress is rather more evident, and when, instead of being the great 
 first cause of commercial reform, the honourable gentleman has 
 subsided during the late debate into ' a simple journeyman ' in 
 the affair, the real author must not be forgotten ; and, suffering 
 under the mournful deficit, I want a portion of the 100,000,000^. 
 which he said would be gained by his contrivances. Then there 
 was another great name always introduced into discussion before 
 the new commercial system was adopted. It was one of uni- 
 versally acknowledged weight, and exercised at the time an 
 irresistible influence— that of the late Mr. Deacon Hume. This 
 eminent gentleman, in his estimates, was more moderate than 
 the member for Glasgow. Mr. Deacon Hume was asked by the 
 Imports Committee, ' Did you ever make a calculation ' (they 
 had all made calculations) ' as to the amount which might be 
 saved from wheat and butchers meat, if the existing landed 
 monopoly was done away with ? ' He said he had, and that the 
 amount was ' 36,000,000L per annum, which the people are in 
 fact paying as completely out of their pockets as though that 
 amount was levied by direct taxation.' 
 
 Now, this is the evidence upon which -those laws were passed 
 which have ruined Lancashire. But it seems that this estimate 
 of Mr. Deacon Hume, though liberal enough, did not quite 
 satisfy the committee. There was a murmur of disappointment, 
 
204 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 and one of the members — I apprehend, my honourable friend the 
 member for Montrose, always at mischief — whipped Mr. Deacon 
 Hume up a little, and after this stimulus of cross-examination 
 by his own friends, Mr. Deacon Hume was brought to admit 
 that, one way or other, the loss to the people from the monopoly 
 in question was equal to the whole revenue of the country. 
 Now, I quote none but the evidence of persons who were in 
 important official positions, or were m.embers of this House, 
 because this evidence was the basis of legislation, and because 
 they are the persons to whom in this moment of distress we 
 may look for counsel and succour. There is the learned Doctor, 
 for example, the member for Bolton.' He favoured the com- 
 mittee with an estimate, too, of our loss from the corn mono- 
 poly. A very moderate one, only 11,000,000?. per annum ; but 
 still even that sum was an object to a ruined people. Then, 
 too, as I returned to the House after dinner I heard a voice in 
 distress, moaning in the wilderness, for it was very thin, 
 announcing that the country was ruined, and that we must 
 ' nurse our resources.' It was the member for Stirling. That 
 gentleman, too, in the then humbler position of Mr. J. B. 
 Smith, had favoured the Imports Duties Committee with his 
 valuable information. This is his evidence. Mr. J. B. Smith 
 expressed his belief that the Corn Laws were a greater burden 
 to the people than all the State taxes together. Pretty well ! 
 But the honourable member for Glasgow and his 1 00,000,000?. 
 per annum had spoiled the appetite of the committee for any- 
 thing so moderate. The honourable member for Montrose took 
 this witness in hand too — desired him to reconsider his estimate 
 and state the ground for his opinion. Upon which Mr. J. B. 
 Smith, on reconsideration, admitted that the loss could not be 
 less than 60,000,000?. per. annum, and might be 90,000,000?. 
 These are the resources, I suppose, which he now calls upon us 
 to ' nurse.' Ah ! Sir, it is no laughing ndatter, when we con- 
 sider that the country has been ruined by the legislation 
 impelled by these opinions. And I am not at all surprised that 
 the noble lord — whom I am glad to see again, and whom, I am 
 sure, we all hope for many years to see amongst us — should, 
 
 ' Dr. Bowring. 
 
INCOME-TAX, MAECH 1848. 205 
 
 when lie recollects that he is governing a country whose laws 
 are based upon such evidence, occasionally feel a little indis- 
 posed. This evidence gave the first impulse to the Manchester 
 confederation. I need not, I am sure, remind this House of that 
 picture of the brilliant future of England which was drawn by 
 the great leaders of that confederacy. I never undervalued the 
 talents, the energy, or the earnestness — I only wish there had 
 been the same talent, energy and earnestness elsewhere — of the 
 honourable gentlemen the member for the West Riding ' and the 
 member for Manchester.^ These gentlemen may be said to be 
 the representatives of two great principles — Peace and Plenty. 
 Yes ! Peace and plenty amid a starving people, and with a 
 world in arms ! Bat I must call the attention of the House to 
 these gentlemen, because after all these measures that have been 
 blown up, all their delusions which have evaporated, all the 
 national distress and misery which they have occasioned, I find 
 those honourable gentlemen, not content with what they have 
 already done, threatening us with another confederation and 
 another league. 
 
 Now we are told there is to be a league for fiscal reform. 
 I limit its object to what I have heard proclaimed in the House. 
 I will not notice the more detailed programme which met 
 my eye to-day in a respectable Liberal paper. I see by that, 
 that they do not mean to limit their efforts merely to fiscal 
 reform, but to alter the law of primogeniture, to obtain a better 
 representation of the people, and a variety of other measures, in 
 respect to which, if I thought them formally responsible for 
 them, I should have been prepared with the document to refer 
 to, I notice, I will not call it the threat, but the promise of 
 fiscal reform. The object of this confederation is to throw the 
 taxes of this country upon what, according to the slang of the 
 day, is called realised property, and especially the land of Eng- 
 land. All I want to do is to take this opportunity of reminding 
 those gentlemen who are so ready to throw the burden of taxa- 
 tion on realised property, and always on the landed interest, 
 that by the most authentic evidence the fact is established 
 that the land is held by 200,000 proprietors, who divide among 
 ., ' Mr. Cobden. ^ Mr. Bright. 
 
206 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEAOONSFIELD. 
 
 them a rental of 34,000,000?., leaving them on an average 1701. 
 a year ; and of those a great many must have of com-se much 
 more, and a great many must have much less. In fact, I 
 believe that, if the question were examined, it will be found 
 that the great fortunes are not among the landed proprietors of 
 England, but in other classes of the community. And when 
 they talk of throwing the burden of taxation on that body, I 
 want to know what the statesmen of the north of England, the 
 yeomen of the south, and the co-partners of Lincolnshire, who 
 have succeeded their fathers in the cultivation of the soil, and 
 are as little competent to bear exclusive taxation as any class, 
 will say. Nor can I believe it to be at all clear, if I turn to the 
 other great branch of realised property, that it will be found a 
 mere aristocratic element either. I need not remind the 
 House that at the last payment of the dividends, 300,000 
 warrants were issued, of which one third were for sums not 
 exceeding 51. ; 50,000 warrants for sums not exceeding, and 
 many less than, lOZ. ; and the very few large sums of which we 
 hear so much include the investments of banking and insur- 
 ance companies, which is the capital of this commercial world. 
 Therefore, I can fancy nothing more fallacious, nothing more 
 delusive, nothing more unworthy of the talents and intelligence 
 of the member for the West Eiding than the doctrine of exclusive 
 taxation on what he calls the realised property of this country. 
 What does all this mean ? Sympathy for the people, a defer- 
 ence to popular interests, a regard for popular rights ? Let 
 me remind the House, notof a chance expression used in the heat 
 of debate, but of an expression which has been repeated, and in 
 cold blood. Have we not heard it stated here, by no less a person 
 than the honourable member for Manchester, that the gentlemen 
 opposite to me are a middle-class G-overnment — that they look 
 to the middle class for power, and the middle class look to them 
 for their advantage ? A few years ago was it not held out as the 
 greatest opprobrium that the agricultural interest was supported 
 by class legislation ? Were we not told on every occasion, on 
 every opportunity, in every manner, that class legislation was 
 the great evil of the country ? But now that they have obtained 
 their ends ; now that they have passed their measures ; now that 
 
INCOME-TAX, MAECH 1848. 207 
 
 their beautiful commercial system is working its results ; now 
 that they think they have confirmed themselves in political 
 authority and Parliamentary power, they have the unblushing 
 front to say the Government shall be a middle-class Grovern- 
 ment, and shall work solely for the middle classes.' Sir, I do 
 not believe that after all that has occurred, gentlemen here are 
 so dull in apprehension, or so dead in spirit, that they will sub- 
 mit, without a struggle, to this. No, Sir ; if we have thought it 
 wise to terminate those commercial distinctions which are sup- 
 posed — I think, erroneously — to have affected our social condi- 
 tion, it will be but a poor consolation for us to discover that the 
 only return we have for a diminished revenue and a declining 
 commerce, is the arrogant authority of a class who obtained 
 power by false pretences, and now, possessing it, attempt to 
 exercise it merely for their own advantage. 
 
 ' A definite plan for effecting this object was unfolded by Mr. Cobden in 
 a letter written privately to Sir Eobert Peel, June 23, 1846. Vide Mr. 
 Morley's Xi/e of Cobden. 
 
208 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 LOCAL TAXATION, March 8, 1849.' 
 
 [Eeciprocity being impossible, the next best tbing was to obtain 
 compensation for the landed interest : and the following is the 
 first of a series of speeches directed to that object. The other three 
 were delivered on July 2, 1849, February 19, 1850, and February 11, 
 1851. Mr. Disraeli, on the death of Lord George Bentinck, had now 
 become the leader of the Conservative party in the House of Commons, 
 which in the previous session scarcely numbered 120 votes. Lord 
 George Bentinck on the division of the session — that, namely, on Irish 
 Railways — could only rally 118 followers to his banner. Mr. Disraeli 
 had a twofold task before him. He had not only to serve a great 
 interest : he had to reconstruct a great party. And his efforts in 
 the House of Commons from 1849 to 1852 must be considered with 
 reference to both these objects. It was not to be supposed that even 
 in the excitement and irritation of the Protectionist controversy men 
 had entirely forgotten everything which had gone before. They 
 could not forget that the Conservative party had been called into 
 existence to combat other dangers as well as that of Free Trade. 
 Thirty years ago the doctrine of Whig Conservatism, now quite 
 familiar to the public, was yet unborn. The Whigs were stUl 
 su-pposed to be the great party of innovation, whose enmity to the 
 Church, whose mismanagement of Ireland, and whosefailures in finance, 
 the Tories had been called to counteract. Mr. Disraeli, then, on 
 assuming the leadership, at once inculcated on his supporters the 
 necessity and the feasibility of healing the schism in the party, and 
 recovering the body of seceders. The accomplishment of this object 
 was paramount to every other consideration. He commenced his 
 labours in 1849 with a motion for a select committee to inquire into 
 the ' Burdens upon Land ' or the unfair pressure of taxation on the 
 agricultural classes. The Peelites were, as country gentlemen, stUl 
 deeply interested in obtaining compensation for their tenantry. As 
 Free-traders, they were precluded from supporting anything which 
 savoured of Protection. But a motion which claimed a boon for 
 the landed interest, without any taint of the exploded system, would 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MABCH 18i9, 209 
 
 be sure to meet with their approval, and probably with their open 
 support. And to accustom .the ' Peelites ' to find themselves in the 
 same lobby with the Conservatives upon questions of common interest 
 was a primary object with the statesman whose policy was reconciliation. 
 The accuracy of his judgment was proved by the result of the division ; 
 there being for the motion 189, to 280 against it — an increase of at 
 least forty votes upon the largest number of supporters which the 
 Conservatives had hitherto mustered.] 
 
 ME. DISEAELI : Sir, I rise with the hope that I may induce 
 the House of Commons to adopt a great measure of 
 justice, of conciliation, and of policy. It is not my intention, 
 on this occasion, to enter into any details demonstrative of the 
 great distress which exists among the agricultural classes of 
 this country. Whether that distress exist or not, is unnecessary 
 for the argument which I mean to recommend to the attention 
 of the House in the resolutions which I have placed on the 
 table. It is still less necessary to enter into these details, be- 
 cause there is a great authority for saying that this distress does 
 exist. It is only a few nights since an honourable gentleman, a 
 member of this House, came forward and offered his voluntary 
 evidence, if it were necessary, to establish the fact — a witness not 
 to be suspected of any morbid sympathy for the agricultural class 
 — I mean the honourable member for Manchester (Mr. Bright). 
 He told us the other night that he could not conceal from him- 
 self that the distress among the agricultural class was severe 
 and terrible. I am wilUng to allow this state of affairs to rest 
 on the testimony of that honourable member. Nor am I going 
 to enter into any inquiry as to the cause of this distress. That 
 is not essential or necessary to the argument which I mean to 
 offer in support of the resolutions which I have placed on the 
 table. But if I wanted to know what was the cause of that 
 distress, I would also appeal to another witness on the benches 
 opposite, one that will be admitted by all as a great and unim^ 
 peachable authority — I mean the honourable member for the 
 West Eiding (Mr. Cobden). That honourable gentleman on a 
 recent memorable occasion, when he communicated to his as^ 
 sembled fellow-countrymen the programme of his future policy, 
 spoke of the farmers of England with much sympathy, lamented 
 VOL. I. p 
 
210 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 their condition, and acknowledged — which was creditable to his 
 candour and frankness — that in recent changes they had not 
 been fairly dealt with. Nor, in the third place, is it my inten- 
 tion to-night to enter into any controversy as to those changes. 
 It is not, I say, my intention to-night to enter into any con- 
 troversy as to the policy or impolicy of those changes in the 
 law to which the honourable member referred ; I am satisfied 
 with allowing, with the honourable member for the West Eiding, 
 that the agriculttiral classes have not been fairly treated in 
 them. I hold the opinions on those measures such as I have 
 frequently intimated, and sometimes attempted to develop, to 
 the House. 
 
 I still believe that our new commercial system is founded 
 on erroneous principles. I still believe that in constructing 
 this new system you have mistaken the rules which regulate 
 an advantageous interchange of commodities between nations ; 
 and that in attempting to obviate the injury and inconvenience 
 of hostile tariffs, by opening our ports, we have adopted a course 
 which tends to the depression of British industry; and that 
 under your new system the native labourer must give more of 
 his produce for foreign produce than he heretofore gave ; that 
 inasmuch as the precious metals are foreign products, he must 
 consequently receive less of the precious metals for his labour, 
 and have less command over them than he had before ; that his 
 labour is tributary to foreign countries in the precise proportion 
 in which it has become less efficient in its command over foreign 
 products ; and that you have thus embarked in a course which 
 tends to the degradation of native industry, and which may end 
 in financial convulsion. I still believe that there is but one 
 way to extricate the country from the calamities which it now 
 experiences, and those which are impending — and that is by 
 the frank adoption of the principle of reciprocity as the funda- 
 mental principle of your commercial code ; and that such is the 
 only means to be pursued against hostile tariffs and countervailing 
 duties. I have expressed these opinions on this and on other 
 legitimate occasions, because I wish these principles to be 
 pondered over by the country, with the hope, and even the 
 belief, they will ultimately adopt them. Perilous and injurious 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MARCH 1849. 211 
 
 as I hold the late changes in our commercial system, I do not 
 wish suddenly to subvert them by appealing to the passions of 
 any sufifering classes, or by any party combinations ; I wish the 
 change when effected to be permanent, and it can only be per- 
 manent by its being called for by the common sense of the 
 country. I look, therefore, for this change to be effected by 
 legitimate means, by public discussion, by private investigation, 
 by the failure of economic prophecies, and by the fruit of sharp 
 experience. On the present occasion, I wish to avoid any angry 
 controversy ; but I am unwilling that anyone should suppose 
 that J. shrink from opinions which I have formerly expressed in 
 this House ; on the contrary, the observation of every day and 
 of every hoiir only confirms me in my convictions. 
 
 After the change of 1846, which so greatly affected the 
 agricultural interests, I think they are entitled at least to this 
 — that our system of taxation should not press unjustly on 
 them. That is the first proposition which I wish to lay down. 
 The second is, that the unjust taxation of which they complain 
 should be revised, and that there should be a redistribution of 
 these burdens, according to just principles — a redistribution 
 which I believe will afford them, though by no means com- 
 plete, yet considerable relief from the sufferings which they 
 are now enduring. The question which I have to place before 
 the House requires, fortunately, very little statistical detail. 
 Although great controversy has taken place between different 
 interests, as to which had to bear the heaviest burdens, I feel 
 that the question which I have to bring forward is in itself ex- 
 tremely simple, and, like other first principles, is clear and easy 
 of apprehension. It seems, by returns now in the possession 
 of all of us, that the amount of poor and other rates foi' the 
 year ending Lady-day 1848 was a sum of not less than 
 10,000,000?. sterling, and that this was levied by direct taxa- 
 tion on the real property of England. This amount was made 
 up by the poor-rate and its collateral minor rates, and by the 
 county rate, the highway rate, and the church rate, all of which 
 were levied on real property. I ask you . whether the time has 
 not at last come for inquiring whether it is just that a sum of 
 not less than 10,000,000i, annually should thus be levied, and 
 
 p 2 
 
212 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 only levied on the real property of the country. But, inde - 
 pendently of this sum of 10,000,000?., there are other direct 
 taxes, levied on real property, which, strictly speaking, are 
 local taxes. For instance, the land tax is assessed and levied 
 by local authorities, and each locality is fixed with the payment 
 of a certain quota, so that I may assert that the real property 
 of this country pays 12,000,000L, of taxes a year to which no 
 other species of property is subject. To place this question 
 before us in a manner which must carry conviction, let us first 
 ascertain the amount of property upon which this 12,000,000^ 
 is levied, and then compare that amount with the probable 
 annual amount of the whole income of the country. We have 
 the materials for this calculation. Every gentleman knows that 
 this 10,000,000L — I might say, generally speaking, 12,000,000Z. 
 — is raised on a rental contributed by real property to the amount 
 of 67,OOO,O0OL per annum. This 10,000,000L then, I repeat, 
 is assessed on a rental of 67,000,OOOL There is no diflSculty 
 in ascertaining what is the total income of England at this 
 moment. We have a Parliamentary paper — moved for by 
 an honourable gentleman opposite — numbered 747 ; it gives 
 the sum of the the income-tax levied, and the description and 
 amount of the property on which it was levied, in England and 
 Wales for the year 1846. This return was laid on the table in 
 1847, and by a reference to it anyone can easily calculate 
 what is the total national income liable to this tax. According 
 to this paper, the total income for 1846, as contained in the 
 five schedules, and chargeable with the income-tax, was 
 186,888,958L But the 67,OOO,0O0L, on which the local taxa- 
 tion is assessed, is not entirely contained in this greater sum, 
 for that is confined to property above 1 501. per annum, and 
 even cottages are assessed to the poor-rates. In order, there- 
 fore, to ascertain the entire income of the country, including 
 that portion which is exempted from the property and income 
 tax — I shall adopt thh rule laid down by a high and prudent 
 authority, the member for Tamworth, when he introduced his 
 scheme for a property- tax in 1842. The right honourable baronet 
 then took the amounts of income under 1501. a year at a 
 quarter of the whole income of the country, so that to the 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MARCH 1849. 213 
 
 amount of 186,888,958?. chargeable with the property-tax, the 
 sum of 62,296,319?. must be added as the amount of income 
 not chargeable with that tax. These sums make together 
 249,185,277?. sterling as the total income of the country. 
 
 Now, the question which I wish to ask the House is, why 
 should this ten or twelve millions sterling of direct taxation be 
 levied only upon a portion of the whole income of the country — 
 a portion little more than a fourth of the whole amount ? This 
 is a simple question — one, however, which the country is deeply 
 interested in, and which a great portion of the inhabitants of 
 this country are daily asking. It is requisite that this should 
 be kept clear of all statistical mystification. The income of 
 the country is upwards of 249,000,000?., and yet, for the pur- 
 poses to which I refer, the assessment is only upon one-fourth 
 of the income of the country. Now, upon what principle of 
 justice do you defend this ? What are the objects of these 
 local taxes ? The maintenance of the poor of the country ; the 
 maintenance of our means of internal communication ; the 
 administration of justice, and the support of the sacred edifices 
 of the country. Are these not matters in which all the property 
 of the country is equally interested ? Upon what plea can you 
 vindicate the principle which makes only one-fourth of the income 
 of the country liable to these great charges ? This question has 
 been incidentally asked the House before ; treated cursorily — I 
 might even observe without offence to anyone, superficially. 
 
 Attempts have often been made to raise idle and odious 
 controversies as to the classes which contributed most to the 
 poor-rate, and as to which ought to contribute most to that 
 rate. There have been endless controversies of this kind. It 
 has been on the one side said that the agriculttiral interest bore 
 most of the burden, and then it was asserted that the house 
 property in towns contributed equally to it. I do not mean to 
 enter into any discussion on these points. I have no wish to 
 shut my eyes to the fact that during the last half century 
 great changes have taken place in the relations borne to each 
 other by the different descriptions of real property. Far from 
 it ; I rejoice in the circumstance as a proof of the progress and 
 prosperity of the country, and that a great amount of fixed 
 
214 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELT) . 
 
 capital has thus been invested in the land of the country. I 
 agree that the dwellers in towns are assessed to the relief of the 
 poor in such an amount that it is not at all surprising to me that 
 they are clamorous. I admit that they contribute not only in an 
 ample but an excessive manner, and that they may well con- 
 sider it to be a grievance. I quite sympathise with the owners 
 of real property in towns as to their grievous and heavy assess- 
 ment. The measure, however, which it is my intention to 
 propose, if the House will go into committee to-night, will 
 relieve the suffering towns from this burden. It will put aa 
 end to those complaints of which we have heard so much from 
 Manchester, Bradford, and other great seats of manufacturing 
 industry. I sympathise with their sufferings ; I acknowledge 
 their grievance, and I say it is a vital question to the owners of 
 real property in towns, whether only one-fourth of the property 
 of the country should have the whole burden of local taxation 
 thrown upon it. So it is with other descriptions of real pro- 
 perty, the owners of which loudly complain of their rating to 
 the maintenance of the poor. Nothing, for instance, can be 
 more monstrous than the amount of rating on railways for the 
 poor. I quite agree in the justice of their complaints ; but I 
 am scarcely prepared to adopt the remedy which has been 
 suggested — namely, the placing the whole burden on the agri- 
 cultural interest. I acknowledge the grievance as regards 
 railways having to pay so much on their property, while this 
 charge is made to fall on only one-fourth of the property of the 
 country. If that interest supports the general measure of 
 justice which I hope to introduce to the House, and if it should 
 be adopted, it would relieve them from this great ground of 
 complaint. It is the same with other great trading companies, 
 such as those which supply us with water and light, and who 
 are perpetually wrangling on the subject of poor-rates. I think 
 their complaints perfectly just. 
 
 Some of my friends think it very well arranged if they can 
 visit a considerable part of these burdens on some of the great 
 companies. On the contrary, I feel for the proscribed interests 
 of real property in every form. I think it most unjust that 
 these water and gas companies should be visited with the 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MAECH 1849. 215 
 
 portion of taxation they have to bear, when they are only a 
 section of the one-fourth of the property of the country. The 
 injustice upon them is most gross, and they will have the 
 opportunity of obtaining redress by supporting the measures I 
 am now anxious to introduce — measures founded in justice, and 
 which, therefore, I believe, will succeed. If we calmly consider 
 this matter in the abstract; if, for example, we were not in 
 England, but travelling in some foreign country, and for the 
 first time became acquainted with a system of finance so 
 remarkable — if we were in a strange land, and learned for the 
 first time that, independently of bearing their share of the 
 whole taxation of the country, there was a private and separate 
 revenue to an enormous amount assessed only upon a fourth 
 part of the property of the realni ; what would be the conclusion 
 we should draw? We should say, 'This must be that part of 
 the nation that probably is the remnant of some conquered 
 race— this must be some proscribed and oppressed section of 
 the country. Vcb victis ! Here is the fruit of a vassalage, 
 which even our civilisation and our political economy have not 
 terminated.' Such might, perhaps, be our conclusion. But 
 who could suppose that this was the peculiar privilege of the 
 rapacious aristocracy — of the persons who have made all the 
 laws — of the persons who, according to the doctrines of the 
 most enlightened of those who now instruct us, have always 
 made those laws for their own advantage ? But the most 
 curious thing, the most anomalous part of this unparalleled state 
 of affairs is that this is not the law of the country. The law 
 of England, which has always been the law of common sense, 
 never for a moment anticipated a conclusion so monstrous and 
 so oppressive. I need not now, considering that those whom I 
 now address are familiar with all these details, remind them 
 that the old statutes never enforced, or for a moment anticipated, 
 such a monstrous injustice. That benign and sagacious law 
 the forty-third of Elizabeth enacted that all the inhabitants 
 of England, according to their means, should- contribute hence- 
 forth to the relief and support of the poor. 
 
 We all know very well that in comparatively modem times 
 —in the time of William and Mary— when the land-tax was 
 
216 .SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 first legally established, that tax was called only in common- 
 parlance a land-tax, but that it was in fact a tax upon pro- 
 perty of all kinds. This is not a question of controversy. To 
 this day the land-tax is levied on certain offices under the 
 Crown ; offices existing in the time of William and Mary pay 
 their 4s. in the pound to the present day. I believe the 
 Judges of the land pay this tax — a tax, however, I am glad to 
 believe, assessed upon their allowance as settled in the reign of 
 William and Mary, and not of our present gracious Sovereign. 
 Honourable gentlemen well know that the courts of law have 
 repeatedly in modem times, even in our own times, decided 
 that in this country property of all kinds is Hable to those im- 
 posts which real property only has continued to bear. And I 
 may remind honourable gentlemen that stock-in-trade only 
 escapes the imposition every year by an annual Bill- — an annual 
 Bill passed by that same rapacious aristocracy which thus 
 exempt stock-in-trade from poor-rate, and inflict the whole of 
 it upon that kind of property in which they are peculiarly in- 
 terested. In the first place, then, I ask honourable gentlemen 
 what reason can be advanced why, for the objects for which 
 these rates are raised, and these taxes levied, the whole property 
 of a district — I ask no more in the first instance— should not 
 be liable ? Whether a man's property be in broad acres, or 
 whether he receive his means from any other sources, surely in 
 either case it is equally liable to the maintenance of the poor ; 
 surely he equally in the district uses the roads ; surely he 
 equally in the district is interested in the administration of 
 justice ; and surely he equally — at least, for the sake of his 
 soul, I hope so — goes to church. As a matter of justice, it 
 seems that no argument can be adduced against the plea. An 
 adverse expediency, indeed, may be suggested. 
 
 You may say that the system has gone on for a long time, 
 and that it would be most difficult, if not impossible, to extri- 
 cate ourselves from it. You may say, for example, that nothing 
 is more difficult than to tax personal property in a locality — 
 that it is not only invidious and inquisitorial, but perhaps even 
 impossible. There are arguments, if you choose to call them 
 arguments, which may be used; but no one can say that they 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MAUCH 1849. 217 
 
 meet the principle of justice which is involved in this question 
 — no one can lay down or sustain for a moment the proposition 
 that it is just that all other property except real property 
 should be exempt from these rates. It may be convenient, but 
 no one can maintain that it is just. 1 will admit, fully, frankly 
 and freely, that the inconvenience, perhaps impossibility, of 
 rating personal property in a locality in a satisfactory manner, 
 is indubitable ; but I am of opinion, if we pursue this important 
 inquiry in a less superficial spirit than it has hitherto, from 
 various circumstances, commanded in this House, that we may 
 perhaps find that these difiiculties will disappear, and that some 
 solution may be foimd for the problem. In the first place, it 
 appears to me that a great deal of this difficulty arises from a 
 confusion of terms — from the world persisting in inferring from 
 the phrase local taxation as a necessary consequence that the 
 purposes for which local taxation is inflicted are really of a loe&l 
 nature. I doubt whether it can be shown that the purposes for 
 which this taxation is locally levied are of a local nature. On 
 the contrary, I think they are for purposes of a much wider and 
 more comprehensive character. I will take, for example, the 
 first and most important tax thus directly levied — that for the 
 maintenance of the poor. I know of no reason d priori why 
 the maintenance of the poor should be the duty of a locality. 
 The maintenance of the poor is either a matter of police, or a 
 social duty. In looking over the ancient statutes, it may pro- 
 bably appear that our predecessors viewed the matter in the 
 more limited light of poHce : that it was considered if the 
 people were allowed to perish of famine, mendicity and violence 
 would be necessary consequences ; and certainly the most con- 
 venient to defend the person from assault, and property from 
 famine, is a poor-law. But I do not understand how, even in 
 this limited view of the question, it is just that a contribution 
 for the purpose should be drawn from one or even from two 
 classes, I believe, however, that the question is to be regarded 
 in a far higher point of view. We recognise throughout this 
 country — and I venture to say it is recognised, without ex- 
 ception, in this House — the principle that the maintenance of 
 the poor is a social duty — a duty justified by high State policy. 
 
218 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OE BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 and consecrated by the sanction of religion. But if the main- 
 tenance of the poor be a social duty, it is the duty of everyone 
 according to his means ; and in a country like England, an 
 ancient country, of complicated civilisation, it is totally im- 
 possible that you can lay down as a principle that a particular 
 district should support its own poor, unless you can prove, at 
 the same time, that that district produced those poor : nay, 
 unless you can go further than that — unless you can ensure 
 that district against the consequences of metropolitan or im- 
 perial legislation, that these shall not interfere with the em- 
 ployment and labour of those poor. Why, the very transition 
 from war to peace throws a whole district out of employment ; 
 yet that district — that parish — had not undertaken war or de- 
 clared peace, and therefore is not responsible for the mainte- 
 nance of those whose employment has been destroyed by the 
 one or the other. This is a view of the question which, if fol- 
 lowed up in a country like England, will throw a light upon a 
 variety of circumstances. The alteration of a fashion occasions 
 poverty in a district. The invention of a machine in Lancashire 
 will have the effect of throwing a whole village in Northampton- 
 shire out of employ. What are the facts in regard to many of 
 those rural districts of England which have been held up to 
 public reprobation for not employing their poor, and in which 
 an intolerable pauperism has been declared to be one of the 
 consequences of the system of protection ? Why, that those 
 parts of the country were once the seats of manufactures, and 
 that a population has been left there by the obsolete manu- 
 factures, the labour of which the land has never been able to 
 absorb. This is the cause of that misery and poverty which 
 has prevailed in some of the western counties, and which have 
 been adduced by some honourable gentlemen as the consequence 
 of protection; forgetting that in some purely agricultural 
 countries — Lincolnshire, for example — where there are no 
 obsolete manufactures, wages are very high. So Mr. Huskis- 
 son was accustomed to explain the low wages of Sussex as 
 occasioned by a popxilation created by an iron manufacture that 
 no longer flourished. How, therefore, can you call upon a par- 
 ticular district to maintain its own population in an ancient 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MAECH 1849. 219 
 
 realm, where, from the state of society, such inequalities of 
 condition and such fluctuations of employment must exist? 
 Some may urge that the maintenance of the poor should pro- 
 perly be thrown upon their employers — upon those who have 
 profited by their labour. But in ninety-nine cases out of one 
 hundred, the very circumstances which threw the labouring 
 classes out of employment are the causes also of the distress of 
 their employers. If I take the highway rates as an example, 
 the same view of the question immediately arises. It is very 
 easy to make flippant observations in debate, and to say. Why 
 don't the farmers pay for the roads made for their use ? But, 
 in the first place, it is not historically true that these roads 
 Were made for the farmers. If the agricultural classes had the 
 monopoly of these roads ; if no one but these classes used these 
 roads ; if they were what are called private roads, then there 
 might be some strength in the position. But inasmuch as 
 everybody uses these roads, and as, until railways were dis- 
 covered, these roads were covered with all the traveling clerks 
 of the manufacturing establishments in England ; inasmuch as 
 you have settled by a law that a stranger, although he contri- 
 bute not one farthing to the maintenance of these roads, can 
 indict the parish if the wheel of his vehicle be injured, you 
 must admit that the public ways are for public purposes, and 
 for public use. 
 
 I want to know what item of our expenditure can bear this 
 analysis of local purposes and local objects. Take the case of a 
 gentleman living in a Midland county, who, in consequence of 
 the distress which prevails, takes to looking into the estimates — 
 a habit which I believe is growing upon gentlemen in many 
 parts of the country. He finds there, for example, an item of 
 some five or seven hundred thousand pounds for the packet 
 service. He might say, ' Why am I to be called upon to pay 
 for this packet service ? Three-fourths of the letters are 
 carried for the merchants of London and Liverpool, and the 
 other fourth would not be carried at all were it not for them. 
 What have I to do with this ? Let a rate for it be struck upon 
 London and Liverpool.' This would be a clear case for local 
 taxation to one living in • a Midland county. Or say that the 
 
220 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 same gentleman, like the King of Bohemia, not accustomed to 
 the sea, might observe the vote for harbours of refuge : he 
 might object to it on the same grounds, and say, ' I have no 
 ships — I have nothing to do with harbours. Let a rate be 
 struck upon the Cinque Ports.' Or, living in a purely agricul- 
 tural district, he might cavil at the vote for the inspectors of 
 factories. But he does not take that limited view of finance 
 which our financial reformers perhaps do. Year after year in a 
 wise, and generous, and national spirit, he contributes to all 
 these sources of expense, and never cavils. But if you pursue 
 the inquiry to subjects of much greater extent and moment, 
 you will find the case still more strongly telling in favour 
 of the oppressed class liable to this particular revenue. 
 
 Take this case. About six years ago the merchants of 
 Liverpool were very much vexed and, as they thought, 
 oppressed by certain proceedings in a distant quarter, and they 
 besieged Downing Street with memorials and endless reclama- 
 tions, calling upon Government to interfere by force and defend 
 their property and their commercial transactions. The minister 
 who then presided in Downing Street — a very experienced and 
 able, and, until that moment, considered a peculiarly cautious 
 statesman — moved by these representations of the Liverpool 
 merchants, was induced to interfere in the troubled waters of 
 La Plata. And what has been the consequence ? Six years 
 have elapsed and the country gentleman in the Midland county, 
 who willingly acceded to the great expenditure because he 
 thought it was for the sake of the commerce of his country, 
 now finds, as the only result, the same merchants of Liverj)ool 
 attacking the Government of the country on account of our 
 extravagant armaments, and declaring that they are only kept 
 up to support the younger children of the landed aristocracy. 
 I say that this is a clear case for striking a rate upon Liverpool 
 — that it is a clear case for local taxation. And we could bear 
 this great burden of 10,000,000L or 12,000,000L if the rest of 
 the taxation were apportioned in the same spirit. But is that 
 so ? Look at the instance of Manchester a few years back. 
 Manchester was of opinion that the Chinese Empire, possessing 
 three hundred millions or more of human beings, was the best 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MARCH 1819. 221 
 
 customer that could be obtained for our manufactures ; that 
 the home trade, or even the European trade, was nothing in ' 
 comparison with that of a nation possessing such a population ; 
 that if each man only spent as much Sycie silver as a sovereign 
 in each year, the fortunes of our manufacturers must be made. 
 And so by dint of pertinacity and restlessness and commercial 
 intrigues, they forced the Grovemment into a war with 
 China. 
 
 Now, in this case the landed gentleman, being not quite so 
 dull as you have sometimes been pleased to picture him, might 
 naturally have said, ' It is true I have never been in the 
 country, but still I know something about China. I inherited 
 a magnificent library from my father, and in some of the books 
 there I have read that, notwithstanding the three hundred 
 millions of inhabitants in China, they will never be able to 
 carry on a commensurate commerce with this country, because 
 really they have nothing to give in exchange for our goods.' 
 What the country gentleman foresaw did happen ; for never was 
 there a greater disappointment than that manifested in Man- 
 chester at the practical results of the China trade. They ac- 
 knowledged, it was true, China afforded very few commodities 
 for exchange, but still it possessed one great article of com- 
 merce, and they said we must reduce the duty on tea, and so 
 increase the consumption. But the country gentleman might 
 answer, ' I find that England already consumes more than fifty 
 millions of pounds of tea ■ annually, and I have my doubts 
 whether such an increased consumption be necessary or even 
 desirable. Too much tea is not good for the nerves. Why 
 not take the duty off malt, and let the people revert to that 
 beverage which their Saxon ancestors loved, and which produced 
 that long-lived race which I trust I shall aid in continuing ? ' 
 
 When this China business was at an end, therefore, why not, 
 upon this system of local taxation, call for a rate to be struck 
 against Manchester on account of the Chinese war ? The same 
 principle holds good with regard to the county rate and the 
 church rate. T will, for a moment, touch upon the subject of 
 the county rate, because it is one in regard to which great 
 mistakes have been made, and great misconceptions prevail. 
 
222 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 The county rate is a direct tax raised for the purposes of the 
 adrainistration of justice. About the year 1835, as is known 
 to the House, the G-overnment, aware of this unjust burden 
 which pressed upon the land, principally occasioned by the 
 expense of the execution of justice, offered to pay half the cost 
 of criminal prosecutions. That was done without much public 
 attention being given to the matter, but the general impression 
 in the House and throughout the country was, to a great 
 degree, I believe, that the landed interest had, as usual, taken 
 advantage of the minister in a weak moment, and had by some 
 means got rid of one of the just burdens upon themselves, and 
 thrown it upon the community at large. That was in the year 
 1835. I want to show you how this county rate is expended ; 
 and to clear this case from the misconceptions which are so 
 popular in the public mind, I must call your attention to the 
 manner in which it has been expended, at a period so recent as 
 1845. I take that period because subsequently, in 1846, another 
 change was made by the right honourable gentleman the mem- 
 ber for Tamworth, in reference to the county rate. I will 
 venture to refer to my own experience during one day at assizes, 
 to show the nature of this county rate — how it acts upon a 
 county, and how far and in what degree a county may be actu- 
 ally interested in cases of its expenditure. A woman comes 
 down into the county with which I am connected, to a well- 
 known place, Salthill, oq the borders of Berkshire and Buck- 
 inghamshire. She comes as a stranger, and takes an obscure 
 lodging in a public-house. A few days afterwards, a man, pre^ 
 viously connected with this woman, comes down to the place 
 by railway, visits her, and murders her. He leaves Salthill, 
 and proceeds to town by train. By means of the electric tele- 
 graph he is arrested the moment he arrives at the station in 
 London, the murder having been immediately discovered. He 
 is therefore arrested in London ; but the crime was committed 
 in Buckinghamshire. So the man is taken back to Salthill, 
 examined, and committed to the county gaol at Aylesbury, 
 The case was of a kind which required the evidence of scientific 
 men, who were summoned from various parts of England. It 
 was a very expensive trial. The prisoner was convicted, and 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MAECH 1849. 223 
 
 outraged society was vindicated by the execution of Tawell, 
 Now, although half the expense of criminal prosecutions is 
 defrayed by Grovernment — and so defrayed, I have heard it in- 
 sinuated, unjustly — the bill, and the just bill, of costs of the 
 clerk of the peace for the county of Bucks in the case to which 
 I have referred amounted to 300Z. I ask, what had this county 
 to do with that crime ? The man was not born in Bucking- 
 hamshire, or resident there, or even arrested there. But this 
 is only one of the modes in which the county rate was expended 
 only very recently. 
 
 Take another instance on the same day. A bargeman, who 
 had committed a robbery in Eutlandshire or Northamptonshire, 
 was arrested on one of the canals in Buckinghamshire, on 
 which he was navigating a cargo of coals. His trial and con- 
 viction cost the county upwards of lOOZ., although he had 
 no more to do with that county than with the House of 
 Commons. There was, on the same day, another case, very 
 significant, that of a draper in a flourishing town in the 
 same county, in whose shop a burglary was committed, and 
 property stolen to the amount of 201. The burglar was ar- 
 rested, sent to the county gaol, tried, and the whole expense 
 was paid out of the county rate, while the stock-in-trade of the 
 very tradesman to vindicate whose rights of property the ex- 
 pense was incurred was exempted from contributing to that 
 rate. Mark this — if the vexation and oppression of counties pay- 
 ing only half the expense of criminal prosecutions were so griev- 
 ously, so essentially, and so palpably unjust, what must it have 
 been before the change in 1835? Doubly unjust, doubly op- 
 pressive, doubly grievous, doubly tyrannical. Yet that change 
 has been described as one of the methods by which the landed 
 interest shufHe oif their burdens upon others. 
 
 In 1846, 1 admit that the right honourable baronet the 
 member for Tamworth took off the other moiety of the charge 
 upon the county rate, so that no further bills like that for the 
 prosecution of Tawell can be charged upon them, and no further 
 oppression like that in the case of the bargeman can be prac- 
 tised. But how was that act of tardy justice done ? The right 
 honourable gentleman on that occasion acknowledged the jus- 
 
224 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 tice of the case to be unimpeachable. He did not pretend that 
 there could be a question about the justice of the public incur- 
 ring these expenses that had been theretofore met by the dif- 
 ferent counties for the vindication of public justice and the 
 rights of society. But the right honourable gentleman gave 
 that relief to the landed interest upon the memorable occasion — 
 with respect to which I intend to have no discussion now — on 
 which he deprived them of that important protection which 
 they had so long enjoyed. This act of taking off the charge 
 upon the county rate for the last half of the expenses of crimi- 
 nal prosecutions was the important measin-e of compensation 
 given on that occasion — yet in itself a claim so just that it 
 appears as if all required to enforce it was that it should be 
 properly stated to the House ; and that there could be no 
 gentleman, whatever his political opinions or his party, but who 
 would think it was not only unjust, but something shabby, to 
 make a particular class pay for those expenses in which the 
 whole nation is interested. But with great difficulty, and by 
 the exertion only of all the influence of a powerful minister, 
 was this tardy justice done in a slight degree to the owners and 
 occupiers of land. And what has been the result as far as 
 relief from the rate is concerned ? The county rates are in- 
 creased in amount, notwithstanding the G-overnment has 
 undertaken the whole expense of criminal prosecutions. The 
 increase in this impost is accounted for by gentlemen who 
 never inquire into the subject, to our neglect in never attend- 
 ing to our own affairs — by the levy of this tax not being placed 
 in the power of the community of the county. The honourable 
 member for Montrose has often urged that argument. 
 
 In the first place, let me show you that though the State has 
 relieved the counties from the burden of criminal prosecutions, 
 the whole of the county rates of this country, with .the excep- 
 tion of one important item relating to the public works of 
 imiversal benefit — I mean bridges — are still expended, generally 
 speaking, upon the administration of justice. I have here the 
 last abstract of the accounts of the treasurer for the county of 
 Bucks, and I have reason to believe that it is a fair specimen 
 of what occurs in other counties. After a certain expenditure 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MARCH 1849. 225 
 
 for bridges — heavy in a county through which the Thames 
 passes, and on which Buckinghamshire, although not a rich 
 county, has been obliged to disburse, for one instance recently 
 (Marlow bridge), 27,000L, the expenditure of the county, with 
 that exception, is somewhere about 12,000i. a year. The whole 
 of this is caused by the expenses for the administration of 
 justice, clerks of the peace, coroners, maintenance of gaols, 
 lock-up houses, conveyance of prisoners, and so on. The allow- 
 ance from Government for the prosecution and maintenance of 
 prisoners under particular circumstances, is less than 4,0001: ; 
 and therefore two-thirds of the expenditure of that county and 
 every other is in fact for the administration of justice — for 
 matters that interest all — for a cause in which all are con- 
 cerned. But we are often told, as I have shown, that the 
 county rate, notwithstanding the Government of the country has 
 come forward for the relief of the counties, is still increasing, 
 and it is because those who administer the fimds of the 
 counties are unequal to their duties : that is the position of 
 the honourable member for Montrose. (Mr. Hume: Hear, hear!) 
 I tell you that if you go to the finance committee of the county 
 of Buckingham you will find your match. But you forget that, 
 year after year, you have been passing laws in this House, 
 forcing the counties to raise most expensive public buildings, 
 and giving them no option whatever. The honourable member 
 for Montrose talks of the management of funds. Why, all that 
 the magistrates can do is to assemble as trustees under Acts of 
 Parliament, and declare the rate to meet the expenditure which 
 you in your present capacity have agreed to incur. 
 
 I do not deny that those model prisons to which my noble 
 friend (Viscount Mahon) referred in his interesting motion to- 
 night are of great importance ; I do not deny that the ad- 
 vancing philanthropy of the age does call for those erections 
 and for the seclusion of this improved discipline. But what I 
 assert is that this is a great national object, and nothing can 
 be more unfair than that a highly enlightened and philanthropic 
 senate should pass laws obliging a particular district to raise 
 most expensive public buildings, and then refuse to defray the 
 increased cost. Well, then, I say that this local taxation is not 
 
 VOL. 1. Q 
 
226 SPEEOgES OF THE EARL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 raised for local purposes ; it is raised for national puqjoses. I 
 am perfectly aware of the objection that you -will make. The 
 fact is, that the revenue of the country has been raised for a 
 long time under two systems : there is the modern system of 
 indirect taxation, to which all are subject ; and there is the 
 old system of direct taxation, to which only landed property was 
 subject — a system which has its coils round that property still, 
 and mulcts it at its pleasure. 
 
 It would not be difficult to show how, in the course of time, 
 this anomalous state of affairs has come to pass ; how it has 
 happened that the real property of the country should neces- 
 sarily have become subject to what is called the general taxation 
 of the country, like other descriptions of property, and yet, at 
 the same time, has been obliged to bear the burden of another 
 revenue of the enormous amount of 12,000,000^. sterling. This 
 anomaly has long been recognised ; the grievance, I am sure, 
 has long been felt ; but the difficulties of dealing with it have 
 been considerable. I am perfectly aware of the remedy which 
 certain gentlemen opposite would be only too glad to offer me, 
 and which they say is the necessary inference from my system — 
 namely, that you should have recourse to a system of national 
 rating. I have myself the greatest objections to that system, 
 both of an economical and a political kind. I do not see how 
 you can have the check which is requisite to the administration, 
 of funds in a district if the rating is national, and I am un- 
 willing to give up the- local administration, not merely because 
 it insures economical management, or at least takes the best 
 means of doing so, but for political reasons, connected with our 
 happy habit of self-government, of a still graver character. 
 
 But though I admit that our system- of self-government and 
 our system of local administration are very precious, I must, at 
 the same time, ask honourable gentlemen whether they are 
 prepared to insure economy by practising injustice ; whether, 
 in fact, they are going to lay down, as one of the principles of 
 our social system, that in order to insure a good local adminis- 
 tration of affairs, it is necessary that one or two particular 
 classes in the country should be subjected to an unjust and 
 oppressive taxation. Sir, I am well aware that in laying down 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MARCH 18-19. 227 
 
 the principle that real property ought no more to bear unjust 
 taxation than other sorts of property, some honourable gentle- 
 men, confining their objections to a particular section of real 
 property, will tell me that landed property is favoured other- 
 wise by our laws. The probate and legacy duties will, I dare 
 say, be brought forward. Now, for my own part — I am speaking 
 only for myself, but I believe I may speak for others on this 
 head — I am perfectly prepared to enter into an investigation of 
 that subject in the fairest spirit, and to join with you in any 
 endeavour for the equitable apportionment of that taxation ; but 
 I protest against this matter being now brought under the notice 
 of the House to divert them from the question I have raised. 
 Propose a committee to go into the whole subject of probate and 
 legacy duty, and I will support you in your motion ; and bring 
 forward a measure founded upon sound information and real 
 research, offering a just remedy, and I will give my vote in its 
 favour ; but I am bound to tell you — it would be disingenuous 
 not to tell you — ^that, having given as much attention as I could 
 to the investigation of this question, it is my opinion that the 
 result of the committee will be very different to that which many 
 of you expect. So much has been said upon this subject that I 
 must take this opportunity of stating that of the legacy duty, 
 which is now paid to the amount of 1,200,000^. a year, 500,OOOZ. 
 is paid absolutely and directly by land ; that all leasehold 
 property, all ecclesiastical tenures, are not included in that 
 500,000L, and that they pay not only legacy duty, but probate 
 duty. As far as what is called the landed interest is concerned, 
 there is also included in your probate and legacy duty the stock 
 of every farmer and cultivator of land, so that you will find, if 
 you examine this subject with that attention it deserves, and 
 with that absence of passion which I doubt not will mark your 
 inquiry, that it is not the land which pays the least proportion 
 either of the probate or legacy duty. 
 
 I have said nothing of the present arrangement of stamp 
 duties, which would greatly strengthen my case. I make these 
 observations to the honourable gentleman (Mr. Hume) in no 
 hostile spirit ; I remember my promise, and will redeem it if 
 he gives me the opportunity ; but I must protest against the 
 
 <» 2 
 
228 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFJELD. 
 
 honourable gentleman or anybody else, especially after what I 
 have said, introducing these extraneous subjects into the simple 
 question I am placing before you. Is it just or unjust that 
 real property, forming one-fourth of the income of the country, 
 should alone bear burdens imposed on account of matters in 
 which all property is equally interested ? The honourable 
 gentleman, if he take a fine house in Berkshire to-morrow, 
 will, I dare say, trot over the roads in his neighbourhood ; 
 perhaps he may be a preserver of game ; perhaps his keeper 
 may be shot by a poacher; perhaps he will prosecute the 
 poacher at the assizes ; and he will do all this without paying 
 to the highway or county rates. Well then, the question is, 
 what, under these circumstances, is the best measure for 
 settling this long-vexed question ? I am afraid I shall disappoint 
 honourable gentlemen who have very sedulously announced 
 that all I was going to do was to move for a committee, when, 
 instead of doing that, I express my readiness, if the House will 
 go into committee, to ofifer a plan for their adoption ; and as 
 that plan is founded on justice, and conceived in a spirit of 
 conciliation, I hope it has every chance of success, 
 
 I am perfectly aware that in attempting to settle this 
 question nothing can be more unwise than for the possessors of 
 real property to stickle too severely for their rights. I admit 
 that in a country like England, where a system has existed for a 
 considerable period, however unjust and oppressive the system 
 may be — though the period of its duration does not alter the 
 character of the arrangements or mitigate the nature of the 
 oppression — yet, still I am aware that where a system has long 
 existed, clear as may be our case, it is necessary and wise to 
 approach the circumstances in a spirit of compromise. I do not 
 say, as I have a right to say, ' These are national purposes, and the 
 local taxation for these national purposes is levied upon one- 
 fourth of the income of the country; we are ready to pay our 
 quotii, but you have no right to ask us to pay more ; we are ready 
 to pay our due proportion of the 10,000,000L or 12,000,000i., 
 but you cannot allege any reason or principle that calls upon us to 
 undertake a more extensive responsibility.' It is of the greatest 
 importance to maintain the local administration of affairs that at 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MARCH 1849. 229 
 
 present exists, and therefore I shall not propose in any way to 
 change the system of self-government that at present exists, or 
 interfere with the present levy of rates. But I say that, consider- 
 ing all the circumstances of the case ; considering that the land 
 has some slight exemptions which are really of very little import, 
 but which may be remembered at this moment, amounting 
 altogether, I believe, only to 140,000L a year ; considering the 
 great importance of maintaining the present local administration 
 of affairs, and also that this is a moment in which every portion 
 of the community, and every class and body, must be prepared 
 to make great sacrifices, in a spirit of compromise and concilia- 
 tion I shall propose that, the present system of local adminis- 
 tration remaining, the present levy of rates continuing, the 
 local districts shall be responsible for one moiety of this taxa- 
 tion, and that the other moiety shall be contributed by the 
 Consolidated Fund. I would propose also that the Government 
 should regain this moiety from the privileged properties accord- 
 ing to their quotas ; with some changes and modifications, the 
 machinery at present existing would assist the Grovernment in 
 this result. 
 
 Now, Sir, I take that to be a just proposal. I think 
 terms might have been demanded, founded upon justice to a 
 comparatively extravagant degree ; but I think the proposal 
 I have made is one which, after due reflection, will be con- 
 sidered by all a fair and reasonable proposition, founded upon 
 justice, recommended by policy, and which, if adopted in prac- 
 tice, will give relief to the suffering portion of real property 
 in a legitimate manner, not by demand of undue favour at the 
 expense of the rest of the community, but by the simple 
 recognition of their rights. I am at a loss to conceive whence 
 the great opposition to this proposal can arise. I shall be 
 siuprised if any person in authority should rise in this House 
 and maintain that this taxation of 10,000,000^. or 12,000,000L 
 is not a burden upon real property which no other description 
 of property shares. As far as concerns that section of real pro- 
 perty the distressed condition of which especially has induced 
 me to come forward to-night, we have the opinion of the right 
 honourable baronet the member for Tam worth fully recognis- 
 
230 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACOXSFIELD. 
 
 ing its burdens, in almost the last speech on the Corn Laws 
 that he made before the year 1846. The right honourable 
 gentleman placed his vindication of the Com Laws when 
 minister — I believe, so late as the year 1845 — upon the acknow- 
 ledged burdens on land, and he specified that system of taxa- 
 tion to which the resolutions I have laid on the table refer. 
 The right honourable gentleman has changed his opinion on 
 the policy of the Corn Laws : but that is no reason that he 
 should have changed his opinions on these matters of fact. 
 And, now, what may be the sentiments of the Prime Minister 
 on this important subject ? I am not going to quote ' Hansard.' 
 It shall not be a speech. I will refer to a document much 
 more interesting, written on a memorable occasion, when of all 
 others a man would be sincere, thoughtful, grave, and weigh 
 what he did say with a feeling of deep responsibility. When 
 the noble lord failed in forming his Government, at the com- 
 mencement of the year 1846, and communicated his failure to 
 his sovereign in language befitting the occasion, he left recorded 
 in that almost solemn document this passage : — 
 
 ' Lord John Eussell is deeply sensible of the embarrassment 
 caused by the present state of public affairs. He will be ready, 
 therefore, to do all in his power, as a member of Parliament, to 
 promote the settlement of that question which, in present cir- 
 cumstances, is the source of so much danger, especially to the 
 welfare and peace of Ireland. Lord John Eussell would have 
 formed his ministry on the basis of a complete free trade in 
 corn, to be established at once, without gradation or delay. He 
 would have accompanied that proposal with measures of rehef, 
 to a considerable extent, of the occupiers of land from the 
 burdens to which they are subjected.' 
 
 ^^^ell, that is a great authority in favour of the views I have 
 endeavoured to enforce. The right honourable baronet and 
 the noble lord are my witnesses in answer to the honourable 
 gentleman, who no doubt will get up in his place and argue 
 that real property is exempted from imposts which other pro- 
 perty is subject to. Is it that Her Majesty's ministers shrink 
 from this great act of justice on the score of its impracticability? 
 That can hardly be. It was only last year that they came for- 
 
tOCAL TAXATION, MAECH 1849. 23l 
 
 ward with a proposition to increase the income-tax, not to do a 
 great act of justice, not to conciliate rival classes, not to support 
 an injured or aggrieved interest, but to do what I never could 
 make out unless it was to pay the militia. And, by the by, if 
 the militia had been called out, there would have been a militia 
 rate, for which real property alone would have been liable. Let 
 me now inquire what reception I am to calculate on from that 
 section of the House who are the pure professors of Liberal 
 principles, the vindicators of men in every clime, whose hearts 
 are always touched at every sound of injustice, and who are 
 ever prompt to come forward to succour the oppressed. Are 
 they going to complete the fullness of their Liberal professions, 
 by maintaining that their properties shall be privileged ? They 
 can have no abstract hostility to the process I indicate ; they 
 are all of them admirers of direct taxation ; we ourselves have 
 suffered under it for many years ; we wish that you too, should 
 taste its fruits. Looking then, to the sanction of these views 
 we have obtained from leading men, to the facility with which 
 the machinery of the income-tax may, to a certain degree, be 
 adopted in this behalf by the present Government, and the 
 abstract preference of direct taxation expressed by honourable 
 gentlemen opposite, I trust that this oppressed interest of real 
 property has at length some chance of obtaining relief. 
 
 Sir, do not let the House imagine that the sufferings of that 
 class are not considerable. Do not let them imagine that that 
 portion of real property which is connected with the cultivation 
 of land is not, at this moment, in a state of depression as 
 terrible as has been announced by the honourable gentleman 
 the member for Manchester. You see how eager they are to 
 obtain relief by the petition I have placed upon the table this 
 day for the repeal of the malt-tax. You see how the farmers 
 of this country, immediately interested in the growth of barley, 
 cry for the repeal of that tax. You find many of them not im- 
 mediately interested in the growth of barley, not able perhaps 
 to prove they can obtain any great relief from their sufferings, 
 from the repeal of the malt-tax, labouring under a sense of op- 
 pression from this weight of unjust taxation — how eager they 
 are to adopt the first remedy that is offered. 
 
232 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Sir, I have expressed in the second resolution that I have 
 placed upon the table of the House my sincere opinion upon 
 the subject of the malt-tax. When we remember that the 
 landed interest, as a considerable portion of the real property of 
 the country, is subject to the taxation I have referred to in the 
 first resolution, it is a great aggravation when we consider that 
 more than one- third of the revenue raised by the excise is con- 
 tributed by taxes upon the articles of their growth. The cir- 
 cumstances connected with those taxes have been so frequently 
 before the House that I will not trouble, by too much detail, 
 gentlemen to whom they are familiar ; but there are circum- 
 stances connected with propositions for relief with regard to 
 those taxes, which must be well understood by the House before 
 they can comprehend the feelings of the farmers upon the 
 subject. Those suffering classes, Sir, cannot but remember that 
 twenty years ago they made an appeal to the House of Commons 
 for the repeal of those taxes, and what was the answer ? The 
 answer was, that the minister could not spare the revenue. He 
 could not spare the three millions and a half which was then 
 raised by the malt-tax. The farmers yielded to that represent- 
 ation of the Grovemment ; and next year, if I remember right, 
 upwards of three millions and a half of taxation were taken off 
 from other articles by the same Grovemment, I do not want to 
 go into the question whether it was a wise or an unwise act of 
 the Grovemment of that day ; but I ask you what feelings it is 
 calculated to engender if you treat the agricultural classes in 
 that spirit ? Are you surprised that they should remember such 
 incidents with mortification and with lessened confidence in the 
 leading men of this country ? Well, Sir, what happened in 
 the year 1835 ? The right honourable gentleman the member 
 for Tamworth was then First Minister of this country — perhaps 
 the most difficult and not the least distinguished portion of his 
 eminent career. Upon that occasion, and in that year, there 
 was great agricultural distress ; and the great body of the 
 agriculturists of England were of opinion that the repeal of the 
 malt-tax might give them relief. There was a considerable 
 commotion — in modem days called agitation — upon the subject; 
 A noble lord (the Marquis of Chandos) who then represented 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MAECH 1843. 233 
 
 the county of Buckingham, and who is still remembered by the 
 farmers of that county with respect for his faithful and con-r 
 sistent conduct, had pledged himself to bring forward a motion 
 for the repeal of this tax ; and, embarrassing and painful as was 
 his position, upon account of the formation of the Government 
 of the right honourable gentleman, he redeemed his pledge. 
 How was the question then met ? The right honourable gentle- 
 man exerted all his powers to refute the statements that were 
 offered. He administered some solemn monitions to the landed 
 gentlemen. The right honourable baronet said : ' Take care 
 what you are about ; you may get rid of the malt-tax, but I 
 tell you what you will have instead — a good comfortable pro- 
 perty-tax.' Never was such an effect produced upon the agri- 
 cultural mind. They fled like sheep ! Some came down to 
 this House and rescinded their promises to their constituents. 
 Others dreamed dreams and saw visions. But what have you 
 got now ? You have got the malt-tax ; you have got the ' good 
 comfortable property-tax ; ' and you have got all those burdens 
 upon the land which you found so oppressive, and which the 
 right honourable gentlemen to his last moments agreed were 
 so oppressive, besides. Are you surprised, then, that the 
 farmers of England, after such incidents as these, should be a 
 Uttle ill-tempered and unmanageable ? For my part, I am 
 not at all surprised that men so distressed and so burdened 
 should fly to the first refuge for succour. When you recollect 
 how often this question has been matured out of doors ; how 
 frequently it has been brought forward in this House with every 
 chance of success ; that once even, to complete the picture, the 
 repeal was carried and rescinded immediately afterwards, are 
 you surprised that the farmers should begin to feel some 
 distrust in the conduct of public men ? 
 
 Now, Sir, that this tax is an injury to the farmer I do not 
 think anyone can for a moment deny. That it is a tax upon 
 the consumer is no answer to this complaint. All our taxes 
 are taxes upon the consumer. But that this restricts the 
 demand for the farmer's produce is what no one can scarcely 
 question. Why, Sir, Mr. M'Culloch, the political economist, 
 and although a political economist, a very sensible man — and 
 
234 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 without exception, I think, of all the economical writers, the 
 most practical that I am acquainted with — Mr. M'CuUoch, I 
 say, in ascertaining in one of his works the amount of fixed 
 duty which he thought ought to be granted to the land, upon 
 account of, as he says, its being taxed more than other 
 portions of the community — in the elements of his fixed duty, 
 puts down the malt-tax as giving a claim for 2s. in that duty. 
 This demand upon the part of the farmer is not so unreason- 
 able as some would pretend. I do not dwell upon the domestic 
 annoyances which this tax causes. They are known to all of 
 us — they are felt by most of us — and they are the hourly 
 conversation of these men at their markets. 
 
 Now, Sir, having frankly expressed my opinion upon the 
 subject as far as regards past propositions and the amount of 
 loss and annoyance to the farmer, I will, even at the risk of 
 losing that favour which they have bestowed upon me, counsel 
 them not to press for the repeal of the malt-tax, I will give 
 you my reasons why. I advise them not to press for the repeal 
 of the malt-tax, because I am convinced that the portion of 
 benefit which they will receive will be very slight compared 
 with the general inconvenience which it will occasion. That is 
 my general reason ; but my particular reason why I hope they 
 will not press, and why I recommend them not to press, for 
 the repeal of the malt-tax is that, if they obtain it at this 
 moment, they will obtain what may prove a fatal obstacle to 
 measures of relief such as that which I have proposed, and 
 others which I hope we may be enabled to propose. 
 
 The measure which I have proposed or suggested to-night 
 will allow me to take five or six millions of taxation from the 
 real property of the country. Its benefits will be felt in every 
 village and in every farm-house in the kingdom. Its advantages 
 will also be felt in every town in the empire. It is not a 
 sectional advantage — it is not a sectarian arrangement. It 
 will benefit every farmer a hundred times more than the repeal 
 of the malt tax ; whilst he will feel, at the same time, that the 
 great body of his countrymen not connected with agriculture 
 are equally benefited by such a measure, founded on justice, 
 the authority of which no one can impugn. Sir, if you deny 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MARCH 1849. 235 
 
 these men justice, against the flagrant and unanswerable com- 
 plaint of the real property of the country — one -fourth in amount 
 of the whole — being visited by the incubus of taxation to the 
 extent of ten or twelve millions, from which the privileged 
 properties are exempt, we must not conceal from ourselves that 
 we shall have appeals for the repeal of the malt-tax and for 
 the repeal of other taxes. You must not conceal from your- 
 selves that you may make an oppressed and aggrieved popula- 
 tion run a muck against your theories of trade and taxation. 
 
 I have been asked, Sir, by gentlemen from Ireland, whether 
 I intend that the resolutions which I have placed upon the 
 tabje should apply to their country ? It is my intention that 
 they should apply to Ireland. I can see no reason and no 
 principle why that application should not be made. If I have 
 not specially introduced the case of Ireland in debate, it has 
 been because the analogous rates and taxes, and imposts, which 
 are levied in that country, are levied by a different machinery ; 
 they would introduce different figures into the discussion, and 
 complicate a proposition which I wished to keep perfect in the 
 simplicity of its justice, unclouded with details which might 
 distract the House from its fair and due consideration. But 
 my intention, if a committee of the whole House will permit 
 me to introduce the measure I have mentioned, is to follow it up 
 by another measure which shall apply in the same spirit to 
 Ireland. I cannot comprehend what arguments can be urged 
 against Ireland being relieved in the same spirit of justice as 
 England. I do not offer it to Ireland as a boon which is 
 entirely to reanimate her in her present distressed condition, 
 but it is an arrangement which she is entitled to call upon the 
 landed interest of this country to insure to her if they them- 
 selves receive it with the other holders of real property ; and I 
 hope it may exercise a beneficial influence upon her condition. 
 There are other measures which, I think, might do more for 
 Ireland even than the present ; and. Sir, if I do not bring them 
 forward now, it is because I feel that this is not the occasion to 
 introduce them. 
 
 I was taunted the other night by an honourable gentleman 
 representing an Irish constituency, because I opposed the 
 
236 SPEECHES OF THE EAKL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 proposition of the Government, and proposed nothing myself. 
 The criticism is not just, and it is rather stale. It is neither 
 new nor true. It is not our duty because we do not approve of 
 a proposition of a minister, instantly to bring in a counter- 
 proposition. I can easily understand. Sir, why honourable 
 gentlemen opposite do not approve of an Opposition being 
 in existence. But we are sensible of our duties, and we shall 
 endeavour to fulfil them. I will, however, tell honourable 
 gentlemen from Ireland that there is one measure, one means 
 of assisting them, which I am most anxious to introduce to this 
 House. It is a great, it is a comprehensive measure. I should 
 wish to induce Irish gentlemen on either side to forget their 
 fatal feuds, and to join with us in efiforts to restore their de- 
 pressed and prostrate country. Had my lamented friend (Lord 
 G. Bentick) been spared to us, he would have introduced to the 
 notice of Parliament this year a measure that I believe would 
 have done more for Ireland than all the measures ever intro- 
 troduced by ministers for the last half-century — more compre- 
 hensive, more beneficial even than that great measure which 
 unfortunately he did not carry. But it is useless to attempt 
 to assist Ireland unless Irish members will throw aside their 
 party feelings, and remember their interest in the land, without 
 which they cannot much longer stand. Nothing can be more 
 fatal to them, nothing more injurious to the future fortunes 
 and welfare of their country, than their not combining with the 
 landed interest of England to maintain the interests of the 
 mutually oppressed properties. 
 
 Sir, I have endeavoured to place before the House — I trust 
 in a fair, and I am sure in not an intemperate, spirit— the views 
 and suggestions of those who complain of the grievances which 
 I have alleged in the resolutions I have placed upon the table. 
 The complainants are those various classes that, combined and 
 united, form what is called in popular language ' the landed 
 interest:' a portion of this nation which, whether we look at 
 their property or their numbers, or the weight and influence 
 which necessarily result from their social position and their 
 interesting occupation, may still be accounted the most con- 
 siderable order in our society. 
 
LOCAL TAXATIOli, MARCH 1849. 237 
 
 It would be disingenuous, Sir, if in this discussion I 
 attempted to conceal that the landed interest do not merely 
 complain of the grievances alleged in these resolutions; they 
 complain also of a great injury which they deem they have 
 received from the hands of this House. It is not my intention 
 now to enter into a consideration of the policy or the impolicy 
 of those great measures which you passed three years ago — 
 which you passed, and which they deplore. But it is my duty 
 to represent to you that, dull or indifferent as you sometimes 
 may have chosen to picture them, they have not been unmind- 
 ful of what has happened in this country of late years, of much 
 that has been done, and much that has been said in this House. 
 They have witnessed the rise and development in this country 
 of new properties, of new species of influence ; and they have 
 witnessed them without jealousy, because it is part of their 
 economical creed that prosperity depends upon the union of 
 classes. They have witnessed without any hostile feeling the 
 right and rightful representation of those new interests and 
 properties in this House since its reconstruction. But though 
 they have observed these great incidents with no other feeling 
 than such as becomes a manly mind, it is but right you should 
 Understand that it is not without emotion they have observed 
 that the whole course of your legislation for years has been to 
 invest those new properties and interests with privileges, and 
 simultaneously to deprive them of theirs. 
 
 I said there was much that they had passed unobserved and 
 unheeded in this House — much that has been said, and much 
 that has been done. They have not forgotten that they have 
 been spoken of in terms of contempt by ministers of State 
 —ay, even by a son of one of their greatest houses : a house 
 that always loves the land, and that the land still loves. They 
 have not forgotten that they have been held up to public 
 odium and reprobation by triumphant demagogues. They have 
 not forgotten that their noble industry, which in the old days was 
 considered the invention of gods and the occupation of heroes, 
 has been stigmatised and denounced as an incubus upon English 
 enterprise. They have not forgotten that even the very empire 
 that was created by the valour and the devotion of their fathers 
 
238 SPEECHES OF THE EASL OF BEACONSFIELD, 
 
 has been' held up to public hatred, as a cumbersome and en- 
 sanguined machinery, only devised to pamper the luxury and 
 feed the rapacity of our territorial houses. The fact is. Sir, these 
 things are hard to digest. They are not pleasant to the humble 
 ^they are intolerable to the justly proud. These are things 
 which change the heart and even the blood of nations ; and 
 whether you think their feeling is founded on justice, or whether 
 you deem it baseless, I tell you and every member of this House, 
 every good and wise man must feel, that nothing is more to be 
 deprecated, nothing more dangerous, than that considerable 
 classes of the country should deem that they are treated unfairly 
 by the Legislature. Sir, the spirit of the landed interest is 
 deeply wounded. Whether they have foundation for this feeling 
 or not, it is one which I woiild recommend any minister not to 
 treat with contempt. 
 
 I fancy. Sir, it has been somewhat too long the practice to 
 believe that you might conduct yourselves tbward the landed 
 interest with impunity. It was even a proverb with Sir 
 Robert Walpole that the landed interest might be fleeced at 
 pleasure ; and I observe at no time has that interest been more 
 negligently treated than when demagogues are denouncing it as 
 an oligarchical usurpation. But this may be dangerous play if 
 you are outraging justice. You think you may trust their pro- 
 verbial loyalty. Trust their loyalty, but do not abuse it. I 
 dare say it may be said of them, as it was said 3,000 years ago, 
 in the most precious legacy of political science that has descended 
 to us — I dare say it may also be said of them that the agri- 
 cultural class is the least given to sedition. I doubt not that 
 it is as true of the Englishman of the plain and of the dale as 
 it was of the Greek of the isle and of the continent; but it 
 would be just as well if you recollected that the fathers of these 
 men were the founders of your liberties ; and that, before this 
 time, their ancestors have bled for justice. Rely upon it that 
 the blood of these men who refused to pay ship-money is not to 
 be trifled with. Their conduct to you has exhibited no hostile, 
 feeling, notwithstanding the political changes that have 
 abounded of late years, and all apparently to a diminution of 
 their power, They have inscribed a homely sentence on their 
 
LOCAL TAXATION, MARCH 1849, 239 
 
 rural banners ; but it is one -which, if I mistake not, is already 
 again touching the heart and convincing the reason of England 
 — ' Live, and let live.' You have adopted a different motto — 
 you, the leading spirits on the benches I see before me, have 
 openly declared your opinion that if there were not an acre of 
 land cultivated in England it would not be the worse for this 
 country. You have all of you in open chorus announced your 
 object to be the monopoly of the commerce of the universe, and 
 to make this country the workshop of the world. 
 
 Your system and theirs are exactly contrary. They invite 
 union. They believe that national prosperity can only be pro- 
 duced by the prosperity of all classes. You prefer to remain in 
 isolated splendour and solitary magnificence. But, believe me, 
 I speak not as your enemy when I say that it will be an ex- 
 ception to the principles which seem hitherto to have ruled 
 society, if you can succeed in maintaining the success at which 
 you aim without the possession of that permanence and stability' 
 which the territorial principle alone can afford. Although you 
 may for a. moment flourish after their destruction — although 
 your ports may be filled with shipping, your factories smoke on, 
 every plain, and your forges flame in every city — I see no 
 reason why you should form an exception to that which the 
 page of history has mournfully recorded ; that you, too, should 
 not fade like the Tyrian dye, and moulder like the Venetian, 
 palaces. But united with the land, you will obtain the best and, 
 surest foundation upon which to build your enduring welfare j 
 you will find in that interest a counsellor in all your troubles, 
 in danger your undaunted champion, and in adversity your 
 steady customer. It is to assist in producing this result. Sir, 
 that I am about to place these resolutions in your hands. I 
 wish to see the agriculture, the commerce, and the manufactures 
 of England, not adversaries, but co-mates and partners^ — and 
 rivals only in the ardour of their patriotism and in the activity 
 of their public spirit. 
 
240 SPEECHES OE THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 STATE OF THE NATION, July 2, 1849.> 
 
 [On the above date Mr. Disraeli moved for a select committee for 
 inquiring into the state of the nation. After contrasting the posi- 
 tion of trade, agriculture, and the revenue in 1849 with its con- 
 dition at the beginning of 1846, and glancing likewise at the aspect 
 of foreign affairs, he concluded as follows : — ] 
 
 SIR, I have now attempted — but more imperfectly than I 
 could desire — to draw the attention of this House to the 
 state of the country in all its principal relations. The canvas 
 is so wide that it has been to me almost impossible to do more 
 than merely sketch the principal features. But I have en- 
 deavoured, without exaggeration, and relying upon documents 
 the accuracy of which cannot and will not be impugned, to 
 lay before the House a fair and impartial statement of our 
 position. 
 
 J will not for one moment pretend that what I deem to be 
 our calamitous condition is to be ascribed to any one particular 
 cause. I am ready to admit that, in the complicated trans- 
 actions of a great country like this, and in a period of time 
 which in this age of rapid events cannot be considered a brief 
 one, many conjunctures and casualties must occur which the 
 prescience of no statesman could have foreseen, and some of 
 which the power of no minister could remedy. I am not one 
 of those who look upon the Irish famine as a Cabinet measure. 
 But I am bound to say — taking a general, but I believe not an 
 incomplete, view of the whole course of the Government, and 
 of the events which have happened within the last three years 
 — that I do recognise one predominant cause to which I attri- 
 bute the greater part of our calamities : and that is our legis- 
 lation. 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr, 
 Hansard. 
 
STATE OF THE NATION, JULY 1849. 241 
 
 Some three years or more ago, as it appears to me, we 
 thought fit to change the principle upon which the economic 
 system of this country had been previously based. Hitherto 
 this country had been, as it were, divided into a hierarchy of 
 industrial classes, each one of which was open to all, but in 
 each of which every Englishman was taught to believe that he 
 occupied a position better than the analogous position of indivi- 
 duals of his order in any other country in the world. For ex- 
 ample, the British merchant was looked on as the most creditable, 
 the wealthiest, and the most trustworthy merchant in the 
 world ; the English farmer ranked as the most skilful agricultu- 
 rist — a fact proved by his obtaining a greater amount of 
 produce from the soil than any farmer in Europe or America ; 
 while the English manufacturer was acknowledged as the most 
 skilful and successful, without a rival in ingenuity and enter- 
 prise. So with the British sailor— the name was a proverb, 
 and chivalry was confessed to have found a last resort in the 
 breast of a British officer. It was the same in our learned pro- 
 fessions. , Our physicians and lawyers held higher positions 
 than those in other countries. I have heard it stated that the 
 superiority of those classes was obtained at the cost of the last 
 class of the hierarchy ; at the cost of the labouring population 
 of the country. But although I have heard in this House 
 something of the periodical sufiierings of that class, as if every 
 class had not its period of suffering ; although I have heard in 
 this House epochs referred to of great distress, as if the in- 
 stances were not exceptional, I know of no great community 
 existing since, I will say, the fall of the Eoman Empire, where 
 the working population have been, upon the whole, placed in 
 so advantageous a position as the working classes of England. 
 I speak not of their civil rights, which are superior to those 
 which princes enjoy in other countries ' — I speak simply of their 
 material position. I say they have had a greater command over 
 
 ' Many years after this speech (i.e. on November 9, 1874), Mr. Disraeli 
 made a similar remark in his speech at the Guildhall, which being understood 
 by the German Government to refer to the recent arrest of Count Arnim, 
 caused an explanation to be asked for. Mr. Disraeli at once informed the 
 world, through the columns of the Tivies, November 14, 1874, that his speech 
 had no reference to that event. 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
242 SPEECHES OE THE EARL OF BEACONSFJELD. 
 
 the necessaries of life than any population of equal size in any 
 community of Europe. I maintain that for the last sixty 
 years their progress has borne a due relation to the progress of all 
 other classes. More than that, for the last twenty years the spirit 
 of our laws, and, what is more important, the spirit of our society, 
 has been to elevate their condition. Therefore, I must main- 
 tain that the position of the English working-man was superior 
 to the position of the working-man of any other country. In 
 this manner, in England society was based upon the aristocratic 
 principle in its complete and most magniiicent development. 
 You set to work to change the basis upon which this society 
 was established : you disdain to attempt the accomplishment of 
 the best, and what you want to achieve is — the cheapest. 
 But I have shown you that, considered only as an economical 
 principle, the principle is fallacious — that its infallible conse- 
 quence is to cause the impoverishment and embarrassment of 
 the people, as proved by the dark records to which I have had 
 occasion so much to refer. But the impoverishment of the 
 people is not the only ill consequence which the new system 
 may produce. 
 
 The wealth of England is not merely material wealth — it 
 does not merely consist in the number of acres we have tilled 
 and cultivated, nor in our havens filled with shipping, nor in 
 om- unrivalled factories, nor in the intrepid industry of our 
 mines. Not these merely form the principal wealth of our 
 country ; we have a more precious treasure : and that is the 
 character of the people. That is what you have injured. In 
 destroying what you call class legislation, you have destroyed 
 that noble and indefatigable ambition which has been the 
 source of all otir greatness, of all our prosperity and all our 
 power. 
 
 I know of nothing more remarkable in the present day 
 than the general discontent which prevails, accompanied as it 
 is on all sides by an avowed inability to suggest any remedy. 
 The feature of the present day is depression and perplexity. 
 That English spirit which was called out and supported by your 
 old system seems to have departed from us. It was a system 
 which taught men to aspire, and not to grovel. It was a 
 
STATE OF THE NATION, JULY 1849. 243 
 
 system that gave strength to the subject, and stability to the 
 State ; that made the people of this country undergo adversity 
 and confront it with a higher courage than any other people ; 
 and that animated them, in the enjoyment of a prosperous 
 fortune, with a higher degree of enterprise. I put it to any 
 gentleman- — I care not to what party he belongs, what his politi- 
 cal opinions, or what his pursuits in life — if there be not now 
 only one universal murmtir — a murmur of suffering without hope. 
 WeU, the honourable and learned gentleman ' seems to be of a 
 different opinion, and doubtless he will with his usual ability 
 favour us with his consolatory views. But, as far as I can judge, 
 men in every place — in the golden saloon, and in the busy mart 
 of industry ; in the port, in the Exchange, by the loom, or by 
 the plough, every man says, ' I suffer, and I see no hope.' 
 
 I was reminded the other day when reading a passage in 
 the works of the greatest Eoman statesman, of the truth that 
 the present is only the reproduction of the past. It would, 
 perhaps, be pedantic in me to quote the passage to the House, 
 who are well acquainted with it ; but it is where Cicero tells 
 Atticus, in the last years of that great epoch when he flourished, 
 that a new disease had fallen upon the State ; that the State is 
 dying of a new disease ; that men in all conditions joined in 
 denouncing everything that was done ; that they complained, 
 grieved, openly lamented ; that complaint was universal, but 
 that no remedy was proposed by anyone; and he says that 
 there is a general idea that resistance without some fatal 
 struggle was impossible, although it were resistance against that 
 which all disapproved ; and that the only limit of concession 
 appeared to be the death of the republic. I think the passage 
 runs somewhat thus: — ^ Nunc quidem novo qiiodam Tnorbo 
 civitas moritur, et cum omnes ea qace sunt acta improbent, 
 querantur, doleant, aperteque loquantur et tarn dare gemant, 
 tamen medicina nulla affertur, neque resisti sine internecione 
 posse arbitramur, necfinem cedendividermis, prceter exitiuTn.' 
 
 I know not what profit there may be in the study of history, 
 what value in the sayings of wise men, or in the recorded 
 experience of the past, if it be not to guide and instruct us in 
 
 ' Mr. Roebuck. 
 £ 2 
 
244 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 the present. The honourable and learned member for Sheffield 
 seemed by his observation to think that we share the lot of 
 those who are suffering under that disease which Cicero de- 
 scribes as afflicting the commonwealth, and that we are not pre- 
 pared to offer any remedy. He mistakes us. It is because I 
 wish to offer a remedy that I have presumed to call upon the 
 House of Commons to-day to exercise the highest privilege 
 with which the constitution has invested it. It is because I 
 wish to offer a remedy that I place in your hands, Sir, the 
 resolution I now propose ; because I believe in my conscience 
 that it is the best and surest means to save a suffering people 
 and to sustain a falling country. 
 
 [Motion made, and question proposed — ' That this House do 
 resolve itself into a committee of the whole House to take into 
 consideration the state of the nation.'] 
 
245 
 
 STATE OF THE NATION, July 6, 1849. 
 
 [On July 6, Mr. Disraeli replied to the various criticisms to which 
 his resolution had been subjected, more especially to Sir Robert 
 Peel. But the division was not a very good one, only 151 members 
 following him into the lobby against 296 on the other side.] 
 
 SIE, when I brought this motion, to take into consideration 
 the state of the nation, before the notice of the House, I 
 founded that part of the argument which may be called the 
 economic portion on the most authentic and latest information 
 which we had upon the condition of the people, and which had 
 been afforded us by the officers of the Grovernment. And now 
 the noble lord (Lord J. Eussell) who has just addressed you 
 speaks in a depreciating tone of my quoting, as the basis of my 
 argument, ' some returns of no very recent date.' Who could 
 suppose that the noble lord was speaking of the last official 
 Eeport of the President of the Poor Law Board, and which has 
 only been placed within a few weeks on the table of the House 
 by Her Majesty's Grovernment? That Report is the only 
 authentic evidence to which we can refer ; and if its date, 
 carried up to Lady-day, 1848, be comparatively no very recent 
 date, whose fault is it that we have not later information? 
 Who placed this document on the table during the present 
 session ? It appears by that record — the last official record of 
 the pauperism of the country — that the able-bodied paupers 
 during the last three years had increased seventy-four per cent., 
 and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to meet this statement, 
 the accuracy of which no one has for a moment impugned, 
 refers to certain letters which he has received from certain 
 manufacturing districts, announcing that in those districts the 
 severity of the pauper pressure has recently been mitigated. 
 I thought that at the time a somewhat singular process for a 
 
246 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 minister to have recourse to. Grentlemen must be aware that 
 references to private correspondence on a subject of public and 
 general interest gives such an opening to lax and unsatisfactory 
 statements, that it is only under peculiar circumstances — 
 limited usually to the locality which a member represents — 
 that the right to introduce them in debate can be recognised. 
 
 Undoubtedly, ministers of the Crown have means of 
 information not accessible to all, and sources of a more novel 
 character than we can command ; and with such means at his 
 service, the right honourable gentleman, for example, has 
 applied to the Commissioners of the Savings Banks as a test of 
 the condition of the people ; and he has furnished the house 
 with one or two instances in this respect. Now, really, if it 
 occurred to the right honourable gentleman to apply to the 
 Commissioners of the Savings Banks for information, I am at a 
 loss to understand why it had not also suggested itself to him 
 to apply to the President of the Poor Law Board for the same 
 object. If my information as to the state of pauperism, however 
 authentic, is not of a date recent enough to satisfy Her Majesty's 
 ministers, was it not their duty to furnish themselves with 
 some more novel ? If it existed, they had it at command ; if 
 it were not produced, the only inference could be that it was 
 not unfavourable to my argument. No one doubted — I my- 
 self commenced by the admission — ^that since the last retimi 
 of the Poor Law Board, there was, probably, some alleviation 
 in the pauperism of our manufacturing districts : that is, since 
 Lady-day, 1848. We should, indeed, be in a woeful position, 
 if that were not the case. But since that period, that agri- 
 cultural pressure has occurred which has produced that effect on 
 the unions of the rural counties which my honourable friend 
 the member for Kent detailed. With some alleviation in the 
 manufacturing districts, and considerable aggravation in the 
 agricultural, the fair inference is, that in the interval the general 
 result has not been changed for the better. And if the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer chose to have recourse to other sources 
 of information than those before the House, he should have 
 been impartial in his researches ; he should have favoured us 
 with some information of the state of the rural districts, as well 
 
STATE OF THE NATION, JULY 18i9. 247 
 
 as of the manufaeturing. And, indeed, I have been expecting 
 something of this sort from the President of the Poor Law Board. 
 He is peculiarly qualified for taking part in this debate. He 
 is a sort of double-barrelled gun upon the subject ; he might 
 have enlightened us, not only on the state of pauperism in 
 general, but on that of the port of Hull in particular. But after 
 a considerable lapse of time — after two days, unfortunately not 
 spent in the discussion of this subject, and scarcely in a very 
 profitable manner — up rises the First Minister of the Crown, and 
 comes forward in a high statistical character — a character, how- 
 ever, in which, I may be permitted to say, he has been scarcely 
 as eminent as some which his genius enables him to fill. 
 
 The noble lord comes forward with manuscript returns of 
 the state of pauperism in England— returns of a more recent 
 date, to use his own phrase, than any that a mere member of 
 Parliament can refer to. And what do these returns amount in 
 quantity to ? They are the returns of eighty-seven unions ; 
 sixteen of which only are agricultural, or partially so, and they 
 show a diminution of pauperism since the last official date. 
 Why, there are six hundred and fifty-two unions in England ; 
 and a considerable portion of the country is not yet even formed 
 into unions, though their: condition is accessible to the Presient 
 of the Poor Law Board. If the noble lord wished to establish a 
 case by travelling out of the range of the official documents before 
 the House, he was bound to pursue his investigation further 
 and more widely. After all these official researches, the noble 
 lord favours the House with a more recent return of the state 
 of actually sixteen agricultural unions. Statistical inquiry has 
 seldom produced a shorter harvest. 
 
 When the Chancellor of the Exchequer commenced his reply 
 to me, the machinery at first seemed hardly to move rightly. 
 He rose after some interval, and seemed to be looking for an 
 antagonist. At last he found me. Where ? At Drury Lane 
 Theatre. His comments upon some speeches not made in this 
 House have formed a considerable portion of his reply. Eeally 
 if he wishes to answer speeches made at Drury Lane, he should 
 himself appear upon those boards. Several distinguished cha- 
 racters on both sides of the House have figured there ; and I 
 
248 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 doubt not if the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to follow 
 their example, and were properly advertised, he might draw a 
 house. After having answered the speeches that werfe made at 
 Drury Lane, the right honourable gentleman addressed himself 
 to business, and proceeded with the argument which he had 
 prepared in answer to my anticipated statement. But, un- 
 fortunately, my anticipated statement was not the one which I 
 made. The theme of the right honourable gentleman was that 
 this country was more prosperous in 1848 than in 1847. Well, 
 generally progressive as I think the decline of the country, I 
 can afford to make this concession to the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer. I admit that even at this moment we may be con- 
 sidered to be in a better condition than we were in 1847. The 
 argument which I placed before the House was not founded on 
 that year. I took the year 1845 as illustrative of the state of 
 the country before certain great changes took place in your 
 laws, and I contrasted that state with the state of the country 
 at the present time, when we had had three years' experience of 
 those great changes. . I did not require the year 1847 for my 
 argument, and had I required it, I am not sure that I should 
 have referred to it. 
 
 I wish in debate not only to be fair, but coiuteous. Every- 
 one has some subject which it is not pleasant to allude to, and 
 which well-bred people carefully avoid. I was therefore not 
 particularly anxious to go out of my way to remind the Grovem- 
 ment of the year 1 847, when, principally under the advice of 
 the right honourable gentleman, they ruined most of the 
 bankers and merchants of the city of London. Why should I 
 have done anything so gratuitously unkind ? The noble lord, 
 however, as if desperately resolved to encounter an inevitable 
 difficulty, did observe that there was one topic which his right 
 honourable colleague had not dwelt on — namely, the policy of 
 the Government with respect to the maintenance of the Bank 
 Charter ; and therefore I may now just observe that, although 
 I did myself omit that subject in the biU of indictment, it was 
 not because I thought that, even in the year 1847, the conduct 
 of Her Majesty's ministers in that particular was one which 
 proffered a great claim to public confidence. 
 
STATE OF THK NATION, JULY 1849. 249 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer then proceeded to notice 
 an argument of mine, as to the comparative value of our exports, 
 and, after a great many desultory observations, wound up his 
 criticism by honestly and candidly admitting that he could not 
 understand it ; which was at least candid. The right honourable 
 gentleman said that, as he had shown us that wages were not 
 diminished, and as I myself had admitted that the raw material 
 was higher in price, the inevitable inference was one which he 
 could hardly suppose would be seriously maintained — namely, 
 that manufacturers would manufacture without obtaining a 
 proiit. And he was loudly cheered by gentlemen around him, 
 with that derisive cheer which would not only sustain the orator 
 who speaks, but would wound the orator who has spoken. And 
 yet. Sir, I remember the time, not very far distant, when manu- 
 facturer after manufacturer used to rise in this House, com- 
 plaining of their condition ; and when we referred to the exports 
 as an indication of their possible prosperity, they used to tell us 
 that for years they had been manufacturing without any profit 
 whatever. We were then told that nothing was so deceptive 
 as our exports ; and when we reproached them with their pro- 
 sperity they declared that our foreign trade in 1 841 was even 
 carried on at a loss. After this, the right honourable gentle- 
 man the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered himself of a 
 quantity of statistics. What point they were intended to 
 estabHsh, by what chain of ratiocination they were bound to- 
 gether, to what system of investigation they had been sub- 
 mitted before they were brought forward to illuminate our 
 convictions, I am at a loss to understand. I can only compare 
 the process with a scene that we have sometimes witnessed at 
 a rural fair, where a conjurer will for three hours together 
 draw out of his mouth a quantity of red tape. Late as the horn- 
 is, I must throw myself on the indulgence of the House, and in 
 some degree avail myself of my privilege of reply. The House 
 need not, I am sure, be reminded that this debate, important 
 and expedient as it has been on all hands, has been, from 
 circumstances over which I have no control, somewhat precipi- 
 tated, and that I have consequently been deprived of the assist- 
 ance of many gentlemen in this House who would have ably 
 
250 SPEECHES OE THE EARL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 supported in detail many points to which I was necessarily 
 obliged only very cursorily to allude. I trust, therefore, I may 
 be excused, if I touch for a few minutes on one speech, which 
 dwelt very considerably on the observations which I made. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman the member for Tamworth, 
 in rising to-night, announced to the House that to-night he 
 was going to introduce a new plan of debating, as one more 
 fair and satisfactory, I presume, than that which he has hitherto 
 pursued — namely, to state many arguments, each separately, as 
 nearly as he could, in the words in which it was conveyed, and 
 then to give that which appeared to him to be the answer to it ; 
 and, having obtained apparently the sympathetic permission of 
 the House to pursue this satisfactory system of discussion, the 
 right honourable gentleman, instead of refuting my observa- 
 tions paragraph by paragraph, as we were promised, went off 
 immediately to Drury Lane Theatre also. There, instead of 
 replying to me, the right honourable gentleman entered into 
 the glove trade, which I had never even mentioned ; and he 
 only escaped from this scene and this subject, not to refute me, 
 but to indulge in one of his favourite criticisms on the dogmas 
 of the honoiuable member for Birmingham, and the state of 
 the trade of the town which he represents. At length, the 
 right honourable gentleman condescended to remember his 
 engagement, and attacked my heresies respecting exports. But 
 my opinions, however heterodox, were not new, according to the 
 right honourable gentleman — if I had only been in Parliament 
 when Mr. Alderman Waithman was a member of it, I should 
 have heard precisely the same opinions. Now, though I was 
 not in the House with the worthy Alderman — who, by the by, 
 was a distinguished Liberal — I think I am not quite unac- 
 quainted with the often-expressed opinions of Alderman Waith- 
 man on our foreign trade. The position of Alderman Waithman 
 was this : he was in the habit of comparing the official and the 
 declared or real value of our exports. He found the first, for 
 example, was 130,000,000L, and the real value only 50,000,000L 
 He measured the depreciation of the reward of British labour 
 by the difference between the two sums ; and anything more 
 absurd was probably never promulgated in this House, INIr, 
 
STATE OE THE NATION, JULY 1849. 251 
 
 Alderman Waithman never took into his calculation the various 
 circumstances which, for nearly two centuries (the date of our 
 official values), had been gradually lessening the cost of produc- 
 tion. But did I do this? What did I say? I said that 
 between the two periods which I compared in my argument — 
 namely, the years 1845 and 1848— our exports had fallen off 
 7,000,000?. in declared value, and, as I maintained, in con- 
 sequence of your legislation, and that, although there had 
 occurred, during the first four months of this year, what is 
 called a ' revival of trade,' and our exports had rallied in amount, 
 that amount had been obtained by English workmen sub- 
 mitting to a depreciation of price greater even than the excess 
 of exports during the period. I was careful to remind the 
 House, moreover, that this depreciation could not be produced 
 by any legitimate reductions in the cost of production, because 
 the raw material was absolutely higher in the first four months 
 of 1848 than it was during the first four months of 1849. The 
 only inference that can be drawn is, that the English artisan 
 obtains his foreign products under the new system by giving 
 more of his labour in exchange than heretofore. So much for 
 the similarity between my opinions and those of Alderman 
 Waithman. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman then said that I com- 
 plained that my argument in favour of commercial reciprocity, 
 often urged, had never been fairly met ; and the right honour- 
 able gentleman, as far as he was concerned, attributed the cir- 
 cumstance to the lateness of the hour at which he generally 
 spoke on the abtruse character of the subject to be treated 
 under such circumstances. If the right honourable gentleman 
 has felt the lateness of the hour a difficulty in treating the 
 subject, what must be my situation, rising to reply to him at 
 two o'clock in the morning ? Nevertheless, I trust to the 
 generosity of the House to permit me not to leave the observa- 
 tions of the right honourable gentleman on this head altogether 
 unanswered. The right honourable gentleman asks me whether 
 I would encounter the hostile tariff of America by a counter- 
 vailing duty on raw cotton, to the injury of our own manufac- 
 tures ? The right honourable gentleman will pardon me if I 
 
252 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 observe that he scarcely appears to have condescended to have 
 made himself acquainted with the principles of the reciprocity 
 system. The reciprocity system does not countenance counter- 
 vailing duties on raw materials. The fallacy of the right honours- 
 able gentleman on this head appears to me his confounding 
 raw materials and provisions. A countervailing duty on the 
 raw material — American cotton, for instance — would place the 
 foreign manufacturer who did not pay that duty in a superior 
 position to the English manufacturer. Therefore, the reci- 
 procity system, the object of which is to maintain the efficiency 
 of British labour, does not authorise a countervailing duty on 
 raw materials imported for reproduction ; but countervailing 
 duties on corn and provisions come under quite a diflferent head. 
 A duty on the raw material renders British labour less efficient; 
 a duty on corn, on the contrary, would protect British labour, 
 and maintain its exchangeable value. And it has always 
 appeared to me, Sir, a very great mistake in the Manchester 
 school that, when they succeeded in obtaining a repeal of the 
 duty on cotton, they did not advocate a duty on com, because, 
 by giving a premium to the production of corn in the United 
 States, they have restricted their supply of the raw material of 
 their manufacture. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman seems very indignant with 
 the Poor Law Commissioners for publishing, in their annual 
 report, a table which shews that during seven years when the 
 price of wheat was highest a less sum by 200,0007. was 
 expended in support of pauperism than in other seven years 
 when the price of wheat was lowest. The right honourable 
 gentleman does not, however, dispute the fact. He only meets 
 the inference drawn from it by a suggestion that the years of 
 high and low prices are not continuous years, and that in a 
 year of low prices following a year of high prices the country 
 may sufifer from the preceding pressure. But this argument 
 will hardly help the right honourable gentleman out of the 
 difficulty ; for the average price of the whole fourteen years is 
 not excessive. It is only 56s. The right honom-able gentle- 
 man then, not satisfied with finding fault with the Poor Law 
 Commissioners for publishing the official facts that came before 
 
STATE OF THE NATION, JULY 1849. 253 
 
 them, fell foul of a Tithe Commissioner — no less a person 
 than Professor Jones — ^whose work I had quoted to illustrate 
 the extent and influence of what is called the home market. 
 
 Professor Jones lays down that in unremunerative times, , 
 periods of pressure, the farmers will reduce their cost of produc- 
 tion 25 per cent., and that this reduction of the cost of produc- 
 tion in due time exercises a relative degree of influence on their 
 amount of produce ; and it is this withdrawal of 25 per cent, of 
 their exchangeable surplus that occasions the distress caused 
 by a depressed home market. The right honourable gentle- 
 man says that he is surprised that Professor Jones should be an 
 advocate of high prices. Professor Jones gave no opinion on 
 high or low prices. He stated a certain economical law, the 
 consequences of which it is in vain to shut our eyes to, and the 
 accuracy of which no one will ventmre to impugn. My right 
 honourable friend the member for Stamford (Mr. Herries) was 
 the individual who fell under the right honourable gentleman's 
 criticism, in consequence of a motion of which the member for 
 Stamford had given notice, and of an opinion which he had 
 expressed in this debate ; as if that motion had aught to do 
 with the question which we are now discussing. Now, Sir, I 
 will give the reasons for my right honourable friend giving 
 notice of that motion. It was only this day, when my right 
 honourable friend examined the balance sheet of the Treasury, 
 that he felt that no time should be lost in bringing our financial 
 state before the consideration of the House, in order that the 
 country might see that there were yet some means of ascertain- 
 ing the fatal crisis which was approaching, and that the 
 dividends might be secured to the public creditor. 
 
 It was altogether a financial movement. No one even 
 dreamed of proposing a 5s. duty as a protection to native industry. 
 As the right honourable gentleman the member for Tamworth 
 says, that would indeed be a paltry thing. And yet, paltry as it 
 may now appear, there was a time when a moderate fixed duty on 
 com was not considered altogether a paltry subject, but one on 
 which a few years back the most eminent men in the country 
 felt themselves justified to agitate England to its centre. 
 Paltry as it is, it was a question which destroyed the Grovem- 
 
254 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 ment of the noble lord and returned upon the shoulders of the 
 people of England a body of gentlemen who might have been 
 governing the country at the present moment had they not 
 suddenly discovered that the object for which they struggled, 
 and the end they laboured to achieve, was, instead of a patriotic, 
 after all only a paltry one. And truly when the noble lord the 
 First Minister, who is proud of his supporters on this side, taunts 
 us with so much acerbity, I think he might just recollect by 
 whose advice and under whose influence we refused to accept 
 that settlement of a question which perhaps might have pre- 
 vented much of the evil experienced by the country at the 
 present moment. And here I must say, with all respect to the 
 right honourable baronet, that there is something in his manner ' 
 when he addresses on those subjects his former companions 
 which I will not say is annoying, but rather I would style 
 somewhat astonishing. One would almost imagine, from the 
 tone of the right honourable gentleman, that he had , never, for 
 a moment, held other opinions on this subject; that he had 
 never entertained a doubt upon it ; that he had been born an 
 infant Hercules, cradled in political economy, and only created 
 to strangle the twin serpents of protection and monopoly. He 
 speaks with a sneer of those who think that the principle of 
 buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market is a 
 new principle invented by the Manchester school. I have a 
 right to use that phrase, for I gave them that name. I gave it 
 them with all respect ; I thought it a homage due to their 
 deleterious, but not unprincipled, doctrines. 
 
 But the honourable baronet says we are all in error in 
 assuming this principle to be a new one, and he opens a book 
 and shows an honourable member the celebrated petition of the 
 merchants of London, and refers to this document and to the 
 names of Adam Smith, Mr. Say, and David Hume, as authori- 
 ties, both for the principle and the phrase. The right honour- 
 able gentleman mistakes us. We admit fully the comparative 
 antiquity of the dogma ; what surprises us is, not the compara- 
 tive antiquity of the dogma, but the recent conversion of the 
 
 ' Herein lay the secret of the bitterness with which the Protectionist party 
 regarded their late leader. 
 
STATE OF THE NATION, JULY 1849. 255 
 
 dogmatist. The right honourable gentleman should view one's 
 errors at least with charity. He is not exactly the individual 
 who ex cathedra should lecture us on the principles of political 
 economy. He might at least, when he denounces our opinions, 
 suppose that in their profession we may perhaps be supported 
 by that strength of conviction which for nearly forty years 
 sustained him in -those economical errors of which he was the 
 learned and powerful professor. The right honourable gentle- 
 man always speaks of protection as if he had a personal feeling 
 against it. He preaches a crusade against the system of com- 
 mercial reciprocity. But this is a system which has been 
 upheld by the opinions and illustrated by the writings of men 
 of very great talent in this country, and not connected with 
 our party politics or passions. Men of great scientific research 
 have investigated and illustrated it : and I believe that it will 
 require more time and discussion than it has yet received in 
 this House before it can be thrown into that limbo of stale 
 opinions in which the right honourable gentleman has found it 
 convenient to deposit so many of his former convictions. Upon 
 a fair occasion, and not two hours after midnight, I shall be 
 happy to meet the right honourable gentleman, or any other 
 member, in calm discussion on the subject. I must repeat, 
 however, the opinions which I expressed on the first night of this 
 debate, that I believe the judicious imposition of countervailing 
 duties will produce abundance and not scarcity, cheapness and 
 not dearness. 
 
 I hope the House will excuse me if for one moment I am 
 unwilling to quit the field to which I have been challenged by 
 the right honourable gentleman ; but I must, even at the risk 
 of wearying the House, refer to the illustration drawn from the 
 prohibitory tariff of Eussia, and our consequent commerce with 
 South America. A countervailing duty on the Eussian tariff 
 wotild check the demand for Eussian produce ; the necessary 
 consequence of this would be a fall in the value of that pro- 
 duce in the Russian markets. So far, therefore, the effect of a 
 countervailing duty would be to produce diminished price. The 
 fall in the Eussian markets would equal the countervailing duty 
 until in time the English consumer would be enabled to pur- 
 
256 SPEECHES OF THE EABL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 chase the same quantity of Russian produce at the same cost as 
 before. Here, then, the ultimate effect would be neither 
 dearness nor scarceness. But how would the countervailing 
 duty act on our transactions with the Brazils ? The fall in 
 Russian produce would enable our merchants to buy the quan- 
 tity they required with a less amount of sugar and coffee than 
 before. But how would that diminish our markets in the 
 Brazils ? England would either send out the same quantity of 
 manufactured goods to that quarter for the same amount of 
 tropical products and retain the portion no longer required by 
 Russia for her own use, or she would send a less quantity of her 
 goods to purchase the less quantity of tropical produce with 
 which she could now pm-ehase the same quantity of Russian 
 produce as before, and thus obtain a twofold advantage, an 
 enhancement of her own manufactures in the South American 
 market from their diminished supply, while the difference 
 would be retained for her own use, or for exchange for the 
 commodities of other countries. In every way the application 
 of the principle of reciprocity would produce its intended effect, 
 the enhancement of the value and efficiency of British labour. 
 But why these attempts to narrow the question before us to 
 a mere commercial issue ? It is nothing of the kind. The 
 unsatisfactory state of our commerce is but one count in the 
 indictment which has been proffered to the consideration of the 
 House. It is not upon that one point merely, or principally, 
 that you have to decide to-night. It may be very convenient 
 for those who, month after month — I may say, year after year^ — 
 have been mmrmuring opposition to a Grovernment which they 
 have not the courage manfully to oppose ; it may be very con- 
 venient for those who go whispering about in corners that our 
 colonial empire is in danger; that our foreign relations are 
 mismanaged, it may be very convenient for such as those now 
 to get up and proclaim that the only question at issue is a com- 
 mercial question. It is no such thing. The noble lord at the 
 head of the Government put it fairly. It is a vote of confidence 
 in a Government which has now been three years in power, and 
 whose policy, in every branch, has produced certain results. It 
 is a vote of confidence in an empty and exhausted exchequer. 
 
STATE OF THE NATION, JULY 1819. 257 
 
 It is a vote of confidence in an endangered colonial empire. It 
 is a vote of confidence in Danish blockades and Sicilian insur- 
 rections. It is a vote of confidence in a prostrate and betrayed 
 agriculture. It is a vote of confidence in Irish desolation. 
 Vote for these objects ; vote your confidence in the Government 
 in which you do not confide ; but if you give them your votes, 
 at least in future have the decency to cease your accusations, 
 and silence your complaints. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
258 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 AamCULTUEAL DISTRESS, February 19, 1850.' 
 
 [In pursuit of the object which he had set before himself, Mr. 
 Disraeli at the beginning of the session of 1850 introduced another 
 set of Resolutions ^ on the subject of agricultural distress, when he re- 
 duced the Government majority to 21 — the Ayes being 252, the Noes 
 only 273. Above all he secured the co-operation of Mr. Gladstone.] 
 
 MR. DISRAELI : Sir, I have to present a petition from 200 
 owners and occupiers of land, who recently met at Great 
 Marlow, representing the unprecedented depression of all 
 classes connected with the land, begging the House to remedy 
 their sufferings by placing them, firstly, on an equality, in 
 point of taxation, with their fellow-subjects ; and secondly, in 
 their own market, with the foreigners. I have also a petition 
 from the Buckinghamshire Society for the Relief of Real Pro- 
 perty, signed by nearly 1,000 members ; but having perceived 
 an informality, I am prevented presenting it. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, the depression among the classes connected 
 with agriculture, referred to by the petitioners whose prayer I 
 have just now placed upon the table continues. Since the 
 meeting of Parliament, when that depression received no sym- 
 pathy from Her Majesty's Government — I may say, no recog- 
 nition — it has become even darker and more lowering. The 
 300,000,000L of capital invested in the cultivation of the soil 
 yields no profit to the cultivators of the soil. The value of the 
 fee itself is deteriorated ; and that factitious employment of the 
 labouring population in the rural districts, which to the honour 
 of the country has taken place, necessarily and naturally dimin- 
 ishes daily. Since these topics were last adverted to in the 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
 ^ The Eesolutions, three in number, will be found in the speech, pp. 273^ 
 275. 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1850. 259 
 
 House, the Report of the Poor Law Board, to which the Minister 
 on that occasion confidentially referred, has been placed in the 
 hands of members, and we have there seen the data upon 
 which the Grovernment then founded their argument. 
 
 I am bound to say that froni almost the commencement of 
 this year I have myself received — and I believe I only represent 
 the position of every gentleman immediately connected with 
 agricultural constituencies — 1 have received reports from con- 
 siderable unions in the country, which convey a different result 
 from that which is accurately reported in the document to which 
 I have referred. But the House will remember that the date of 
 the aggregate of facts which was thus presented to our notice 
 was only the first day of this year. It is since that time that 
 that employment which I have ventured to describe as fac- 
 titious has, in my opinion, greatly diminished in the agri- 
 cultural districts of the United Kingdom. It was, indeed, with 
 reference to this point, my intention to have moved in this 
 House for a return, similar to that which we are in possession of, 
 up to February 1st ; but upon inquiry, it was represented to me 
 that such a return, if consented to, would entail upon a branch 
 of the administration, that has already greatly exerted itself 
 in order to afford the most recent and authentic information to 
 the House and the country, exertions so enormous that I felt 
 bound to relinquish my purpose. And, indeed,- although I 
 wish the office had fallen upon a member of greater influence 
 in the House than myself, I would venture to make a remark 
 upon the general conduct of that branch of the administration. 
 
 For so many years the central management of the poor- 
 laws has excited in this House so much controversy — and, in- 
 deed, I may say, so much odium — that I think it must be a 
 satisfaction to the House, to the Grovernment, and to the 
 country, to contrast the position which that branch of the ad- 
 ministration now occupies with reference to public opinion, 
 with what it did three years ago. I have no wish to enter on 
 this occasion into any invidious comparison, or attempt to in- 
 vestigate the causes which have produced a very different 
 result, but the Government must be repaid for the concession 
 to opinion which they wisely made and which they wisely 
 
 s 2 
 
260 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OE BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 carried into effect with respect to that department when they 
 observe that a branch of the administration so intimately con- 
 nected with the condition of the great body of the people, 
 should be conducted, as I believe it now to be, in a manner 
 which entitles it to public confidence. But we have to-night 
 to inquire what is the best course to remove if possible, cer- 
 tainly to mitigate, that unprecedented depression to which the 
 petitioners have referred. Upon this side of the House we 
 believe that that depression has been occasioned by recent 
 legislative enactments, by the recent repeal of the laws which 
 regulated the importation of foreign agricultural produce. We 
 believe that the surest com-se, the most safe, the most efiica- 
 cious, the course which in the long run would be most advan- 
 tageous to the community and most popular with the community, 
 would be the re-establishment of laws regulating the importa- 
 tion of that foreign produce. And that being our conviction, 
 we may be taunted, as we have already been taunted, with the 
 circumstance that we shrink from maintaining our conviction 
 by argument in this House. 
 
 The taunt is one easy to make, and it is not one very hard 
 to bear. Speaking for those gentlemen with whom I have the 
 honour to act, I can say that we do not in any way shrink from 
 an argument upon that subject. We have seen nothing at all 
 which in our opinion confutes the conclusions which in good 
 report and evil report we have attempted to advocate in this 
 House with regard to that great subject. We still believe that 
 the principles upon which you have constructed your commercial 
 code are fallacious. We still believe that the time will come 
 when you yourselves will acknowledge the truth of that 
 assertion. But, although I am myself of opinion that dis- 
 cussion is the soul of this House, and, indeed, of this free 
 country ; though I believe that there are occasions when dis- 
 cussion, and mere discussion, may be the highest duty and the 
 most sovereign policy ; still I must express my opinion that, as 
 a general rule, it is not advantageous that this House should 
 become a mere debating society, and that, generally speaking, 
 discussion should not be originated here unless connected with 
 some practical object of immediate attainment. 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1860. 261 
 
 Now, I will speak with perfect frankness upon this point, 
 and I do not speak only for myself. After the divisions that 
 occurred on the Address in both Houses of Parliament, we were 
 of opinion that only one conclusion could be drawn from those 
 facts ; and though in neither House was the division called 
 upon the merits of that industrial system which is popularly 
 known by the name of ' protection,' still we could not shut our 
 eyes to the practical conclusion that it was the opinion of a 
 large majority in both Houses of Parliament not to disturb at 
 present the settlement which this country has recently arrived 
 at in that respect. Under these circumstances, representing a 
 great body of the people who are suffering, in our and their 
 opinion, by those changes in the law ; having arrived at a con- 
 viction that no abrogation of recent legislation could be ob- 
 tained at present from the present Parliament, it became our 
 duty to consider what course might be taken which, without 
 controverting the conviction of the majority of the House, 
 might at least be, as far as these misfortunes were concerned, of 
 a remedial character. . 
 
 Since this great controversy first commenced in this House, 
 I have always, assuming that those laws which regulated the 
 industry of the country might be repealed, seen looming in the 
 distance a great alternative, to which I have been surprised 
 that our most eminent statesmen have shut their eyes. I have 
 always felt, if we thought fit to repeal those laws, and especially 
 the laws which referred to the agricultural industry of this 
 country, that the cultivators of the soil, that all classes con- 
 nected with the cultivation of the soil, would offer this alter- 
 native to the Government : — ' If you deprive us of that system 
 of legislation under which for so long a period, with various 
 modifications, we have enjoyed our property or pursued our 
 industry, we shall ask this of you in the name of justice, that 
 you should at least adapt our position to the altered circum- 
 stances in which you have placed us, and that you should revise 
 the system of taxation that prevails in this country, with re- 
 ference to its more equal and just distribution.' 
 
 I do not think that the claims of the classes connected 
 with the soil can be placed before the House more neatly or 
 
262 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 more concisely than in the petition which I presented to it to- 
 day. The classes connected with the soil demand of the 
 Grovemment of this country two things : first, that they should 
 be placed upon an equality with their fellow-subjects ; and, 
 secondly, that they should be placed in their own market upon 
 an equality with the foreigner. They refer, in the first in- 
 stance, to that enormous system of peculiar taxation from which 
 the majority of this country are exempt, and which they have 
 borne ; they refer, in the second place, to those fiscal restrictions 
 which, when you have placed them in direct competition with 
 the foreigner, prevent them from exerting their utmost ener- 
 gies, and freely availing themselves of their complete resources. 
 Now, it appears to me that these are claims logically expressed, 
 and founded on severe justice ; and if those who hurried on — as 
 I believe, unhappily hurried on — the repeal of the laws which 
 regulated the importation of foreign agricultural produce, did 
 not at the time sufficiently and completely consider the conse- 
 quences of their course — if they had not well weighed what 
 must be the inevitable result of the new system which they 
 have sought to establish — much as I regret the want of fore- 
 sight in men so eminent ; great and even perilous as may be the 
 consequences of that inattention upon their part, I cannot, as 
 the representative of an agricultural constituency, refrain from 
 doing my duty to those who sent me here ; and in the House of 
 Commons where there may be a majority of economists, I cannot 
 think I am acting wrong if, notwithstanding their economical 
 convictions, I have still confidence in the justice of Englishmen, 
 Sir, my business to-night is to touch only partially one 
 portion of the great theme which will, 1 believe, for a. consider- 
 able time amply occupy the attention of Parliament, and before 
 I advert more specifically to that portion, and to the measure 
 which, with reference to it, I, with unaffected humility, shall 
 presume to propose for the consideration of the House, I shall 
 make one or two observations on the opinions that have been 
 often expressed of late with respect to the nature of that taxa- 
 tion to which I am about particularly to call your attention. 
 We are all well aware that recently, when that portion of our 
 taxation popularly known as Eates, has been brought under the 
 
AGRICULTUEAL DISTRiESS, FEBRUARY 1850. 263 
 
 notice of Parliament, considerable controversy has occurred 
 with reference to the classes on which the weight and burden 
 of these imposts fall. Some honourable gentlemen have in- 
 formed us that the proprietor of the soil alone paid them; 
 others have maintained that they were paid by the occupier, 
 and they have advocated their repeal because the cultivator of 
 the soil would be benefited by that repeal. But time, which 
 generally brings with it truth, has removed in a great measure 
 the difficulties connected with this question. 
 
 The honourable member for Montrose,' who, in the first 
 year I took the liberty of making a motion on this subject, 
 moved an amendment declaring proprietors alone paid rates, 
 last year was the father, as he is this year the godfather, of a 
 new representative system, which he is about to introduce 
 throughout the country, in order that the occupiers, whom he 
 now maintains to be the real payers of the rates, should exer- 
 cise a control over the funds which they mainly furnish. Ap- 
 pealing, therefore, to the legislative proposition of last Wednes- 
 day on this subject, I might fairly assume that there was no 
 longer any difference of opinion between honourable gentlemen 
 opposite and myself as to the incidence of this class of taxation. 
 But I am not wilHng to rest my argument on so narrow a basis, 
 or to offer the proposition it is ray duty to lay before you on so 
 partial an admission. I think, Sir, the time has come when we 
 must view this question a little more profoundly. As long as 
 you passed laws in this House the tendency of which, accord- 
 ing to your own opinion, was, in your own language, to raise 
 rents, you had, perhaps, even if that opinion were fallacious, a 
 right to analyse the relative interests of the owner and of the 
 occupier of the soil. But the moment you swept those laws 
 from off your statute-book ; the moment you resolved that the 
 land of England should enter into free competition with all the 
 soils of all the kingdoms of the globe, I think you were stopped 
 from considering the relative interests of occupiers and owners, 
 and that instead of busying yourselves with the interests of 
 landlord and tenant, you had from that time to deal only with 
 the interests of the land. 
 
 ' Mr. Hume. 
 
264 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFrELD. 
 
 There have been and still are, I may say, two opinions pre- 
 valent in this House, or at least in this country, on the subject 
 of that species of property which we popularly term 'land.' 
 There are those who hold that there is a distinction between 
 land and all other species of property. There are those who 
 hold that distinction absolutely and under all circumstances. 
 There are. Sir, many who hold it with reference to the land of 
 England as a great poUtical principle, which an Englishman 
 ought not to relinquish. Considering that all our institutions 
 spring from the land — considering that the Throne, that the 
 estates of the realm, that the great scheme of our judicial insti- 
 tutions, the inheritance of the poor, the sacred spires, as it 
 were, of our ecclesiastical establishment, all have their origin 
 in the same source ; considering that, in fact, we have a terri- 
 torial constitution, they always have been of opinion that it was 
 the first duty of a British statesman to sustain the industry, 
 the property, and the influence of our territorial population. 
 It is for this reason they have ever been of opinion — an opinion 
 strictly constitutional — that we should, in all owe legislation 
 which refers to or regulates the distribution of power, consult 
 the preponderance of the landed interest. They thought so 
 because they considered that preponderance the best security 
 for order and liberty, and, in addition, the best security for that 
 j)olitical stability which is a still rarer quality in the history of 
 nations than order and freedom. These, are opinions which I 
 know are considered somewhat old-fashioned in the House of 
 Commons, but which, I believe, have not yet forfeited their hold 
 on the great majority of the people ; and I humbly venture to 
 share in and adhere to them. 
 
 There is another class of opinions — not so popular or so pre- 
 valent out of the House, but in the House maintained with 
 great vigour and ability — with respect to land. The gentlemen 
 who represent this opinion hold that there is no difference 
 whatever between the land even of England and any other 
 species of property. They maintain that all those considera- 
 tions to which I have referred, respecting the maintenance of 
 order, of liberty, and of the stability of States are mere super- 
 stitions ; that the land is to be considered, to use a phrase 
 
ACtRICULTUEAL distress, FEBRUARY 1850. 265 
 
 which the honourable member for the West Riding ' very 
 erroneously imputed to me, as raw material, which we ought 
 not to regard as endowed necessarily with any peculiar quality 
 whatever. I have never admitted, nor do I now in any way 
 admit, the truth of this opinion, but I accept it in argument, 
 for nothing, I think, is more convenient in discussion than to 
 draw your conclusions, if possible, from the admissions of your 
 opponents ; and for that reason alone, having heard it m this 
 House from persons of great authority, and finding similar 
 opinions promulgated by literary organs out of doors of great 
 ability, I said, if the land indeed were a raw material, we 
 claimed for it the application of the same principle you extend 
 to all other raw materials. To this remark I am bound to say, 
 . Sir, I have not yet received a satisfactory answer ; great subse- 
 quent silence on this subject in the House ; out of the House 
 among those organs of which I have spoken, similar silence 
 also for a time ; then a denial that the land was a raw material, 
 or assertions that if it be so, it is a raw material peculiar from 
 all others, because it produces a quality called ' rent.' 
 
 Now, what I want to impress upon the House is this — that 
 from the moment you forced the land of England into competi- 
 tion with the land of all the world, you have no business to 
 inquire into that quality called 'rent.' According to our 
 opinion, and to the opinion of many of the most influential 
 men opposed to the agricultural policy we would recommend, 
 the consequence of your recent laws will be to throw a great 
 quantity of land out of cultivation. The difference between us 
 on this head is only one of degree. According to all, there is 
 one class of land which is certainly doomed to sterility. "Well, 
 what I wish to urge on the House is this — that the amount of 
 this peculiar taxation, styled local taxation, may make the 
 exact margin which permits that land to be cultivated, or 
 dooms it to a barren existence. It is on these grounds I main- 
 tain that you have no right now to consider what may be the 
 effect of your legislation on rent. All you have to do with 
 regard to the land is to act with justice and consistently with 
 those economical principles which are the foundation of your 
 
 ' Mr. Cobden. 
 
266 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSEIELt). 
 
 commercial code, I say the House has no longer any right to 
 speculate on the amount and nature of rent. It is a subject 
 which, owing to your recent legislation, is swept from your con- 
 sideration. And, Sir, nothing astonishes me more than the 
 tone assumed in this House on this subject. 
 
 If I did not know I was addressing a society which must 
 necessarily be a society of gentlemen, on the whole the ablest 
 and best informed in the country, I should sometimes suppose 
 that in this House existed some of those prejudices which are 
 to be found elsewhere with respect to the character of landed 
 proprietors. On another occasion, when a similar subject was 
 under discussion, I ventured to request that the House would 
 consider the elements composing that class, because certainly 
 the tone taken in debate, when speaking of them, is one which 
 applies only to a limited, luxurious, indolent and aristocratic 
 class — a class whose rights, however, if they should be thus 
 justly described, should, I conceive, be treated in accordance 
 with the principles of justice. But it is well to consider if this 
 prevalent character of the proprietors of the soil is a just one. 
 I took occasion recently to mention that, following the re- 
 sear<jhes and conclusions of the most eminent writers on this 
 subject, I calculated the number of landed proprietors of the 
 United Kingdom as probably about 250,000. Now, I ask the 
 House to consider what is the aristocratic element of this 
 numerous and important class. You cannot perhaps take any 
 better mode to ascertain a fact of so much importance than the 
 following : — Calculate the number of manorial estates. It is a 
 subject on which you will probably find no return ready to your 
 hand ; but we all know that in the United Kingdom generally 
 speaking, every parish is a manor, though every manor is not a 
 parish. Allowing, then, one-fourth for manorial estates not 
 parochial, which I have every reason to believe is a liberal allow- 
 ance, we may assume that there are 20,000 manorial estates. 
 These form the aristocratic element ; these are the estates of 
 that squirearchy of whom we hear so much, and whose personal 
 interests, we are told, are alone considered when we legislate 
 for the land. Well, you find that they are thus exactly one- 
 twelfth of the class of landed proprietors. But divide the 
 
AGRICULTTJEAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1850. 267 
 
 complete rental of the United Kingdom, according to the 
 returns, by the number of these proprietors ; take the rental 
 at 60,000,000?. a year, and you will find that you have a body 
 of proprietors at 240L a year each. But as we all know there 
 are many who have much more, it follows that there must be a 
 great number who have much less. Yet this is the class who 
 are always painted to the passions of the community as a 
 liixurious, limited, privileged, and aristocratic class, though 
 they are, on the contrary, the most thrifty, the most industrious, 
 the most hard-living class as a whole that probably exists in 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 I maintain, then, that with respect to this class you should 
 legislate according to justice, and to the principles you are per- 
 petually parading ; that no inquiry respecting the incidence of 
 taxation, as to whether it falls on the owner or the occupier, is 
 necessary for you in order to decide what you should do ; that 
 you should henceforth act in accordance with the principles of 
 political justice, and with what you consider economic truth; 
 that in taking the course which justice and policy alike recom- 
 mend you are not to regard the owner or the occupier, but to 
 consider whether you are doing justice to that most important 
 interest, the land of England ; whether the land which you 
 have thrown into competition with all the soils of all the 
 countries of the world can be worked in a remunerative 
 manner, and not whether the profit goes to the landed pro- 
 prietor or to the occupying tenant. Now, Sir, with these 
 opinions I proceed to call the attention of the House to the 
 first part of the important subject to which I have adverted — 
 namely, the relations of the agricultural interest in all its 
 classes to the local taxation of the country. 
 
 I have on a former occasion taken an opportunity of calling 
 your attention to the general subject of local taxation in 
 England. The facts I then placed before you were not con- 
 troverted at the time, nor have they since been disputed ; and, 
 indeed, many gentlemen of official authority who took part in 
 that debate acknowledged their accuracy. On that occasion I 
 stated that the property connected with the soil of England, 
 independently of contributing to the general revenue, con- 
 
268 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 tributed to another revenue in England alone to the amount of 
 12,000,000^. sterling, and that all the objects for which this 
 second revenue was raised were objects of general interest and 
 national concern. I then included the land-tax in the aggregate 
 amount. I assumed the land-tax to be virtually two millions 
 per annum, which was admitted by the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, as it must be by anyone who had given attention 
 to the subject ; but I acknowledged that though it was a tax 
 on the land, and locally raised, there was a difference between 
 it and other sources of local taxation, because it was paid into 
 the imperial exchequer. I shall not dwell on this point on the 
 present occasion, because it does not immediately concern us. 
 The land-tax is only another instance how the land of England 
 has been at all times made to pay more into the exchequer 
 than it ought, since the law entailing the land-tax was 
 originally a law which equally applied to all other species of 
 property. It would not be diflScult, indeed, to prove that since 
 its introduction more than 100,000,000?. have been paid by 
 the land under the machinery of the land-tax than the land 
 ought to have contributed. But taking the annual local taxa- 
 tion of the United Kingdom, setting aside the land-tax, at 
 14,000,000L, I only refer to the fact that the House should 
 bear in mind the general amount of this peculiar revenue, so 
 remarkably raised, and which has been sustained with such a 
 spirit of endurance for so long a period, and that it may more 
 justly consider the peculiar branch of taxation to which I am 
 now about to call its attention naore specifically. That branch 
 of the local taxation of the United Eangdom is the poor-rates. 
 I see that the honourable member for Shetland and the 
 Orkneys ' has moved an amendment on my motion to-night, to 
 which I shall for a moment advert. The honourable gentleman 
 has moved 'For the appointment of a Select Committee to 
 inquire into the effects of the laws for levying duties on the im- 
 portation of corn and other agricultural produce from the year 
 1815 to 1848, both inclusive ; also into the relative amounts of 
 taxation, local and general, which have been levied during the 
 same period on agricultural and other property and incomes.' 
 ' Mr. A. Anderson. 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1850. 269 
 
 Now, that appears to me to be a very sensible motion ; and 
 if the honourable gentleman had had more experience than he 
 possesses of the House, I think he would have moved it as an 
 unopposed return, because I can assure him all the information 
 he desires on these important subjects can be obtained upstairs, 
 and if he only examined the reports of committees of this 
 House and of the House of Lords, he would find every particular 
 so amply furnished that it would not have been necessary to 
 move this amendment. Indeed, I have been furnished by a 
 gentleman of authority with a digest of all the information the 
 honourable member requires. It ranges, not merely from 1815, 
 but from 1800 to 1845 ; and in reference to it the honourable 
 member will find that landed property in that period has paid 
 581,000,OOOL to the State, as compared with 159,000,000?. 
 paid by other real property. Now, I have no wish to touch on 
 the comparative tributes by the diiferent classes of real pro- 
 perty. I think it unjust to these classes that they should con- 
 tribute to a peculiar taxation. All this information and much 
 more that refers to the subject is not of the slightest use to 
 me, and I shall not avail myself of it ; but as I am of opinion 
 that in the intercourse of social life an interchange of Parlia- 
 mentary courtesies is not the least agreeable, I have brought 
 the digest down to the House in order that the honourable 
 member may use it in his speech. If he makes good use of it, 
 his speech will be one unrivalled for statistical research, and 
 the only misfortune will be that his facts and figures will en- 
 tirely refute all his foregone conclusions. 
 
 I venture now. Sir, to call the attention of the House to the 
 nature of a poor-law. I have before this taken the liberty of 
 saying that a poor-law was a law which might be vindicated on 
 two principles — either as a matter of police or as a matter of 
 social duty. If you regard it as a matter of police, if it be the 
 interest of society that, by providing for those in want, society 
 should be secure from the consequences of violence and rapine, 
 it is clearly the interest of all, and it should be supported by 
 all. But if you take the higher motive, and consider the 
 maintenance of the poor, as we do in England, a social duty, 
 then it is the duty of all, according to their means ; and there- 
 
270 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 fore it ought not to be a tax charged on one kind of property. 
 Everyone knows, however, that it is a tax charged on one kind 
 of property. I will not enter into any wearisome inquiry to 
 ascertain the relative amount of property subject to it, and the 
 amount of property privileged and exempted from it. Never 
 mind whether it is one-fourth or whether it is one-third of the 
 income of the country ; never mind whether 80,000,000Z. or 
 60,000,000L bear the charge which 240,000,000?. ought to 
 bear ; the great fact remains, that the vast majority of the 
 property of the country does not fulfil the social duty which all 
 acknowledge. Now, there are. Sir, I know, very grave objec- 
 tions to remedial measures in this behalf, and, indeed, it is not 
 possible to conceive how such flagrant injustice could have 
 flourished so long, were not the difficulty in removing it con- 
 siderable. In the first place, every one is afraid of interfering 
 with or disturbing that happy system of local government of 
 which we have so much reason to be proud, and which has 
 been the source of so much public happiness. 
 
 I never happen to speak on this subject to any person of great 
 property not connected with the land but I find him eloquent 
 on the blessings of that system. Ask any fortunate possessor 
 of 30,000L or 40,000L per annum in the sweet simplicity of the 
 Three per Cents, if he does not think he ought to contribute 
 proportionately to the relief of the poor, and he will tell you 
 that abstractedly he admits the justice of it, but fears lest in 
 doing so he might endanger our happy system of self-govern- 
 ment. I frankly admit I should myself be unwilling to support 
 any proposition which could endanger that system ; but I cannot 
 admit the solution of the problem is impossible that shall 
 reconcile local management with imperial taxation, though I 
 confess that in attempting to solve it the law of settlement 
 must be determined for ever. But there is another objection 
 against offering any relief as to the present distribution of the 
 taxes levied under the poor-law, and it is rather a popular ob- 
 jection also. It is said, and has been recently repeated, with no 
 novelty of assertion, but with some authority, that land in the 
 country has been inherited or otherwise acquired subject to 
 this charge. That, I observe, is a remark which always tells, 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1850. 2/1 
 
 and which perplexes if it does not convince, but with respect to 
 which there is one simple but sufficient observation — it is not 
 true. In the first place, it clearly is not true as regards Ireland. 
 The land of that country was not inherited or acquired subject 
 to poor-rates. It is clear, again, it is not true with regard to 
 another of Her Majesty's kingdoms. The land of Scotland was 
 not inherited or acquired subject to poor-rates. But neither 
 is it true with respect to very considerable portions of the land 
 of England. The House would be surprised, if they investi- 
 gated this topic, at the number of very considerable estates, and 
 of some less important but not less interesting tenures — yeoman 
 estates^which were not originally subject to this charge. 
 
 I had intended giving some of the names of those proper- 
 ties, but refrain from doing so because the list would be imper- 
 fect, and would therefore only lead to erroneous conclusions. 
 But, Sir, I cannot forget that I am standing opposite the noble 
 lord, the son of one of our greatest houses— of a house which, 
 I am willing to admit, has exercised its vast possessions gene- 
 rally for the honour and dignity of England — which certainly 
 did not inherit or otherwise acquire those vast possessions 
 subject to the provisions of the forty-third of Elizabeth. As a 
 matter of fact, therefore, this assertion is not true. But as a 
 matter of principle, is it just ? I am not disposed to assent to 
 the principle that because an estate has been inherited or 
 acquired subject to taxation which is impolitic, the tax is to be 
 retained because it is inherited. If we are of opinion that the 
 land of England should, under existing circumstances of un- 
 limited competition, be as exempt as possible from peculiar 
 taxation, I hold that we should take every fitting occasion to 
 relieve it from that peculiar taxation. But advancing a step 
 further, if you maintain these estates were inherited subject to 
 the impost, I miust make up accounts on both sides, and ascer- 
 tain whether this property was not inherited and acquired 
 subject to other laws which gave it an adventitious value ; 
 whether there were not laws to that effect which for a long 
 series of Parliaments found favour with you — whether there 
 may not be cases of a man's purchasing an estate because the 
 Legislatmre had for centuries secured him a certain market for 
 
272 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 his produce, and not only secured a market, but passed laws 
 which offered a bonus for the exportation of his produce. I 
 might, when you urge that poor-rates are an inherited impost, 
 reply that the legislative advantages he inherited he also found 
 ratified by consenting senates in succession, and that those 
 advantages you suddenly, and in a manner he was least pre- 
 pared for, deprived him of. The two arguments, then, gene- 
 rally brought forward on this question — first, the risk you incur 
 of disturbing our local administration if you attempt to give 
 relief to the oppressed property ; and, secondly, that the pro- 
 perty seeking relief has been acquired subject to these charges — 
 I have referred to merely because I thought the present a fair 
 opportunity for refuting them, and not because I am interested 
 in refuting those propositions, inasmuch as the measures I shall 
 submit to you are not open to either of these objections. 
 
 I think. Sir, the time has come, as I ventured to intimate it 
 would, when we must seriously consider whether we cannot 
 adapt the position of all those classes connected with the land, 
 so far as regards taxation, to the new circumstances in which 
 Parliament has placed them. We do not, on this side of the 
 House, relinquish one jot of the opinions we have ever main- 
 tained on this subject, and I have therefore now only to repeat 
 what I have said upon former occasions, that when the fitting 
 opportunity may offer we shall be as fully prepared as you to 
 act upon our convictions ; but now, accepting your legislation as 
 a fact ; believing that there is in this House a pledged majority 
 prepared to act upon those principles of legislation ; and believ- 
 ing that those principles are deeply injurious to the interests of 
 those whom we have the honour to represent in this House, 
 and whom we wish to relieve, we propose now to enter upon a 
 series of remedial measures, which may mitigate their suffer- 
 ings, but which are foubded on principles of political justice, 
 which you cannot deny, and which are in conformity with those 
 principles of economic science which you have adopted as the 
 basis of your legislation. . In the course of last year, when I 
 submitted a motion to this House, the object of which was for 
 the land to obtain some relief from the pressure of locEil tax- 
 ation, I was told that my design was too vast, and I was assured 
 
AaRICULTURAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1850. 273 
 
 that the state of the Treasury at that time would not permit 
 the Government even to consider any such proposition. I hope 
 that I shall not be told now that my design is too limited, see- 
 ing that I have now confined myself to only one part of the 
 wide field over which my view has previously extended. Cir- 
 cumscribed, then, within my present boundary, I would hope 
 that the Grovemment would support me if the propositions 
 which I make be not only just, but essentially practicable. And 
 now, with respect to those propositions: I propose to move 
 several resolutions, if we get into committee, as I hope we may, 
 which would lay the foundation of legislative measures connected 
 with the poor-rate calculated to mitigate the distress and de- 
 pression of the agricultural classes — a species of distress and 
 depression which, it is agreed, cannot, like commercial distress 
 and depression, be described as a ' passing cloud.' 
 
 If we get into committee, as I hope and earnestly wish may 
 be the result of my motion, the first resolution which I shall 
 propose to the Committee would be that a sum, not inconsider- 
 able, should be remitted to the owners of real property — a re- 
 mission which would certainly not be open to either of the 
 objections which I have already considered and answered. The 
 first point which I propose to consider in committee is that 
 class of charges connected with the poor-law which are known 
 by the name of establishment charges. It is perfectly well 
 known that these charges are not necessarily connected with 
 local administration, and virtually are almost entirely inde- 
 pendent of it ; such a change would have no bearing whatever 
 upon our admirable system of local government — that system 
 would remain intact, its machinery unaltered, its chain of checks 
 and control as before. I shall propose, then, that from the 25th 
 of March, 1860, the establishment charges for the rehef of the 
 poor of the United Kingdom should be defrayed out of the 
 , general revenue of the State. This first vote, then, would have 
 the effect of diminishing local burdens to the extent of little 
 under 1,500,000L sterling. Now, it is important not to forget 
 that while those establishment charges are barely subject to 
 local government, and while in dealing with them we leave the 
 general fund for indoor and outdoor relief to be derived fromi 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
274 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 the same sources, and administered in the same manner and by 
 the same hands, as heretofore, no one can attempt to contend 
 that the burden of the establishment charges have been in- 
 herited or acquired with the estates which the owners of land now 
 hold. The time at which those charges were created is not so 
 much within the memory of the oldest inhabitant of this House 
 as rather of the youngest. 
 
 The second resolution which I shall put before the Com- 
 mittee, if I succeed with my present motion, will be one in 
 which I shall venture to deal with all rates which are raised by, 
 the machinery of the poor-law, but which have absolutely no- 
 thing to do with the maintenance of the poor, and which it is 
 a flagrant injustice to add to the taxes for the support of the 
 poor, and to levy oflf those who are already burdened to excess, 
 by not only maintaining the poor, but paying all other local 
 taxes besides. Some years ago the House passed an act for a 
 general registration of births and deaths, the expense of main- 
 taining which amounts to 60,000i. a year ; and the task of de- 
 fraying that annual expenditure was imposed upon real property 
 alone. It was an easy way of dealing with the matter, by which 
 you may go on ad mjinitum augmenting the weight of local 
 taxation on one species of property. Next came the charges of 
 preparing the jury and burgess lists — somewhere about 24,000L 
 a year — and the bill was at once handed over to the Poor Law 
 Commissioners, and the burden laid upon real property, to be 
 raised by the same convenient machinery, the poor-rate. This 
 was followed by the sanitary alarm, and Parliament could not 
 help giving its instant attention to the causes of that alarm, 
 and the means of their rempval, and therefore we h^ve had 
 Nuisances Acts and Sanitary Acts ; and in the regular course 
 of such events the cost of those measures, which amounted to 
 a considerable sum, was raised in the same way, and from the 
 same quarter. 
 
 I should quite weary the 'House were I to proceed with the 
 long catalogue of successive burdens heaped upon the land. 
 There is the Vaccination Act, the Parochial Assessments Act — 
 in short, the aggregate of these miscellaneous charges can 
 scarcely be estimated at less than 500,000?. for England, and 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1860. 275 
 
 probably 700,000i. per annum for the whole of the United 
 Kingdom, There surely is no reason why the real property 
 of the country should bear all these burdens^ and this mode of 
 levying them certainly has nothing to do with, nor does it afford 
 any security for, the continuance of that happy state of self- 
 government which honourable gentlemen opposite so highly 
 appreciate; that is already abundantly secured by levying 
 millions upon the suffering land of England. I should propose, 
 then, by my second resolution, that from and after the 25th of 
 March, 1850, all rates, not being rates for the maintenance of 
 the poor, which are levied under and by means of the machinery 
 of the poor-law, should, with the exception of the police and 
 county rates, be defrayed out of the Consolidated Fund ; and I 
 hope that in making such a proposition I shall have the support 
 of the honourable member for Montrose, who at least must 
 admit that my propositions are sufficiently specific. Assuming, 
 then, that I am so fortunate as to carry these resolutions, I 
 shall still have another to propose, I have hitherto proposed 
 to deal with a sum of 2,000,000L, of which I calculate that 
 two-thirds press directly on the suffering land ; and in so doing, 
 I have not asked the House to depart from any of those ancient 
 principles of government which are rightly so much reverenced 
 by us. All I have suggested is, that we should transfer from 
 the land, and from the classes connected with it, imposts of very 
 modern date, which no one pretends on principle the land should 
 endure more than other property. 
 
 The third resolution which I shall propose will be that from 
 the same day, viz, the 25th of March, 1850, the cost of main- 
 taining and providing for the casual poor of this country shall 
 be transferred to and defrayed out of the general revenue of the 
 United Kingdom, The House will remember that the casual 
 poor are not at present a parochial charge. They are already 
 supported in England by a Union Eate. This third resolution, 
 from the difference in the law, would not apply to Ireland ; but 
 to Scotland it would be a very considerable relief. These, then, 
 are the resolutions, the expediency of which I propose to move 
 in Committee, I cannot but think that there is much to be 
 said in favour of them : they are just ; they are essentially 
 
 T 2 
 
276 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 practicable. They require no new, they destroy no old, machinery; 
 and the expenses of them may be defrayed from that balance 
 in the Exchequer . of which we have heard much and hope 
 more. Acting with my friends in this matter, I cannot but 
 regard it as a congratulatory circumstance that the elements of 
 controversy are very slightly mingled with this proposition. 
 
 The Finance Minister, on the present occasion, cannot come 
 before us to plead in forma 'pauperis. But these intended reso- 
 lutions have, I think, other recommendations than their justice 
 and their practicability. They are eminently conciliatory. The 
 First Minister says we were in error in assuming, on the first 
 night of the session, that there was no sympathy on the part 
 of the Grovernment with the sufferings of the agricultural classes. 
 I willingly believe him. The noble lord has before this shown, 
 and naturally feels, a sympathy with the agricultural classes. 
 Their distresses are now severe. You cannot alleviate these 
 distresses by referring, as some of the noble lord's colleagues 
 have done, to the otherwise rampant prosperity of universal 
 England. I will not say on this occasion that that prosperity 
 has been obtained at the expense of the agricultural interests, 
 or through the agency of their distress, but it seems to have a 
 suspicious concomitance with those incidents. This, I trust, is 
 not the tone the noble lord will adopt. I ask him in acceding 
 to this motion to make no sacrifice of his principles, or in any 
 way to compromise his previous policy. It is a happy occasion 
 when he may maintain that policy, and yet evince his consider- 
 ation for the suiFerings of powerful and loyal classes. The noble 
 lord may say, 'I have unbroken faith in the industrial doctrines 
 which I have upheld in this House. I believe the practice of 
 those doctrines ife the real cause of the great and general pro- 
 sperity which England at the present moment enjoys. But I 
 deeply deplore the depression and distress of the agricultural 
 classes. They are classes second to none in importance. I 
 know, and I myself before have acknowledged, that they endure 
 peculiar burdens, from which the other and the prospering 
 classes are exempt ; but until now I had not encountered the 
 well-considered means of even their partial removal ; and I am 
 happy, as a practical statesman, to acknowledge that it is in the 
 
AGRICULTUEAX DISTKESS, FEBRUARY 1850. 277 
 
 power of Grovernment and Parliament to mitigate their distress 
 by the redress of these grievances,' 
 
 Sir, I can conceive nothing more dignified, more politic, and 
 more consistent than such a course on the part of the First 
 Minister. I cannot believe that he will be withheld from giving 
 his sanction to these measures because they are brought forward 
 by a political opponent. I have told the noble lord before this, 
 I repeat it now, that on this subject of the land we have no 
 party politics.' Let the noble lord, or any other minister, do 
 justice to the land, and he will receive from these benches a 
 powerful, a cordial, a disinterested support. And if, with his 
 assistance, we carry this motion to-night, I can assure him that 
 it will not be on this side of the House that the result will be 
 esteemed a party triumph. But it is not only to the Govern- 
 ment that before the division is called I would make an appeal. 
 I entreat the House itself well to weigh the consequences of the 
 adoption or the refusal of these claims. It has been truly said 
 that it is impossible to exaggerate the agitation which prevails 
 out of doors with respect to this agricultural suffering. The 
 honourable member for the West Eiding himself acknowledged, 
 the other night, that since the Eeform Bill there has been no 
 excitement equal to it. But what is its chief characteristic ? 
 Let me entreat the House to observe what is the chief charac- 
 teristic of this agitation. Is it not an expression of opinion 
 that appeals to this House are hopeless ? That in this House 
 there is no sympathy with agricultural suffering ? Why what 
 is that but a want of confidence in the institutions of the 
 country ? (Mr. Cobden : Hear, hear !) The honourable 
 gentleman cheers as if I sanctioned such doctrines. I have 
 never sanctioned the expression of such feelings ; I never used 
 language elsewhere which I have not been ready to repeat in 
 this House. I never said one thing in one place, and another 
 in another. I have confidence in the justice and wisdom of the 
 House of Commons although I sit with the minority. I have 
 expressed that confidence in other places : I never, indeed, sup- 
 posed that the House would come forward and cancel all their 
 convictions, to which the majority had probably arrived after 
 long and painful deliberation ; but, remembering what the 
 
278 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 House did on the subject of the Sugar Bill, two years ago, I 
 have expressed the conviction that I earnestly entertain, that 
 this House, instead of being an assembly with a deaf ear and a 
 callous heart to the sufferings of the agricultural body, would, 
 on the contrary, be found to be an assembly prompt to express 
 sympathy, prompt to repair, if it might be, even the injury, 
 necessary in the main as they might think it, which they had 
 entailed on the agricultural classes of the country. I feel that 
 conviction now ; I cannot believe that, in the ptesent state of 
 the country, when propositions are brought forward, as I think, 
 with so much moderation, in a spirit of justice, urged, I hope, 
 with temper — I cannot conceive that we shall be met with any 
 heartless opposition. 
 
 I hardly know what arguments we are to encounter. All 
 the usual ones to which I have referred are entirely shut 
 out from this discussion. All they can say is, that ' we ask 
 so little, and that that little is so easy to be granted.' We 
 may, indeed, be told, as we have been told before, that we 
 who are the advocates of a protective system ought to be con- 
 tent with nothing less than a recurrence to that system in justice 
 to our constituents. Well, that is a style of objection that, 
 with great respect to honourable gentlemen, I shall never con- 
 descend to reply to. I have that confidence in the good sense 
 of the English people that, while I believe they are prepared, 
 when the constitution gives them the opportunity, to vindicate 
 the industrial principles which they think ought to prevail, yet 
 in this House, where we are met by a pledged majority, which 
 will scarcely listen to a discussion of that nature, they will deem 
 we are only doing our duty, we are only consulting their interests 
 in taking every opportunity to alleviate their burdens, in trying 
 to devise remedies for their sufferings, and if we cannot accom- 
 plish immediately any great financial result, at least achieving 
 this great political purpose, that we may teach them not to 
 despair of the institutions of their country. 
 
279 
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, February 11, 1851.1 
 
 [In 1851 tlie distress of the agricultural classes was acknowledged 
 in the Queen's Speech : and when on the above date Mr. Disraeli 
 moved that ministers should be called on to introduce some remedial 
 measures in conformity with the language which they had advised 
 Her Majesty to adopt, their former majority of twenty-one was found 
 to have sunk to fourteen; the numbers being 267 against 281. Mr. 
 Gladstone neither spoke nor voted on this occasion. But the result 
 was thought to have accelerated the resignation of Lord John 
 Russell.] 
 
 ME. DISRAELI moved : — ' That the severe distress which con- 
 tinues to exist in the United Kingdom among that im- 
 portant class of Her Majesty's subjects the owners and occupiers 
 of land, and which is justly lamented in Her Majesty's Speech, 
 renders it the duty of Her Majesty's ministers to introduce 
 without delay such measures as may be most effectual for the 
 relief thereof.' He then proceeded : — 
 
 Mr. Speaker, a condition of general prosperity in a country 
 concurrent with the continued depression of a most important 
 class of the community appears to me to be a conjuncture which 
 should make a minister reflect ; but if such a combination of 
 circumstances can be brought about by legislation which has at 
 the same time produced the general prosperity and the particu- 
 lar depression, I think the subject becomes one which merits 
 not only the consideration of cabinets, but also the deliberation 
 of Parliament. These remarks, I think, apply to the present 
 condition of the owners and occupiers of land in the United 
 Kingdom. It was at first my intention to have offered to the 
 House evidence now in my possession as to that present condition. 
 I would have offered to the House evidence afforded by men in 
 
 • This apeecli is reprinted from Hansard's Delates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
280 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OE ^BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 various parts of the kingdom, and who are widely and exten- 
 sively engaged in the cultivation of the soil — men who are in 
 their class of the highest reputation and merit (many of them 
 known to members on both sides of the House) in Scotland and 
 in Ireland, as well as in England. I feel, generally speaking, 
 that there is an objection to such evidence, however respectable 
 and however supported by the names of those who offer their 
 testimony. I feel that there is a general objection to such 
 evidence being offered in Parliamentary discussion, because it 
 is not subjected to cross-examination, and if brought forward 
 by a private member of the House does not bear the stamp of 
 official authority. Trusting, however, to the high character of 
 that evidence, I should have felt it my duty to trouble the 
 House at some length on this head, but for the admission in 
 the Speech from the Throne and from Her Majesty's ministers. 
 They declare that there are difHeulties still felt by these classes 
 of Her Majesty's subjects who are owners and occupiers of land. 
 These admissions render it no longer necessary to dwell upon 
 that evidence. They will curtail the observations I have to 
 offer to the House, and will save me from making remarks 
 which might bear a wearisome character. I think I may say, 
 without any exaggeration, that the fact of the co-existence of 
 great and continued depression among the owners and occupiers 
 of the soil of the United Kingdom, which is not contested by 
 gentlemen on either side of the House, whatever may be their 
 opinion as to the cause or as to the policy which has produced 
 the consequences — I think that this concurrence of what is 
 called general prosperity and particular distress is upriina facie 
 reason why we should inquire into the cause of that particular dis- 
 tress. If there be an impression that the same cause has pro- 
 duced the prosperity and the distress, then that is an additional 
 reason why the House of Commons should enter upon an investi- 
 gation such as I propose to them. I think there is a third reason 
 why we should approach this discussion with a feeHng that it 
 would be becoming us all patiently and impartially to hear those 
 who have to offer an opinion on this important subject ; and that 
 is, I may venture to say, that the consequences of our recent legis- 
 lation, as far as regards the owners and occupiers of land were 
 
.AGEICULTUEAX DISTRESS, FEBEUAEY 1851. 281 
 
 not foreseen by the authors of that legislation or its principal 
 favourers and promoters on the other side of the House. 
 
 I remember five years ago— and five years is a considerable 
 passage of time, sufficient at least to allow us all to approach 
 this subject with unimpassioned feelings ; a sufficient progress 
 of time to have brought experience with it as to some of the 
 consequences that then occurred — I remember five years ago, 
 that eminent man whose place I now unworthily occupy, and 
 whose loss I never more deplore than when I have to discharge 
 those duties which his vehement and indefatigable spirit would 
 much more satisfactorily perform — I remember a very impor- 
 tant question being then put by him to the First Minister of the 
 Crown, who then proposed a repeal of the Corn Laws. Lord 
 George Bentinck, early in the session of 1846, and before he 
 addressed himself to the question which occupied him after- 
 wards so much and so seriously, inquired of Sir Eobert Peel 
 whether he had taken into consideration the effect of a repeal 
 of the Corn Laws on the commutation of tithes. He reminded 
 the minister that in the last seven years the average which the 
 occupiers of the soil paid as tithes was 58s. 8d. the quarter — 
 that, assiiming the consequences of the change would be to 
 reduce the price of the quarter of wheat then 58s. 8d., the 
 existing average, to 45s., he reminded the minister that in the 
 next seven years the farmer would have to work down the 
 average to 45s., and he asked him whether he had anticipated 
 any such consequences, and whether he had prepared a measure 
 to lighten the burden on the cultivators of the soil. The answer 
 of Sir Eobert Peel, I remember it well — but it is due to him to 
 give it in his own words. Sir Eobert Peel replied, ' that he 
 was not prepared to make any alteration as to tithes, as he did 
 not believe there would be any material alteration in the price 
 of wheait.' Now, Sir Eobert Peel lived to change his opinion 
 on that point, for most of us would be familiar with the circular 
 he afterwards addressed to his tenantry, in which he stated the 
 price of wheat as lower than had been anticipated by Lord 
 George Bentinck, and gave his opinion that there was no pros- 
 pect of any increase in that price. Nor were these sanguine 
 views as to the moderate effect of the new legislation confined 
 
282 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 to the eminent person who presided over that cabinet. It was 
 one in which the most distinguished members of it participated. 
 
 When we were accustomed to dwell on the probably ruinous 
 price of wheat from the unrestricted importation of foreign 
 agricultural produce, we were accustomed to be asked — I will 
 not say, in a taunting manner, because I do not wish to make a 
 single observation which by any possibility can be mistaken or 
 may prevent us from approaching this discussion in so fair and 
 temperate a spirit that we may arrive at the truth ; but we were 
 asked, ' Where we expected the foreign com to come from ? ' 
 Now, that is certainly a question which no gentleman on either 
 side the House would have any difficulty to answer. Nor was 
 the opinions to which I have referred confined to the cabinet 
 that then presided over the country. The ministers who now 
 sit opposite entirely shared in them, I see before me, I think, 
 the right honourable gentleman the Secretary for War (Mr. F. 
 Maule), and I can recollect his addressing this House amid the 
 sympathising cheers of the assembly, and stating that the 
 Scotch farmers had not the slightest fear of competing with the 
 foreign producers ; that he knew of a case that had just occurred 
 at a very considerable farm in East Lothian — the farm of East 
 Barnes, if I remember right ; that it had been recently let, not 
 only at a high rent, but at an increased rent; but then he said the 
 farm had been taken by a man of energy and enterprise. Well, 
 reading a Liberal Scotch paper the other day, the name of East 
 Barnes caught my eye, arid there I found that the proprietor of 
 this farm of East Barnes — his name was Mr. Mitchell Day — in a 
 very proper spirit and acting in a proper manner, had reduced 
 the rent of the man of energy and enterprise by no less a sum 
 than 6501. This shows that even a Scotch farmer is liable to 
 error as well hs an English farmer. 
 
 There is a minister whose opinion upon such subjects would 
 naturally very considerably influence the House, who has, of all 
 of them, shown the least reserve upon the point. If the san- 
 guine statements and cheering calculations of the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer ' could have compensated for the absence even of 
 protection, they have not been spared, but have been extended 
 ' Sir Charles Wood, 
 
AGEICULTUBAL DISTEESS, FEBEUAEY 1851. 283 
 
 to the owners and occupiers of the soil with an exuberant gene- 
 rosity. He was not only always hopeful, but he always an- 
 nounced that the consequences which he confessed he did not 
 foresee were only the results of what he called exceptional 
 causes. Now the harvest was short; now it was exuberant; 
 but whether plentiful or whether sterile, unfortunately for the 
 owners and occupiers of the soil, whose difficulties continued — 
 difficulties which are now recognised by our Sovereign — un- 
 fortunately for that important class of Her Majesty's subjects, 
 the result was always the same. Whether it were peace, 
 or whether it were war, whether the Continent were in a state 
 of convulsion or in a state of tranquillity, the same effect was 
 always produced in Mark Lane. But the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer not only acccounted for this by what he called ex- 
 ceptional circumstances, but he always proved by ample argu- 
 ments, and by what he called an appeal to facts, that these cir- 
 cumstances would not long influence the market. Last year, 
 when, with reference to a specific proposition for their relief, I 
 brought before the House the condition of the occupiers of land, 
 that important class of Her Majesty's subjects, the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, for reasons which we all deplored, was then 
 absent. But in 1848, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was 
 present, and never did he favour the House with a more suc- 
 cessful exposition of economical principles, or carry away, in the 
 opinions of his supporters, more laurels than on that occasion. 
 It was the occasion when I first placed in its proper light the 
 long perverted question of local taxation. 
 
 I will not at this moment enter upon that subject. I shall 
 have occasion to do so hereafter ; at present I wish to refer to 
 the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on that occasion 
 in which, having despatched the question of local burdens — 
 which he did to a great extent, and with his usual ability — he 
 gave us his matured opinions and the matured opinions of the 
 cabinet on what is called agricultural distress. The cabinet 
 acknowledged agricultural distress in 1849, but then, they said, 
 it was partial in its operation, and most vexatious in the south 
 of England ; but that it prevailed in all parts was denied. 
 But they said it could be accounted for, and the cabinet, by the 
 
S84 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 mouth of the Finance Minister, accounted for that distress. 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1849 'was inclined to 
 think that the present depreciation of agricultural produce was 
 very much caused by alarm.' He waxed still stouter in that 
 opinion from the sympathy of his supporters, and in the course 
 of five minutes he actually said, ' that there was abundant 
 reason to believe that the present prices were unduly lowered 
 from the language held at recent agricultural meetings.' I 
 believe he even intimated that the principal cause of the de- 
 pression of agricultural prices was the speeches made by my 
 noble friend the member for Stamford. Now, no one appreciates 
 more than I do the ability of my noble friend, or admires more 
 the sacrifices he makes and the zeal and perseverance with 
 which he devotes himself to the performance of his public 
 duties ; but highly as I may esteem my noble friend in other- 
 respects, I confess I do not ascribe to his eloquence or that of 
 any member of this House the faculty of influencing the prices 
 ill Mark Lane. But the right honourable the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer said there were other things to be considered besides 
 the price of grain. He told us that meat, a most important 
 article, was to be considered ; and while he deplored the price 
 of meat as being low, he assured the House that it was 
 only temporary depression. ' The price is temporarily de- 
 pressed below the average rate.' Now, what was the average 
 rate of 1848, which is the year he then referred to at the be- 
 ginning of 1849, and which he said was a temporary depression, 
 ' which he deplored and anticipated could not last any time ' ? 
 Now, I have the average of 1848, as quoted in the speech of 
 the right honourable gentleman, and I shall take the averages 
 of the year 1850 at the same time, to see whether there was any 
 good reason for the assertion that the depression was only tem- 
 porary. The average- of 1848, of beef, was 4s. 5^d. That was 
 the average of a time of temporary depression ; the average of 
 the year 1850, for beef, was 3s. 8^d., taking the Smithfield 
 official returns. So that after two years of temporary depression 
 we are in a worse condition. The average of 1848, quoted by 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer — which was an unusually low 
 price, according to the right honourable gentleman's statement. 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1851, 285 
 
 and could not remain so low — for mutton was 5s. 2d. ; but in 
 1850, after two years of temporary depression, the price was only 
 4s. 2d. Now, that is a reply to the observations made on this 
 subject in the ingenious speech of the honourable gentleman 
 the member for Norwich, on the first night of our meeting. 
 
 My only object in referring to the opinion of the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer is to show the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 that it may be possible to form an erroneous estimate on this 
 important subject. And therefore, when great men on both 
 sides of the House have formed erroneous opinions, it is still 
 more the duty of the House calmly, deliberately and dis- 
 passionately to see whether it cannot discover the cause of this 
 continued depression, and penetrate the reasons of such an 
 anomaly that, in a country in which, we are told in the Speech 
 from the Throne, there is general prosperity, there should be 
 depression, and continued depression, of one of the most im- 
 portant classes of the community. Well, that was the opinion 
 of the cabinet in 1849 ; but what was the opinion of the 
 cabinet in 1850 ? True it is, my right honourable friend, un- 
 fortunately, was not in his place when the subject was discussed 
 last session. But, in another place, no less a personage than 
 my Lord President favoured the world with the opinions of the 
 cabinet on the important subject of the condition and prospects 
 of the agricultural classes. It was the opinion of a statesman 
 second to none for experience and judgment, and who from his 
 high position and his connection with the soil naturally com- 
 manded the respect and confidence of the agricultural com- 
 mimity. What was the opinion of the Lord President, expressed 
 early in the session in the august assembly of which he is a 
 member, and in order to relieve the anxiety of the depressed 
 owners and occupiers of the soil ? He told the country that 
 the depression was caused only by exceptional circumstances, 
 which would exist probably for many weeks. This eminent 
 statesman — for he really is an eminent statesman — deeply in- 
 terested in the land and sympathising with its cultivation not 
 merely because he is himself a landed proprietor, informed us 
 about this time last year that the idea of continued importa- 
 tions was simply absurd. Well, but when we find men of 
 
2 86 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 such eminent sagacity and experience and such high position ; 
 when we find men, after giving all -the attention they possibly 
 can to the subject and expressing their opinions under a sense 
 of the great responsibility attaching to all that falls from 
 the lips of a minister of the Crown ; when we find that these 
 men have, been equally deceived with their predecessors, it is an 
 additional reason, I think, why the House of Commons, at least, 
 should endeavour to fulfil its duty, and endeavour to arrive at 
 a more sound and sagacious conclusion than that of those who 
 have been very properly looked up to as its models and leaders. 
 
 I do not for a moment accuse the present Grovernment of 
 not having given the greatest attention to the subject. Not 
 merely have we had the opinions on Scotch farming of the right 
 honourable gentleman the Secretary at War ; not merely have 
 we had the repeated opinions upon details becoming his position 
 from the Chancellor of the Exchequer ; it is not merely that we 
 have had the solemn, digested and recorded opinions of the 
 cabinet by persons of the information and influence of my Lord 
 Lansdowne ; but we know that other members of the Govern- 
 ment — not Occupying positions so eminent or fulfilling functions 
 so responsible, but still whose opinions are eminently entitled 
 to consideration on such topics from having devoted their in- 
 telligence to the investigation of this subject — have favoured the 
 House with the conclusions at which they have arrived. A 
 cabinet minister has a great deal to do ; we expect him to take 
 a general view of questions and can scarcely expect him to be 
 master of details, except in reference to the department over 
 which he presides. But there are some members of the 
 Government who devote themselves to economise details and 
 have a particular talent fo^ that branch of political science. 
 For instance, the honourable member for Westbury ; he is a 
 member of the administration, distinguished, and justly disr 
 tinguished, for his statistical acquirements and economical 
 information. I can say this sincerely, that I know no man in 
 the House who is more successful in demonstrating that that 
 which has happened ought not to have occurred. 
 
 We were favoured with the opinions of the honourable mem- 
 ber for Westbury last year in the discussions upon the state and 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1851. 287 
 
 prospects of agriculture. The absence of the right honourable 
 gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer rendered his assist- 
 ance at that moment and 'his interposition in the debate doubly 
 valuable, because the noble lord at the head of the Grovemment, 
 although eminent for his knowledge of constitutional law and 
 his power of historic argument, it is understood has rather a 
 distaste for figures, excusable in a great statesman who naturally 
 devotes himself to great principles. The honourable member 
 for Westbury ' proved, however, that all the importations last 
 year ruined the importers. No man in the world has proved 
 more completely than the honourable member for Westbury 
 that France could not send to England a single quarter of 
 wheat ; and none demonstrated more perfectly that the teem- 
 ing millions of the United States were ready to devour every- 
 thing that was produced in the valley of the Mississippi. Still, 
 notwithstanding the honourable gentleman's calculations — not- 
 withstanding his irrefragable reasoning, the difficulties of that 
 important class, the owners and occupiers of land, continue. 
 Now, the mention of the United States recalls to my mind that 
 there are other great authorities who have touched on this 
 subject — men whose opinions, mind you, have influenced the 
 legislation of this House. There is an honourable gentleman, 
 a county member, representing in a certain degree a consti- 
 tuency, but who is also intimately acquainted with all the 
 interests of commerce, the member for South Lancashire.^ I 
 remember that honourable gentleman telling us that the 
 English producers had no reason to apprehend any importation 
 from the United States, because they had a natural protection 
 in the article of freight. Freight, said the honourable member 
 for South Lancashire — himself a Liverpool merchant, and an 
 American merchant — freight, says he, with reference to the 
 United States, is equal to a protection of lis. the quarter. But 
 how did it turn out ? Is freight from the United States equal 
 to lis. a quarter? On the contrary, the eleventh part of lis, 
 would more correctly describe the result. And then, as for the 
 continent of Europe and the places generally more contiguous 
 than America, it is a fact that with our five years' experience 
 
 ' Mr. James Wilson. 
 ' Mr. W. Brown. 
 
288 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 we have arrived at this result, that freight is no protection 
 whatever, and that the expense of transport, generally speaking, 
 from the continent of Europe does not exceed that from port 
 to port in this country. 
 
 My object in making these observations is not in any way 
 to build on these circumstances an argument in favour of 
 retracing our steps — that is not the topic I am going to intro- 
 duce — or of questioning the propriety of the legislation which 
 these fallacious estimates and calculations have led you to adopt. 
 That legislation may be beneficial and politic ; still, politic as 
 may be the course, beneficial as may be the consequences, you 
 cannot deny that all your estimates have been wrong, and all 
 your calculations erroneous. Well, the moral I draw from these 
 circumstances is this, that, as a great many of our most dis- 
 tinguished men, on both sides, on this subject have unfortu- 
 nately not been so sagacious as we have always given them 
 credit for being, it is a reason that we should approach the 
 subject, not in a spirit of haughtiness and conceit, with an over- 
 weening confidence in our own judgment and accuracy, but 
 that seeing that a most important class in this country is in a 
 state of continued depression, and marking the strange anomaly 
 that that depression continues and is concurrent with what you 
 call general prosperity, and which I accept as such — that you 
 will feel it your duty, in a spirit of more temper and more 
 patience than you have hitherto shown, to investigate this great 
 subject and to take that course which I think justice and policy 
 both recommend you to adopt. 
 
 Now, Sir, there is yet a fourth reason why I think the 
 House should extend to this subject that patient and pains- 
 taking investigation to which I have referred. After five years' 
 experience— after a lapse of time which allows us to look back 
 into the past, I hope, in an unimpassioned spirit — I cannot 
 resist the conclusion that during the great controversy as to 
 the important changes in the legislation to which I have 
 referred great injustice was done to the character and conduct 
 of the British farmer. In all these discussions, and in that 
 preliminary agitation out of doors, representations were made 
 to an excited and perplexed community which, unfortunately 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTRESS, FEBEUAEY 1851. 289 
 
 although most unjustly, conveyed the impression that the 
 British farmer was an unskilled and a slothful man ; a want of 
 energy, and a want of enterprise, were accusations by turns 
 thrown in his face — imputations from which scarcely anyone at 
 last dared to vindicate him. True it is, there were some great 
 facts which those who resisted the abrogation of the late law 
 regulating the importation of foreign agricultural produce — 
 there were some great facts of which they ventured to remind 
 the House even at that moment of passion. It could not be 
 denied that under the abrogated system, whose virtues I am 
 not now eulogising, and the spirit and effect of which legisla- 
 tion I am not now attempting to vindicate — that is not the 
 subject to which I am going to call the attention of the House 
 — but I may be permitted to say that some great facts were 
 elicited which none denied, although few listened to. The 
 House could not deny that the British farmer, stigmatised as 
 he was, had succeeded in winning from the soil a greater 
 amount of produce than any farmer of any country of any 
 quarter of the globe ; it could not be denied that the acre which 
 at the period of the American war yielded an average of twenty 
 bushels of wheat as its produce, yielded at the time that the 
 Corn Law was repealed an average of thirty-two bushels. It 
 could not be denied, because the evidence was on the table of 
 the House — it could not be denied that in the quarter of a 
 century that had elapsed between 1821 and 1846 the population 
 of this country had increased at the rate of 32 per cent., while 
 the produce of wheat had increased at the rate of 64 per cent. 
 It could not be denied that those men who were daily and 
 unjustly told that they were so deficient in energy and enter- 
 prise had themselves, in 1845, when not one of them dreamed 
 that their protection would be withdrawn, imported from the 
 remote coasts of the Pacific a curious, novel and most valuable 
 manure to the amount of 4,000,000 cwt. Sir, these were great 
 facts which could not be denied. What wonder that these men 
 should have covered with exuberant crops the kingdom of Scot- 
 land, notwithstanding its stern soil and sullen skies ; that they 
 should have cultivated Salisbury Plain, as had been said by the 
 honourable member for Westbury, like a garden ; that they 
 TOL. I. u 
 
290 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 should have clothed with rich harvests the sands of Norfolk, the 
 fens of Cambridge, and the morasses of Lincolnshire ? Let us, 
 after five years' experieiice, not refuse to do justice to these 
 maligned characters. For remember how these men, who were 
 suddenly called upon to compete with the foreign produce, 
 were counselled to act, and what they were told was to be their 
 compensation for the severe trial to which they were exposed. 
 It was to be increased production of the soil. 
 
 I remember that eminent minister who proposed that great 
 change — I doubt not, from what he believed to be an irresis- 
 tible and inevitable necessity, and which I have no doubt he 
 did not propose without some pangs for the possible sufferings 
 of a class who were wont to look up to him with confidence and 
 regard — I remember his saying, it was in the increased pro- 
 duction of the soil the British farmer would find his compensa- 
 tion, and he had such confidence in the progress of science and 
 the energy of that class of men that he did not doubt they 
 would be able to baffle and beat down all the difficulties they 
 had to contend with. I remember Sir Eobert Peel saying that 
 no man could turn over the ' Agricultural Chemistry ' of Liebig 
 who would not feel that the productive powers of the soil had 
 been, after all, but feebly developed. Now, what was the prime 
 remedy in the work of Mr. Liebig ? It was the application of 
 certain mineral manures to the soil, by which the British 
 farmer would so increase his produce as to obtain compensation 
 for the unequal competition to which the change of om laws 
 subjected him. But what has occurred ? Why, that this 
 famous theory of mineral manures has utterly broken down and 
 been succeeded by no other recognised as effectual. The whole 
 is admitted to have been founded on an enormous fallacy, and 
 utterly unproductive of the results anticipated. 
 
 Sir, I say this also is a circumstance which in the discussion 
 of this question should teach us to be charitable and to approach 
 the consideration of the condition of the soil in a very different 
 spirit to that which we have hitherto extended to it. I 
 remember when this great controversy began actively in this 
 House, it was always treated by us as a farmers' question ; and 
 it was incessantly thrown into our teeth by our adversaries that 
 
AamCULTUEAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1851. 291 
 
 it was not a farmers' but a landlords' question. Now, I should 
 have thought that the greater diffusion of economical knowledge 
 which at present exists would have put an end to this fallacy. 
 But from some observations which I have recently met, by 
 persons of great authority on those subjects, I find it is still 
 believed that rent is a sort of arbitrary exaction, a kind of 
 feudal tallagium, which is the reward of conquest, and that when 
 we talk of the depression and diflficulties of the occupiers of 
 land, if the owners of the soil were prepared to sacrifice what 
 is called rent all those difficulties would vanish. Sir, I think 
 the time has arrived when we ought to terminate that fallacy 
 as well as many others. I should think that a majority on 
 either side of the House will agree with me that, in an ancient 
 country where there is a great breadth of land in cultivation, 
 and a great variety of soils, rent is an economical result as 
 certain and as inevitable as the harvest is a natural result after 
 the seed-time. The only way you can terminate rent is to 
 throw every soil out of cultivation but the very best ; and the 
 only way you can prevent the best paying rent is by loading it 
 with such an amount of burdens and imposts that after the cost 
 of production nothing is left but the average return of profit 
 for the capital employed. Now, if I have stated this correctly 
 — if that be a statement which science sanctions, and which no 
 man with a regard to science will presume to question — I want 
 to know what becomes of that barbarous outcry against rent 
 which we hear from persons of great authority on this question ; 
 and whether it is not a vulgar error we are circulating in that 
 community we should lead and enlighten, when we hold out to 
 the masses that any attempt to seek relief from the distress 
 affecting the owners and occupiers of the soil is merely an 
 attempt to maintain rent in England ? Far from this, I think 
 the whole tendency of our laws is to blot out one class of the 
 agricultural hierarchy, and that the farmers. I think the ten- 
 dency of our laws is very much to bring the agricultural com- 
 munity again to two classes — namely, the proprietor and the 
 peasant. Is that a result which the House or any section of it 
 desires ? 
 
 Sir, I was always taught to believe, and I most sincerely do 
 
 V 2 
 
292 SPEECHES OE THE EARL OF BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 believe, that the middle class is the best, as it is the best eon- 
 sequence of civilisation. You are making war upon a most 
 considerable and not the least respectable portion of the great 
 middle class ; and therefore, when I am told this is a landlords' 
 question, I have offered you some suggestions which I hope 
 may induce you to believe that, both economically and socially, 
 this is a fallacy. Sir, I trust the House will excuse me having 
 made these somewhat preliminary observations to the subject 
 to which I shall more strictly adhere in the further remarks I 
 have to offer to its attention. My wish is, to bring the House 
 on both sides to forget the past — not to allow the feelings of a 
 controversy which has now lasted five sessions to confuse the 
 clearness of our judgment ; but in a temperate and impartial 
 spirit to do that which I believe the great body of our fellow- 
 subjects wish us to do— to endeavour to ascertain the cause' of 
 this suffering, and if possible to remedy it. And here. Sir, that 
 there may be no misconception of my object in making this 
 motion, I beg permission to state what my object really is. In 
 the first place, it is not, as we have been recently told with some 
 authority — it is not a debate upon the condition of the people. 
 I find the condition of the people described in the paragraphs 
 of the Speech from the Throne which have just been read to the 
 House. I accept that description of their condition ; it is one of 
 general prosperity concurrent with the suffering of a par- 
 ticular class. 
 
 Do not let me be met to-night, then, with Eeports of Poor 
 Law Commissioners or Registrars Greneral. Do not prove to 
 me to-night that pauperism has decreased, and marriages have 
 increased. They are the facts that prove my case, and all evi- 
 dence of that kind should be delivered from this box and not 
 from the one opposite. I am also extremely anxious that I 
 should obtain no support to-night on false pretences, or incur 
 any opposition from the same cause. I trust, for example, no 
 honourable gentleman will rise to-night and say that this 
 motion is a direct or an indirect attack upon the new commer- 
 cial system. Far from it : it is in consequence of your new 
 commercial system that I have felt it my duty to make this 
 motion and to adapt, if I can, the position of the owners and 
 
AGRICULTUBAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1851. 293 
 
 occupiers of the soil to that new commercial system. Nor let 
 any gentleman support me tO-night under the idea that this is 
 an attempt to bring back protection. It is nothing of the kind. 
 Last year — and I adhere to what I then said on this subject, 
 severely, strictly, even religiously — I said then that I should 
 not in this Parliament make any attempt to bring back the 
 abrogated system of protection, and I gave my reasons for that 
 course. Sir, I deeply deplored at the time the circumstances 
 under which that change took place ; I deeply deplored that the 
 Parliament arid the ministry which were formally, if not virtu- 
 ally, pledged, and, what Was more important, which were in the 
 opinion of the community pledged, to uphold the abrogated 
 system — that the Parliament should have subverted it. Sir, I 
 think under these circumstances there was a clear cause of 
 quarrel between the Parliamient and the constituencies, but I 
 cannot forget that immediately after this great change a 
 general election took place* An opportunity was afforded to the 
 constituencies, even if they had been betrayed, to recall the 
 legislation and annul the abrogation which they deplored. I 
 cannot forget that the agricultmral body in particular were 
 warned by their best and most powerful friend, who is now lost 
 to us, not to lose that opportunity, because it was their only one. 
 I cannot forget that they rejected that counsel, and that, misled 
 by the superficial circumstances of the hour, by prices which 
 were the consequences of a rare accident, they did not support 
 us in the policy we recommended. I cannot consent that the 
 laws regulating the industry of a great nation should be made 
 the shuttlecock of party strife. Sir, I say that if I thought 
 by a chance majority I could bring back that system popularly 
 called protection, I should shrink from doiilg so. That must 
 be done out of this House; and it must be done by no chance 
 majority, but by, if not a unanimous, a very preponderating ex- 
 pression of public opinion ; and no other result can be satisfac- 
 tory to any class or conducive to the public welfare. Honour- 
 able gentlemen, if they condescend to recollect anything, that I 
 have said, will do me the justice to acknowledge that I am only 
 repeating now what I have said before ; so that no man can be 
 in error as to my motives on the policy which I wish to pursue. 
 
294 SPEECHES OF THE EARL' OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 This being premised, I wish to call the attention of the House 
 to those difficulties which Her Majesty in her gracious Speech 
 deeply deplores still to exist in an important class of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 What is the reason, when all other classes are prosperous, 
 that important class should suffer. Why is it that the cultiva- 
 tors of the soil, whom we all recognise to be men of energy and 
 of enterprise — whose great virtues we now acknowledge — what 
 is the reason that the cultivators of the soil of the United 
 Kingdom cannot compete with the foreign producer? Sir, I 
 believe that the reason why the cultivator of the soil in the 
 United Kingdom is at this moment embarked in a hopeless 
 contest with the cultivators of foreign soils is the weight of 
 taxation to which the cultivator of the soil in England is liable. 
 The taxation of this country generally speaking, though time 
 has mitigated, and circumstances stronger than time have 
 reduced it — the taxation of this country is still universally 
 acknowledged to be heavier than that of other countries. 
 Heavy as it is — heavy as it might be even if it were double the 
 weight — I would not on that ground offer any plea on the part 
 of the owners and occupiers of the soil. Whatever may be the 
 weight of taxation, they are prepared, if it be in their power, to 
 endure their portion of it without a murmur. Whatever the 
 amount of the duties may be on tea, on tobacco, on malt, on 
 sugar, it will be admitted that the agricultural classes bear their 
 quota of the burden. As to what that share may be I may 
 have an opinion of my own, but I will not introduce it into this 
 debate ; I will not enter into an attempt to calculate the 
 numerical amount of the classes connected with agriculture and 
 compare them with other classes. I will make no invidious 
 comparisons between bodies which I wish to be emulous and 
 not hostile ; but this you must admit, that, whatever be the 
 weight of your taxation, the agricultural classes bear their fair 
 proportion of it. Unfortunately they bear more. 
 
 What I wish to do to-night is to ask you impartially — if it 
 be not impossible to be impartial in matters of finance — ^to 
 survey your financial system and to see whether it be not a fact 
 that it strains the energies and presses upon the resources of 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTEESS, FEBEUAEY 1851. 295 
 
 the owners and occupiers of the land more — much more — than 
 upon any other classes, to see whether you have not in this 
 country an enormous financial and fiscal system which has been 
 created in consequence of the artificial state in which the 
 agriculture of this country was placed by the legislature of this 
 House. I ask you to see whether any statesman could have ever 
 dreamt of inventing such a system if he had not at his command 
 the industry and capital of a numerous class — perhaps the most 
 numerous in the kingdom — who by the provision of an assured 
 market would be enabled to bear continually a great aggregate 
 burden. I know the extreme difficulty of taking a dispassionate 
 and unprejudiced view of the subject. Unfortunately, we are 
 all from an early age so accustomed to details and so habituated 
 to view our financial system merely in detail that I am not at 
 all smprised the honourable gentlemen opposite should not 
 immediately have come to the conclusions at which I have 
 arrived. But I will endeavour, with their permission, to place 
 the question in such a light that, my object being only to elicit 
 truth, I do not despair of being able to influence even their 
 convictions ; and therefore I will in the first place take a some- 
 what general view of our system of finance. Let us suppose 
 now that an individual without prejudices but possessed of those 
 economical attainments necessary for such a study — let us 
 suppose that such a person had for the first time examined the 
 financial system of England ; let us suppose, that some one of 
 those distinguished foreigners who it is expected will visit our 
 metropolis in the course of the present year, being interested 
 in economical pursuits, and struck with the wealth and energy 
 of England — let us suppose that such a person who may have 
 been Finance Minister in some constitutional government 
 wished to acquire some general idea as to the manner in which 
 the revenue of England is raised. Now, of the great mass of 
 taxation raised from the people of England I will take three 
 items which-are the three most considerable. Altogether they 
 form an amount of nearly 50,000,000?. These 50,000,000t, 
 are produced, first, by external imposts ; secondly, by what is 
 now called inland revenue ; and, thirdly, by local contributions. 
 By your customs, by your excise, and by your local taxation. 
 
296 SPEECHES OE THE EAKL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 nearly 50,000,000L sterling. Now, what is the character of the 
 first class of this taxation ? This distinguished foreigner will 
 learn that nearly one-half is raised from the cultivators of the 
 soil being prohibited from producing a particular crop, or by the 
 Government making it impossible for men to produce another 
 by the great imposts to which they would be subject. If he 
 go to the inland revenue he will observe that more than two- 
 thirds of that inland revenue are raised by a colossal impost 
 upon one crop of the British agriculturist. If he take the third 
 division — namely, local contributions — he will find that, at the 
 most moderate calculation, between 7,000,000L and 8,OOO,O0OZ. 
 and more out of the 13,000, OOOi. are directly paid by the 
 agricultural class, and the whole 13,000,000^. levied from a 
 limited class of the community. Now, these are the principal 
 features which the foreign investigator will observe in our 
 financial system. 
 
 Let us now in detail examine that which we have contem- 
 plated in a wider point of view. I take your customs. One-fourth 
 of them almost is produced by a law that prevents the British 
 cultivator producing a crop of tobacco. And then I shall be 
 told, in extenuation of this extraordinary law, that the land of 
 England is not favourable to the production of tobacco. That 
 is an observation that is stereotyped for a minister of England. 
 But the ingenious foreigner will remember that almost every 
 country in Em-ope does produce tobacco, and that some of it is 
 remarkably good. He must remember that in Holland they 
 produce such good tobacco that it is actually exported to 
 Havannah, where they make cigars of it to be smoked in 
 London. But I might tell him that there are some soils in 
 England eminently adapted for the cultivation of tobacco, and 
 I might tell him that in the sister island especially there were 
 great capabilities for its production. And here I must express 
 my astonishment when I heard the President of the Board of 
 Trade,' some two or three sessions ago, say in this House that 
 the climate and soil of Ireland were not adapted for the growth 
 of tobacco, that not one of the 105 gentlemen from Ireland, who 
 are always telling us that their country is not sufficiently 
 ' Mr. Labouchere. 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTEESS* FEBEUAEY 1861. 297 
 
 represented, rose in his place to contest the minister's state- 
 ment. I should have thought that some of them on the other 
 side of the House must have remembered that tobacco had 
 been cultivated even recently in Ireland tyith great success — 
 in Wexford, in Wicklow, in the King's County, and other 
 districts which I should have thought they might have 
 recollected. I think that they will recollect that an eminent 
 political economist— a supporter of the principles of free trade, 
 and of course therefore an advocate of those laws which restrict 
 British industry — stated that the climate and soil of Ireland 
 were so well adapted for the cultivatioii of tobacco that it would 
 be found impossible to raise the necessary revenue of the 
 country if it were permitted to grow there. I thifik. Sir, that 
 when the Prime Minister deemed it his duty to rise upon the 
 iirst evening when Parliament met and solemnly warn the 
 farmers of England, over the table, that the time had come 
 when they could no longer depend upon the wheat crop, it 
 might have occurred to the noble lord that it was eminently 
 unjust to support laws at the same time which prevented them 
 from producing other crops. And here, by the by, I must 
 beg leave to offer an observation in reference to a remarkable 
 expression made use of by the noble lord the other night, as I 
 was not quick enough to remind him 'of it at the time. I 
 understand the noble lord to say that he deplored the rapid 
 transition that had taken place in respect to the laws affecting 
 com, and he seemed to account for the depression of agriculture 
 by the rapid transition from, the old law to the new one. Now, 
 I confess I do not understand the meaning of this phrase — the 
 state of transition. I imagine that the state of transition is 
 fully accomplished, and that we have now arrived at a fixed 
 state of things. But I am surprised that the noble lord should 
 be the minister to deplore the rapid mode by which this 
 transition was accomplished, because I remember that when 
 the late Grovernment, by what I humbly conceive to have been 
 a very prudent and well-considered arrangement, made that 
 transition gradual, the noble lord found fault with Sir Eobert 
 Peel for prolonging the state of transition the shortness of 
 which he now deplores. I believe that the noble lord was 
 
298 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 actually desirous of forming a ministry on the principle of 
 immediate change, and, what is more, he divided the House on 
 that point. I recollect that there was a division and that the 
 proposition of the Government was carried. If, however, the 
 noble lord voted against his own measure, of course I have 
 nothing to do with that. 
 
 I come now to the second branch of the revenue. Its 
 amount is 15,000,000^, of which more than two- thirds are 
 raised by a colossal impost on one crop of agricultural produce. 
 Who can deny that the barley crop of British agriculture fur- 
 nishes more than two-thirds of our excise ? Now, let me call 
 the attention of the House to the position in which the British 
 farmer is placed in regard to this particular crop. It is the 
 fashion now amongst Prime Ministers to tell the farmer that he 
 must no longer depend upon his wheat crop. I will do the noble 
 lord the justice to say that he is only the repeater, not the 
 originator, of this idea. The noble lord caught it from the 
 other side of the table, as he has caught many other notions ; 
 and the other side of the table caught it from somewhere else. 
 Is it not monstrous that the farmer should be told that he 
 must no longer depend upon the wheat crop, while the law 
 loads him with an enormous tax if he attempt to cultivate the 
 next crop to which he would naturally have recoiu-se ? And 
 remember what this crop is. The minister tells him not to 
 depend upon his wheat crop. There may be, certainly, some 
 wisdom in this advice. There is better wheat in the world than 
 English wheat, however good it may be. But no one can pre- 
 tend that there is anything better than British barley. We 
 are, therefore, no longer to produce wheat, while we maintain 
 laws which restrict the production of barley. We are coun- 
 selled not to produce the crop in which we have successful 
 rival s, while we are prevented from producing the crop in regard 
 to which we fear none. Who can fail to see in all this the 
 influence of a financial system which was framed with reference 
 alone to a protective policy ? Does anyone believe that if the 
 unrestricted competition which now exists had always prevailed, 
 such a restriction as the present malt-tax could ever have oc- 
 curred to the imagination of any minister ? I am not at all 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTRESS, FEBEUAHY 1851. 299 
 
 surprised that eminent men who well weighed these subjects — 
 such a man, for instance, as the right honourable baronet the 
 member for Ripon (Sir J. Graham), who is well acquainted with 
 rural life — should say that if we did away with the Corn Laws 
 the repeal of the malt-tax was inevitable. Every practised 
 agriculturist must at once see the consequences of such a course. 
 But then I am told that if we were to rid ourselves of this 
 impost we sho;jld lose the moixopoly of the malt market. Now, 
 really, in this age, after what we have gone through ; after 
 what we hav& suffered and what we still endure, and what we 
 are prepared to endure, to find any equivalent or compensation 
 in that miserable wreck of casual monopoly is something too 
 preposterous for a moment to think about. But it is not 
 founded on truth. If barley does not bear a voyage, I am 
 quite sure the malt will bear it much worse. If we are not 
 afraid of foreign barley, we need have very little fear of foreign 
 malt. And the best proof of this is that you never get good 
 beer anywhere but in England. How is it that we have a great 
 esport trade in beer if foreign malt be so superior in quality. 
 We obtain in our beer a drawback, it is true, but a most im- 
 perfect one. But we send out our beer in large quantities, and 
 it is the choicest in foreign markets. I confess it does appear 
 to me that the claim of the land, as far as the barley crop is 
 concerned, is complete. Its abstract justice cannot be im- 
 pugned, and to abstract justice the land is now forced by your 
 partial system of legislation. You are counselled not to pro- 
 duce wheat ; while there are laws in existence to restrict the 
 production of barley. Your barley is the best in the world, 
 while your wheat is inferior to that produced in some other 
 countries. 
 
 I touch but lightly on these topics, for my time is limited, 
 trusting to those gentlemen that will follow me in debate to 
 supply my omissions- I have shown you that in regard to your 
 external revenue, nearly one-half is produced by prohibiting in 
 a great degree, and restricting in another degree, the cultivation 
 of the soil of the British farmer, who is nevertheless, by your 
 recent enactments, thrown into competition with the whole 
 world. I have shown you that two-thi],-ds of your iqljand revenue 
 
300 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 are produced by an enormous tax upon a British cultivator of 
 the soil. It becomes me now to consider the remaining branch 
 of the subject, and I will endeavour to do so with the greatest 
 brevity I can command ; but I must throw myself upon the 
 indulgence of the House. It is, Sir, obviously for the advan- 
 tage of the community at large that the subject should be 
 deliberately and amply discussed. I come, then, to the third 
 division of the amount of the revenue of which I am treating — 
 namely, that which is produced by local contribution. Some 
 time has elapsed since I brought before the consideration of 
 the House the whole subject of our local revenue, especially as 
 it affected the land of this country. I took occasion then to 
 place that subject of such vast interest in a just and true light. 
 It is a question, I believe, which had not been before considered 
 in its legitimate aspect and true point of view. Hitherto the 
 subject has been always discussed by rival calculations as to how 
 much our local taxes had been borne by one description and 
 how much by another description of real property. But the 
 question had not been fairly put before the country. This 
 enormous revenue of 13,000,000?. per annum is not a question 
 between town and country, or between a lease and a field, 
 but it is in fact a question whether it should be raised from 
 — according to the most moderate calculations — one-third of 
 the public, and not rather from the whole, the money being 
 expended for purposes of general utility and public advantage. 
 
 Sir, I was not successful in the first motion I made on that 
 subject, nor did I expect -to be successful. I grant that the 
 proposition I made might be styled unreasonable. It was, 
 perhaps, unreasonable to ask the House for ten shillings in the 
 pound of the debt that was owing to the land. But when you 
 are not accustomed to pay debts, such demands are naturally 
 considered to be very rude and unreasonable. The discussion 
 did good, however, and although there was great difficulty in 
 carrying on a discussion of that kind, because then I had to begin 
 at the beginning, to lay down abstruse principles to prove that 
 the support of the poor Avas one of universal obligation, and so 
 forth ; and yet advantage resulted from it, and next year we 
 found the area more limited, and much taken for granted that 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1851. 301 
 
 was previously contested. Sir, I was then unsuccessful in obtain- 
 ing a large, but after all only a partial, measure of relief. But 
 what occurred last year ? I then proposed a measure which 
 was more limited in character, but one which I will say was, if 
 possible, more just ; for I admit, for the sake of discussion, that 
 the objections raised against a larger measure of relief from 
 local burdens — such as a leading to centralisation, increased 
 expenditure, and other evils predicted to follow from it — are of 
 great weight. I may, however, here observe that I cannot see 
 that any of the evils thus described could be greater than the 
 political injustice of making the suffering class of the population 
 pay for all the rest. But, admitting these to be evils of a great 
 character, I contend that I proposed a measure that was open 
 to none of those objections. It was not open to the objection 
 that it was calculated to relieve real property from the imposts 
 it Jiad inherited, because I sought to deal only with those 
 imposts that had been laid upon the land within the memory of 
 every honourable gentleman here. I asked the House whether 
 they thought it consistent with justice — there being a great 
 surplus of revenue — that all those new charges which were laid 
 upon the land should be continued ; and whether we might not 
 relieve the land to that extent from its burdens, those taxes 
 being for public purposes, without interfering with the system 
 of local government and local distribution. I pointed out to 
 the House that of late years a vast number of taxes were thrown 
 upon the poor-rate. For instance, if an elector was to be regis- 
 tered, the expenses were to be placed upon the poor-rate ; and if 
 a child was to be vaccinated, the poor-rate was to be burdened 
 with the cost. There was a variety of these charges thrown for 
 convenience of levy upon the poor-rate, and yet not connected 
 with the relief of the poor. I have before me these several 
 charges, all based upon the poor-rate, without any reason why 
 this rate more than any other rate should defray them. I asked 
 whether it was not a favourable opportunity for the House to 
 take the whole question of these burdens, the injustice of 
 which was now acknowledged, into their consideration. I asked 
 the House whether the surplus revenue should not be so dis- 
 posed of as to prevent the agricultural interest being the only 
 
302 SPEECHES OF THE EABL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 sufferer ; whether it was not a happy opportunity for the House 
 to perform an act of public justice, and for the ministry to show 
 their sympathy for this suffering class. You know the result of 
 that proposition. I do not, however, look back with regret at 
 the discussion that then took place. I may say without vanity 
 that the proposition was temperately conceived, because it was 
 sanctioned by the approbation of a very large party in the 
 House. 
 
 Well, now I ask the House again to consider the position 
 of the land in reference to local taxation. It is an enormous in- 
 justice that one species of property alone should pay 1 3,000,000i. 
 of taxation which should be paid by all. But in our position 
 the grievance is much more aggravated when we remember 
 that out of the 13,000,000L, by even the calculations of our 
 opponents, the land pays between 7,000,OOOL and 8,000,000^ 
 It is not necessary for me to enter into all the varieties of our 
 local taxation : I will allude for illustration only to that dis- 
 cussion on a very limited portion of them which is fresh in the 
 recollection of the House. Since that debate the que'stion has 
 greatly advanced. Originally, I had to discuss the abstract 
 justice of making every class pay equally for the poor-rate. So 
 little advanced was the opinion of the House then, that it was 
 not willing to recognise the principle that the support of the 
 poor was a general obligation. But since last year the question 
 has much advanced. An organ of the Grovemment has given 
 their sentiments on the whole subject before a select Commission 
 of the House of Lords, appointed to consider the laws relating to 
 parochial assessments. It has been justly considered of such 
 importance that the evidence of the Secretary of the Treasury 
 has been printed as an of&cial pamphlet. Now, this is the case 
 of the Grovemment, and I acknowledge that they could not 
 have trusted their case to one more competent to state it. The 
 honourable member for Herefordshire (Mr. C. Lewis') has 
 brought to this question all that power of thought that distin- 
 guishes him in all his pursuits, and that talent for investigation 
 
 ' Afterwards Sir George CDrnewall Lewis, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 
 1855 to 1858 ; Home Secretary, 1859-1861 ; and Secretary for War from 1861 
 to 1863. 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTEESS, FEBEUAEY 1851. 303 
 
 for which he is so particularly marked. And what is the ac- 
 knowledgment of this gentleman ? He has given up the whole 
 question. He acknowledges that, in regard to the general 
 policy of imposing a local rate exclusively on one particular 
 species of property, it is most unjust. I will read his evi- 
 dence : — 
 
 ' With regard to the general policy of imposing local rates 
 exclusively upon one class of property, I am quite prepared 
 to accede to a proposition which is laid down in a letter upon 
 the transfer of local burdens, written by a noble lord,' a member 
 of this committee, which has recently come under my observa- 
 tion. These are the words to' which I refer : " The virtue of the 
 law of Elizabeth once admitted, it must be difficult for a man to 
 affirm that any peculiar description of property should by any 
 vested or inherent principle be exempted from paying its pro- 
 portionate quota to the maintenance of the poor." I am quite 
 prepared to admit that, unless it can be shown that, unless 
 there is some special reason in favour of a local tax limited to 
 real property, it is more fair and equitable to defray the expen- 
 diture out of a national tax which should comprehend all species 
 of property. It seems to me that, whenever any expenditure 
 whatever is proposed, the presumption is in favour of making it 
 a national charge paid out of the national exchequer, and that 
 an exception only can be made from that general rule on ac- 
 count of special circumstances arising in the particular case.' 
 
 And again : — 
 
 * I have already ventured to state to the committee my 
 opinion that, whenever there is a question of defraying any 
 particular charge, the presumption is always in favour of 
 making it a national charge to be defrayed out of the national 
 exchequer.' 
 
 One more passage : — 
 
 ' You state that you are of opinion, looking merely to the 
 justice and equity of the considerations, that it would be more 
 proper to raise the funds for the maintenance of the poor by 
 
 ' Lord Malmesbury. The letter was addressed to the committee, and is to 
 be found among the minutes of evidence. He was for creating a new tax, 
 based upon the Income Tax, to be called the Poor Tax. 
 
304 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OE BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 means of a national tax than by local taxation ; but the prac- 
 tical difficulty of doing so constitutes in your mind the only, 
 though a very formidable, objection ? Yes.' 
 
 This evidence of Mr. C. Lewis may be described as the case 
 of the Grovernment on this important subject of local taxation. 
 "With that ability and depth of investigation which always dis- 
 tinguishes the gentleman, he has arrived at the truth which 
 was scarcely tolerated some years ago — that truth that is not 
 only now recognised in this House, but in the country generally. 
 The basis of the extraordinary and unequal system of local 
 taxation which prevails in this country has been the industry of 
 the land, which the Grovernment know it could safely appeal to, 
 because the law hitherto secured that industry a market. 
 
 I am reminded, by the point to which I have now arrived 
 in this discussion, of a charge which to a certain degree may be 
 deemed a local tax, though it has hitherto been considered in 
 a less limited Kght. I could have wished to treat this part of 
 the subject at some length, but time forbids me. I allude to the 
 subject of tithe. I have recalled to the recollection of the 
 House the inquiry made by Lord Greorge Bentinck, in 1846, 
 as to the effect of the commutation of tithes in the event of a 
 fall in prices of agricultural produce. I need not remind the 
 House that the fall in price was much greater than was assumed 
 by that eminent man. The probable result of the change of the 
 law as conjectured by Lord George Bentinck would be to re- 
 duce the price of the quarter of wheat to 45s. ; it is, however, 
 now reduced as low as .37s. Let me first remind the House of 
 the consequences of the fall of price upon the cultivators of the 
 soil as regards the tithe commutation. The tithe rent charge 
 calculated upon this year 1851, is 96L lis. 5d. for the lOOL, 
 according to the prices of the three crops ending in the year 
 1850. The 96i. lis. 5d. is the rate at which the farmer pays. 
 He receives only 73L 2s. lid. The difference at this moment 
 to the farmer is 23L 8s. 6cZ. on the 100?., and to realise that 
 sum he absolutely has to sell at this price twelve quarters of 
 wheat. Between the tithe charge commuted according to the 
 rate of that law and the present prices of agricultural produce 
 — and I see no prospect of their rising — the farmer has to pay 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTRESS, FEBEUARY 1851. 305 
 
 a forfeit of twelve quarters of wheat. That, the House will 
 recollect, is the effect of the tithe commutation. But I am not 
 going to dwell on that point. The effect of the tithe commuta- 
 tion is, though grievous, transient. But I must remind the 
 House that, totally irrespective of the commutation, the effect 
 of tithes upon the owners and occupiers of the soil has been 
 held by a most eminent political economist — a man whose 
 authority has influenced our legislation in the repeal of the 
 Corn Laws — has been held at a rate of not less than 5 per cent. 
 I am going to read a passage from the work on taxation by 
 Mr. McCulloch. Mr. McCulloch, who was a free trader long 
 before m.any honourable gentlemen opposite were free traders, 
 has written with considerable ability on all subjects of economy, 
 and is particularly happy in a talent for summing up evidence 
 on any economical question. He was a pupil of Mr. Eicardo,' 
 who was a great and original thinker, and once an ornament 
 of this House, and whose untimely end, with that of Mr. 
 Horner'' and Mr. Huskisson,' furnished a dark page in the 
 illustrious annals of the House of Commons. I mention those 
 circumstances that the House may recollect that these are the 
 opinions of Mr. Eicardo and his pupil previous to the repeal of 
 the Corn Laws, as to the effect of tithe, and then I will quote 
 you what was their contemplation of the consequences of that 
 repeal in this respect upon the owners and occupiers of land. 
 This is a sort of subject which unless it be discussed at some 
 length will not be satisfactory to our friends out of doors, and 
 therefore I trust the House will grant me more than usual 
 indulgence. Mr. McCulloch in 1845, echoing the principles of 
 that great man Mr. Eicardo, thus wrote on tithes : — 
 
 ' No branch of manufacturing or commercial industry is 
 subject to a tax at all similar or equivalent to tithe. We have 
 already seen that under the existing regulations, it operates 
 
 ' Mr. Eicaido, member for Portarlington, died of inflammation of the 
 brain, Sept. 11, 1823, in the 52nd year of his age. 
 
 ^ Mr. Horner, who entered the House of Commons in 1807, died in Sept- 
 ember 1817, in his 40th year, of a disease of the lungs said to be of very 
 rare occurrence. 
 
 ' Mr. Huskisson was killed by a looomotire engine in September 1830, 
 while present at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
306 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 partly to increase prices, and partly to increase the rents of the 
 untithed lands ; and we have further seen, that under a system 
 of free trade without duties the present incidence of tithe 
 would be completely changed : and that it would no longer 
 raise either prices or rents, but would fall wholly on the land- 
 lords and occupiers. But we are not to attempt to bring about 
 what is believed to be a great national improvement by shifting 
 the burden borne by the public to a peculiar class. This would 
 be flagrant injustice, to be vindicated only by the most over- 
 whelming necessity. Luckily, however, we have not to deal 
 with any such unreasoning principle : and hence the obligation, 
 in the event of the ports being opened, of imposing a duty on 
 foreign corn sufficient to countervail the tithes.' 
 
 And he then shortly after proceeds : — • 
 
 ' When the commutation is completed, the fixed and invari- 
 able corn rent will be a novel and strongly-marked feature in 
 the economical condition of the kingdom. Had tithe been 
 commuted a century or even half a century since, it would 
 have been a very different matter. But considering the very 
 advanced and peculiar state of the country at the era of the 
 commutation, and the fact that our average prices have been 
 for many years considerably above those of the contiguous con- 
 tinental States, it -is pretty evident that the fixed rate due to 
 the tithe owners may easily come to have a very serious opera- 
 tion on the interests of agriculture, and consequently on those 
 of the public. We have every confidence in the national re- 
 sources, and in the elasticity and buoyancy of the national 
 industry. But we are not on that account to shut our eyes to 
 possible contingencies. And at all events, the fact of the land 
 being burdened with a fixed corn rent, ascertained when culti- 
 vation was far advanced, is far too momentous to be forgotten 
 or overlooked in dealing with restriction on importation.' 
 
 These were the opinions of Mr. McCulloch in 1845, himself 
 most favourable to the removal of restrictions -on importation, 
 opposed to the Corn Laws, and most sincerely, but viewing the 
 question like a man of sense who feels that no political arrange- 
 ment which is not founded on justice can last. Since Mr. 
 McCulloch wrote that, he has published a new edition of the 
 
AGEICULTUSAL DISTRESS, FEBEUAEY 1851. 307 
 
 • Wealth of Nations ' by Adam Smith, and in his appendix to 
 that edition he has written a treatise on tithe. The question 
 was viewed then by Mr. McCuUoch with all the advantages of 
 experience, and at the same time with every preconception and 
 prejudice in favour of emancipated commerce, and with feelings 
 on the subject of the Corn Laws which he had pronounced in a 
 most uncompromising manner in years when very few gentle- 
 men opposite had adopted them ; and what is the conclusion at 
 which, in 1850 (for the edition was printed last year), Mr. 
 McCuUoeh had arrived ? Thus he concludes the new treatise on 
 tithe. Deriding then when he wrote, which probably was in 
 1849, the possibility — for he has always been of the school of 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and always expects prices to 
 rise — deriding even then the possibility of any fall in agricul- 
 tural produce below 46s., thus he terminates his treatise : ' We 
 do not, however, think there is much chance of those unfavour- 
 able anticipations being realised,' the anticipations being 
 the present prices ; ' but if they should,' says this pupil of 
 Eicardo, this great authority, ' either the commutation charge 
 may be reduced or an adequate countervailing duty may be 
 laid on foreign corji.' Mind, that is not my proposition ; I 
 am not making any proposition. What I am doing at present 
 is showing you that the only way in which you can account for 
 the present agricultural distress is, that the agriculturist' is 
 overweighted and has to contend against a mass of taxation, 
 straining his energies and taxing his resources, to which no other 
 producer in England is liable ; that he has not only to bear his 
 quota of the general mass of taxation, but that your financial 
 and fiscal system, originating under quite different circumstances, 
 lays upon his back, least qualified to endure them, burdens 
 which other classes do not share. But it is often said by those 
 who are of opinion that the land of England is perhaps sub- 
 ject to severe taxation, and who may not have taken that 
 general view to which I have wished to gain the attention of 
 the House, ' It is very true ; there is something in what you 
 say; it cannot be denied that nearly one-half of our customs' 
 daties are raised by restricting or prohibiting agricultural in- 
 dustry. It cannot be denied that two-thirds of our inland 
 
 X 2 
 
303 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 revenue is raised by immense imposts on agricultural pro- 
 ductions; it cannot be denied that seven- twelfths of the local 
 revenue are paid by direct contributions from agricultural 
 pluses ; but then the land has exemptions, or we think it has.' 
 And, generally speaking, the enormous injustice which I have 
 sketched to-night is palliated by statements of that kind. I 
 am going to meet them, not as an advocate, but as one anxious 
 to arrive at the truth ; and the principal and sole object of this 
 motion is to terminate those controversies which, I think, have 
 injured the public spirit of the country. I am going to see what 
 justice there is in that allegation ; and if there be exemptions 
 enjoyed by the land I will not attempt to disguise' or palliate 
 them; and as my statement depends entirely on facts and 
 arguments, and not on sentiment, it is open to all honourable 
 gentlemen opposite who condescend to listen to me, to prove 
 ■my statements erroneous or demonstrate my conclusions to be 
 fallacious. 
 
 The case of agricultural exemptions brings us to another 
 branch of our system of revenue — namely, the stamp duties. 
 In agricultural discussions this is the usual course. The pro- 
 bate and legacy duties are left out and the agriculturist 
 throws the stamps on conveyances at the head of the free-trader 
 who is indignant at paying a large impost on personal pro- 
 perty. I admit that under the present probate and legacy 
 duties personal property pays more than real property. I admit 
 even that the payment made by real property in stamps is not 
 perhaps, on the whole, a charge countervailing the excess paid 
 by personalty. I wish to state the case with the utmost fair- 
 ness, and I wiU make this admission at once. But I must 
 observe that considerable error exists as to the incidence of the 
 probate duty ; and if gentlemen opposite will only investigate 
 the subject of stamps as they bear on the two classes of pro- 
 perty, they will arrive at a conclusion not so much adapted as they 
 suppose to the opinions which they uphold on the subject of 
 taxation. 
 
 Eemember this — and I make no statement which is not 
 proved by evidence taken by committees of this House — that at 
 this moment, of legacy duty, in amount 1,200,000^. per annum, 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTEESS, FEBEXJARY 1851. 309 
 
 500,000Z. is paid directly by land ; because, although Mr. Pitt 
 did not carry his original Bill, which made real property subject 
 to these taxes, he did subsequently contrive to pass a Bill 
 which rendered all land sold under wills subject to these taxes ; 
 and by evidence before this House it appears that five-twelfths 
 of the legacy duty is paid directly by land. Therefore, as far as 
 the burden on land is concerned, that fact must be taken into 
 consideration. But, remember this, all leasehold- property, all 
 ecclesiastical tenures, pay the legacy duty, and in the 700,000L 
 that remain irrespective of the 500,000?. so largely contributed 
 by freehold property, leaseholds and ecclesiastical tenures are 
 included. But remember also, when we consider the incidences of 
 these taxes upon land, that all the stock-in-trade of the farmers, 
 the largest stock-in-trade of the kingdom, pays both legacy and 
 probate duty. I think, therefore, when honourable gentlemen 
 take that view of the case, and when they add that which is 
 paid directly by stamps on conveyances, they will find that the 
 account does not stand so much in their favour as they imagine. 
 I remember once, on a similar occasion to this, the honour- 
 able member for Orkney ' made a great point, as he thought, of 
 the exemption from taxation enjoyed by the farmer in respect 
 to his windows and his hors6s. But you must remember that 
 the windows of the man who has a shop are also exempt from 
 taxation ; and I do not imderstand, therefore, why the farm- 
 house, which is the farmer's shop^ should not be free. And 
 when we remember that the machinery of the manufactory 
 is free, why should not the horse, which is the machine of the 
 farmer, be also exempt ? These are little points, but they 
 require notice. But I could afford, when honourable members 
 talk of the exemptions from taxation enjoyed by land, to have 
 omitted all these considerations and to' have admitted the 
 stamp duties, which, I think, I have shown some cause to con- 
 sider not arranged peculiarly in our feivour, were very much in 
 favour of land ; because I must remember, and recall to the 
 recollection of the House, that all this time there is a con- 
 siderable branch of the public revenue which is not only raised, 
 but which to the amount of 2,000,000L per annum — 'for such is 
 ' Mr. Anderson.- 
 
310 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 its virtual amount — has been raised for a century and a half, from 
 land — and from land alone — and that is the land-tax : a tax, by 
 the by, which was not intended by its original projectors to 
 apply only to land. And therefore, when the exemptions of 
 land are taken into consideration I think, as I have stated the 
 case — and I hope I have stated it in a spirit of impartiality — it 
 may prove one which we shall not hear much more of. 
 
 Sir, I have now gone through, with one great exception, 
 almost every important featmre of our financial system. I have 
 reviewed the taxation of the country, very imperfectly, from the 
 greatness of the subject and from my unwillingness to press 
 too much on the patience of the House ; but I have reviewed 
 the taxation of the country generally with referrence to its 
 bearing upon the owners and occupiers of land — upon that im- 
 portant class of Her Majesty's subjects who are sufifering difiB- 
 culties, depression, distress, and who continue to suffer them, 
 in a country where all classes, as we are informed by the Sove- 
 reign are prosperous. I have shown you that as regards your 
 external revenue, nearly half is raised by the agency of the 
 land ; that two-thirds of your inland revenue is raised indirectly 
 from the land ; tjiat seven-twelfths of your local revenue is 
 raised indirectly from the land. I have shown you, examining 
 yovir stamp laws, that those exemptions which have been so 
 much talked of are in a great degree illusory, and that those 
 who dwell on these exemptions forget that there is a peculiar 
 tax on land alone which raises a sum of 2,000.,000L per annum. 
 I am not surprised, when I see all this, that the owners and 
 occupiers of land, in the present state ,of the law that regulates 
 the importation of foreign agricultural produce, should be suffer- 
 ing difi&culties. On the contrary, I am obliged to consider by 
 what means it is that the present system is carried on, and 
 what is the wonderful machinery by which a financial system 
 which is the creature of protection, and which protection alone 
 could have upheld, should be still able to work in this country 
 when the whole system of protection has been swept away. 
 That to a certain degree we may account for it by the inroads 
 which may have been made upon accumulated capital no man 
 can deny who brings to the subject his impartial consideration. 
 
AGEICULTURAL DISTEESS, FEBEUAEY 1851. 311 
 
 That classes may flourish when they are living upon the capital 
 of a particular class, I think by no means wonderful. But I do 
 not explain the great financial miracle which has occupied our 
 attention merely by that hypothesis, because I see before me a 
 gigantic and curious machine, by which we have been carried 
 through years of unrestricted importation, restricted industry, 
 and colossal imports. 
 
 We know well that a great financial instrument was brought 
 into this House by an eminent minister, whose pride it was to 
 have introduced the new commercial system, the virtues of 
 which I am not here to night to challenge, but the advantages 
 of which on the part of the owners and occupiers of land I wish 
 to enjoy. We know what that wonderful financial instrument 
 was : it was the property and income tax. ' Eemember,' said 
 Sir Robert Peel to the Manchester school, ' that in order to 
 have your cotton free of duty the land must consent to the 
 imposition of a property-tax.' Grenerous and confiding land ! 
 And by that powerful and efficient instrument this remarkable 
 system has been carried into operation, conducted in its course 
 and permitted to accomplish its results. And what was the 
 consequence of the new fiscal law ? The most curious thing is, 
 that when I look to the returns of the property and income tax, 
 this mighty and mystical sum that has produced those great 
 results, I find that at least a moiety, and perhaps the greater 
 part, has been levied on the owners and occupiers of land, those 
 owners' rents being reduced, and those occupiers making no 
 profits. Now, that is your financial system. I have viewed it 
 with the exception of some petty points of general application. 
 I viewed it in its full scope, and considered it in all its bearings. 
 I find in that financial system the cause of agricultural diffi- 
 culties, and, if I am asked to cure them, my answer is brief. 
 If you ask me what are the remedies for the difficulties of the 
 owners and occupiers of land, as a member for an English 
 county, whose industry is devoted only to the cultivation of the 
 soil ; as one who, however unworthy — and no one feels it more 
 than myself— is on this occasion the organ of the opinion of my 
 friends around me, I tell you what my remedy is. We require 
 justice. We ask you not to prohibit or restrict our industry. 
 
312 SPEECHES OP THE EAEL OP BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 We ask you not to levy from us direct taxes for public purposes 
 to which very few other classes of the country contribute. We 
 ask you not to throw upon us — according to your account, the 
 only class in the country which is in a state of prolonged 
 distress — the burden of your system. That is what we ask. We 
 think the system has produced the difficulties and distress. I 
 say, at once remove the enormous injustice under which we 
 suffer ; let us be fairly weighted in the race. We shrink not 
 from the competition which you have thought fit to open to our 
 energies ; but do not let us enter into the struggle manacled. 
 
 But I liave another duty to perform in this House. What- 
 ever my feelings may be for my own constituents, however 
 ■clear their case, we are members of Parliament besides being 
 members representing particular constituencies ; and I have no 
 hesitation in saying that with these feelings I am perfectly pre- 
 pared to discuss these measures impartially, temperately, and 
 calmly, the tendency of which I believe to be to alleviate and 
 perhaps to remove these difficulties. But I must protest 
 against its being supposed that if I enter into such a discussion 
 fairly with the House, I am asking any special advantages for 
 those owners and occupiers of land whom you have so long un- 
 justly treated, and who are at this moment so grievously suffer- 
 ing. Enter with us into the discussion of those measures 
 which we may think on the whole will tend most to bring about 
 that political justice which ought to be the object of all. Try 
 to propose such measures, and suggest those compromises of 
 prudence and conciliation which the interests of all classes 
 demand, and which unless they are consonant with the 
 interests of all classes we do not for a moment expect. I would 
 attempt it now, and I am prepared to do so ; but that I must 
 appeal again to that indulgence of the House which I fear I 
 have already over-taxed. I am prepared to enter into this dis- 
 cussion on the clear understanding that, in anything I say, I am 
 saying it generally as a member of Parliament and with a view 
 to the common good ; the only object, to procure such an equal 
 justice for all classes as is possible in an ancient society. I will, 
 then, express without reserve my opinion that it would be most 
 disastrous to the community if you should accord all those claiias 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTRESS, FEBEUAEY 1861. 313 
 
 ■which I believe in the spirit of severe justice the agricultural 
 interest has a right to demand. I ana perfectly aware that in a 
 country like this, however we may adjust taxation, however 
 anxious we may be to consult the interests of- all classes, it is 
 impossible to come to an arrangement in which, in my opinion, 
 the greater amount of burden will not fall on the land. 
 
 There have been several suggestions ihdde in this House for 
 the relief of the landj and I will very briefly^ and of course much 
 more briefly than its merits require, notice some of them. I 
 will take the two remediesj somewhat vague in their expression, 
 which have been principally counselled by the gentlemen from 
 Manchester. They have always laid it down as axioms, that 
 what was wanted for the land was more labour and more capital, 
 and then, they sayj you will be able to contend against the 
 difficulties with which you have to struggle. Let me remind 
 the House that fot the four years during which the owners and 
 occupiers of the soil have been counselled to employ more 
 labour and more capital, there have Existed in our statute- 
 book laws the very object of which was to restrict the employ- 
 ment of labour and the distribution of capital. ' Employ more 
 labour,' you say to the cultivator of the soil; Before you gave 
 him that advice, why did you not deal with the Settlement 
 Laws ? The minister who repealed the Corn Laws felt the 
 absolute necessity of meeting that question. He devolved the 
 duty of considering it to a member ' of his cabinet eminently 
 qualified, perhaps above all men in this House, for the considera- 
 tion of such a question. But, unfortunately,- that great change 
 in the imperial policy of England took place at a moment of 
 precipitation and of hasty counsels, and was addressed to a 
 House little inclined to consider a question of so difficult a cha- 
 racter. The effort that was made by that cabinet was not 
 felicitous 5 but in the haste and hurry in which everything was 
 prepared on that occasion^ eXcept the measures which repealed 
 our protection, the minister did produce a measure with respect 
 to the Law of Settlement, and promised other measures of great 
 importance with respect to the highways. But I ask the House 
 whether the partial and somewhat crude measure then produced 
 sir James Graham, at that time Home Secretary. 
 
314 SPEEOHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 by the government of Sir Eobert Peel was a measure which at 
 all contended with the difficulties and evils of the case ? True, 
 the President of the Poor Law Board ' told us the other night 
 that he had a measure in preparation ; but if such a measure 
 was ixecessary it ought to have passed before the Com Law 
 repeal, What the measure is I know not, for I have not yet 
 seen it ; but what I have seen of legislation on this subject is 
 not encouraging. For five years we have had to bear the brunt 
 of this, and tl\e owners and occupiers of land were taunted with 
 not employing naore labour wheii you had an ancient code on 
 the statute-book the object of which was to prevent the pro- 
 prietor and occupier of land from employing labour, and forcing 
 him to employ the least efficient. 
 
 Then I am told we might employ more capital ; and yet 
 in 1844 you passed in this House a law * the whole object 
 of which was to restrict the distribution of capital in those 
 channels which communicate with the cultivators of the soil. 
 Employ more capital, they ^ay, and when the farrner goes to 
 the country banker., the banker tells him, ' The Bill of 1 844 
 prevents me from assisting you.' Well, we who attempt feebly 
 to support this interest, in 1848 called tl^e attention of the 
 House to the consideration of this law. We showed you, and 
 men second to none in authority on such subjects were of 
 opinion, that the principle upon which that law was founded 
 was fallacious, We showed ypu to the best of our ability and 
 conviction that the opinions expressed respecting over-issue, 
 redundancy and depreciation were utterly erroneous and not 
 consistent with the existence of a, really convertible paper 
 currency. But what was our success ? We could do nqthing. 
 You went about the country giving your advice to the farmers, 
 and telling them th^t one of two remedies for their evilg was 
 the employnieiit of more capital ; while in mockery yon pagsed 
 a law which naturally has curtailed the distribution of capital 
 in those very districts where capital is wanted. In my opinion 
 you ought to have prepared for this great change — the repeal 
 
 > Mr. M. T. Baines. 
 
 ' The Bank Charter 4-Ct, pf which, in the opinion of Mr. J. S. Mill, ' thiei 
 disadvantages greatly preponderate,' 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTEESS, HEBEUARY 1851, 315 
 
 of the Com La\ys — by placing the cultivator of the soil and of 
 course the owner of the soil in a juster relation, not only with 
 your financial, tut with your banking and industrial laws. 
 There is nothing more desirable than that you should bring 
 capital to the lai}d. That everyone feels to be an object of 
 great importance ; but you forget you have laws of partnership 
 in existence which are as a barrier to laying out capital on 
 land. The question of limited partnership has engaged the 
 attention of a committee of the House. Great opinions have 
 been given on the subject, and whether we should introduce the 
 system of limited partnership which exists on the Continent 
 has been the subject of discussion. You have against it Lord 
 Overstone, and in its favour Lord Ashburton. My own feeling 
 is, that in a country like England, where commercial capital is 
 so abundant, it may be questionable whether you should change 
 your law of partnership, whether you should introduce any 
 violent change in the habits of commercial men ; but it is 
 quite clear if you put the cultivator of the soil upon a fairer 
 system as regards taxation with his fellowTSubjects so that 
 there would not be an unwillingness to embark in the cultiva- 
 tion of the land, that a law of limited partnership en comman- 
 dite, as it is ternied, so far as the cultivation of the soil is con- 
 cerned would be most beneficial. But have you attempted to 
 do that ? Did you when you repealed the Corn Laws ? Or 
 when year after year an that bench you had been deUvering 
 opinions upon the fortunes of the agricultural world which 
 were always erroneous, have you ever given any consideration 
 to the subject? 
 
 Sir, it is not necessary for me to dwell but for a moment or 
 two upon those plans which have been brought forward in this 
 House for the relief of the land from local burdens. By favour 
 of the House of Lords you have had placed upon your table a 
 project for a national rate which had been matured by a noble 
 lord,' a member of tl^e othef House of Parliament. Thpre is no 
 doubt that the subject i? one which very much engages public 
 attention, and I believe t}ie scheme has acquired a great degree 
 of public approbation. But has the minister ever considered 
 ' ItQJoA M^lmegbury (vide ^uj/ra, p. 303). 
 
316 SPEECHES OE THE EAJRL OE BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 it ? Has he even deigned to allow the subject of a national 
 rate to form matter for consideration by the cabinet. Observe, 
 I am not giving my opinion in favour of a national rate ; but 
 no man can deny that it is a proposition of that importance, 
 and moreover, has so enlisted national sympathies, that it is at 
 least worthy of consideration. Now,' there are great objections 
 to a national rate for the relief of the poor, but there is no 
 objection so great as the enormous' injustice of the landed 
 interest paying in their present state of suffering more than 
 their fair proportion of the poor-rate ; arid no fallacy is greater 
 than that which is always brought forward by the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, when he shows us that year after year house 
 property has been paying & greater proportion of poor-rate 
 that it did, and that it now rivals, and even exceeds, the amount 
 paid by the land. That, as a measure of relief to the rural 
 districts, is perfectly fallacious. It is possible that in Lan- 
 cashire house property may pay more than land on the average. 
 The burden of poor-i'ate on the land in Lancashire may be 
 proportionately reduced, but that circumstance has not reduced 
 the poor-rates in the county of Kent or Sussex. They feel the 
 injustice the same. The injustice is as greatj and the injury is 
 as great, whatever may be the effect of an aibsorption of a por- 
 tion of the local rate by house property in the north of England. 
 Great as are the objections to a national rate, I think that many 
 of them may be met with considerable success ; biit I shall not 
 dwell upon them to-night. It would be an abuse of the 
 patience of the House.- I must repeat one observation, how- 
 ever — that there is no objection to a national rate so great as 
 making a limited class pay for that for which all classes ought 
 to payt It is quite unnecessary for me to speak of the measure 
 which I brought before the House last year, because I beUeve I 
 may say that, as far as the opinion of the House is concerned, 
 it was in favour of that measure. No arguments, indeed, of any 
 weight or amount were ever offered against it. It was not only 
 recommended by justice, but it was' not inconsistent even with 
 the most selfish policy. Sir, it was Said at that time, that if 
 the amount of relief which I then proposed, and which I think 
 would have taken off something like 2,000,000L from real pro- 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTRESS, FEBEUARY 1851. 317 
 
 perty, and of that 1,500,000^ from land — because it wag part of 
 that project that 500,000i. should be taken off our suffering 
 fellow-subjects in Ireland, who, from the action of their Poor 
 Law were peculiarly entitled to relief — it was then said that by 
 throwing that amount upon the Consolidated Fund, which was 
 my proposition, very little relief substantially could be given, 
 inasmuch as the Consolidated Fund was, after all, to a great 
 degree paid by those who were to be relieved from the poor- 
 rate. I have always been aware of these objections to placing 
 the remission of taxes upon the Consolidated Fund ; but it is 
 the best comse to recommend in this House by an Opposition 
 which urges a remission of taxation upon a principle of justice, 
 because it is the most obvious and simple way for making all 
 pay, instead of a particular class. And when all pay, then it is 
 for them to settle if the burden be too great for them to bear. 
 But it is the iirst step in a financial transition. That was the 
 reason why I offered that suggestion to the House. There have 
 been other suggestions made by which the remission can be 
 effected, and by which a peculiar class might be freed from a 
 peculiar burden for a public purpose, without increasing the 
 burdens of the community. 
 
 It has-been proposed that we should supply a sufficiency of 
 revenue by the plan suggested by Mr. M'CuUoch, in the pas- 
 sage which I read to you — namely, by a fixed duty on com. 
 Now, I have this objection to discussing the proposition of a 
 fixed duty on corn. My views, and the views of my friends, are 
 very liable to be misrepresented on the subject. I say again,, 
 that as far as I am concerned as an agricultural member, and 
 speaking for those who represent generally agricultural con- 
 stituencies, we want nothing more than justice. We cannot 
 admit for one moment that a fixed duty or a countervailing 
 duty upon com is an arrangement in favour of the agricultural 
 interest. It is a financial political arrangement which as 
 members of Parliament, as ministers, and as statesmen, upon a 
 balance of circumstances, we may think upon the whole would 
 or would not make what was once called the ' best bargain for 
 the community.' The other night the noble lord got up and, 
 with a sorrowful expression of countenance, as if he acknow- 
 
318 SPEECHES OF "IHE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 ledged in his xionscience and to his conviction that the land was 
 unjustly treated, and that something- ought to be done for it — 
 knowing that the great weight of taxation falls unjustly upon 
 the land, and that the weight of local taxation was iniquitous, 
 the iioble lord g<>t up and shrugging his shoulders, said, ' "What 
 can I do ? I do not know that a 5s. duty would do anything 
 for the farmers.' Why, the farmers do not want your 5s. duty, 
 •or an 8s. duty, or even a 10s. duty. Ascertain, if you think 
 iit, and to the best of your judgment, what the community 
 owe to a particular class whom they cannot pay. If it be your 
 opinion and your proposition that a 5s., an 8s., or a 10s. duty 
 is, on the whole, a reasonable compensation for their undue 
 share of the public burdens, induce them if you can to accept 
 that compensation, by which, like all settlements of that kind, 
 the person who is to receive it will probably receive one-half his 
 due. But that is a question for us to consider as members of 
 Parliament representing the community. In the name of the 
 agricultural interest I solemnly protest against considering such 
 a proposition as an arrangement for the advantage of that 
 interest. The argument in favour of a fixed duty upon corn 
 has been brought before the House with great ability as a mere 
 financial exercitation, if I may say so, by my honourable friend 
 near me. He stated the theory upon which a fixed duty was 
 supposed not to increase the price to the consumer. He stated 
 that it was in the nature of things that the producer in foreign 
 countries would endeavour to adjust his supply to the demand, 
 and not allow the British speculator to take all the profits. 
 But it so happened that at the period when he called the 
 attention of the House to the subject, circumstances had oc- 
 curred which remarkably illustrated that theory; for it did 
 appear that in the year 1 848, in the month of January and the 
 month of February, there was no duty upon foreign com, and in 
 the month of March and in the subsequent month there was a 
 duty of 7s. or 8s., and that imports and prices remained the 
 same. The average price in January and February 1848 was 
 50s. 2d. ; from March to December, with a duty of 7s. or 
 8s., only 51s. 9c?., and in February with a duty of Is. the price 
 remained the same. 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESa, FEBRUARY 18.il. 319 
 
 Now, I say that these are phenomena to which I cannot shut 
 my eyes. They are phenomena upon which any gentleman 
 who has considered the subject has a right to give his opinions, 
 and if I give my opinion, which I do most sincerely, that a 
 moderate fixed duty would not raise the price to the consumer, 
 I wish perfectly to guard myself from being supposed to suggest 
 it as any favour to the agricultural interest. You must meet 
 this question influenced by various considerations. As states- 
 men and as members of this House, you have to consider how 
 you can do justice amongst all classes of the Queen's subjects, 
 and yet at the same time prevent any violent changes in the 
 financial system of the country. That is what you have to con- 
 sider. We, I need not say, represent a class who can bear a 
 good deal. I am told sometimes, 'Why do the landed pro- 
 prietors and the farmers come to this House ? No other trade 
 comes to the House of Commons when they are suffering.' 
 Why, what property, what industry does the House of Commons 
 interfere with as it interferes with the property and industry of 
 the owners and the occupiers of the soil? Let me find a 
 revenue raised in this country with equal regard to articles of 
 manufacturing production as it is raised in this country with 
 regard to articles of agricultural production. Let me see ap- 
 plied to some articles of great importance and of general use — 
 the produce of your manufactures — the same laws which now 
 apply to tobacco and malt, and should I not find you then 
 coming to this House with your complaints ? What petitions, 
 what speeches, what motions, and what leagues, until the public 
 mind of England had been brought fully to comprehend the 
 enormity of the injustice inflicted upon you. Suppose we 
 passed a law that all stockings should come from abroad free of 
 duty, and that the domestic manufacturer should pay a duty of 
 1,200 per cent., what would the manufacturers say to that ? 
 And yet this is only a parallel case to that of the owners and 
 occupiers of the soil. 
 
 Then, although the noble lord will remember what his 
 eminent predecessor. Sir Eobert Walpole, once said of the 
 landed gentry in this House, with regard to their endurance 
 of taxation, I am told that it is very strange that in a House of 
 
320 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 landed proprietors the land should be so burdened, and that 
 the fiscal system should bear so hard upon the land. A specious 
 and yet a superficial observation ! True it is that from circum- 
 stances, mainly from our territorial constitution, the great body 
 of members of Parliament were for a considerable time landed 
 proprietors ■; but, owing to that happy government by parties, 
 to which we owe so much of our public freedom and public 
 spirit, these landed proprietors were always divided into two 
 hostile camps, and the commercial interest, though once not 
 over strong, still existed in this House, and at times produced 
 even in distant reigns very considerable persons. Therefore 
 there was always a great body of landed proprietors perfectly 
 prepared to support the interests of commerce. Whether they 
 did efficiently and wisely support the interests of commerce 
 is another thing ; but this I know, that the merchants of 
 England believed they did ; the m^-chants and manufacturers 
 of England believed that Sir Eobert Walpole and Mr. Pitt were 
 ministers who had a strong bias in favour of trade, commerce, 
 and navigation ; and our statute-book is loaded with the laws, 
 perhaps not over-wise, which were passed at the instigation of 
 those persons. I say that, not to create any acrimonious feeling. 
 I have no wish that any law should pass this House — I have no 
 wish, with reference to the agricultural interest, that any law 
 should pass this House which is not consistent with the welfare 
 of all classes of Her Majesty's subjects. But in the midst of 
 the welfare of all classes, I cannot consent that the welfare of 
 the owners and occupiers of the land should be overlooked. 
 
 I am convinced that if this system goes on, we shall reach a 
 point where the resources of this class will no longer be able to 
 bear the strain upon them, and that the effects resulting to all 
 other classes will be such as to be greatly deprecated. I believe 
 that, if you continue on this course, it is not merely the owners 
 and occupiers of the land that will be sacrificed, but that others 
 will share their fate. But why, I ask, should the owners and 
 occupiers of land be sacrificed if their injury is the consequence 
 of unjust legislation ? Consider, therefore, in a temperate and 
 conciliatory spirit those suggestions which, I confess, at much 
 too great a length I have now made to you. Remember that 
 
AGRICULTUEAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1851. 321 
 
 they are made on behalf of a suffering class, and especially of 
 the farmers of England, of whom I principally speak — men 
 who, in the course of these great changes, and under circum- 
 stances of great trial, have, I think, shown great virtues. Con- 
 sider the question in a spirit of equity. I do not ask you to- 
 night to. give a vote upon any specific measure ; I should be 
 most unwise — I should be acting not with fairness towards the 
 House upon so great a question, if I were to ask you to give a 
 vote specifically. It is not my duty to propose that you should 
 give a specific vote. I remember — the interruption of the 
 honourable gentleman reminds me of the words of a great 
 writer who said that ' Grace was beauty in action.' Sir, I say 
 that justice is truth in action. Truth should animate an Oppo- 
 sition, and I hope it does animate this Opposition. But truth 
 in action is the office of a minister, and I would exact it from 
 the noble lord : not, Sir, in any hostile spirit ; I have always 
 wished that this question should be settled by the noble lord — 
 by the minister of the day — by a minister who, on account of 
 his position, can never look with an adverse feeling to the land 
 of the country. I say again that I do not think it right in me 
 to bring forward a specific measure, but I have a right to ask 
 you to come to a specific conclusion ; I have a right to ask you 
 to declare by your vote that these methods for remedying the 
 evils and bringing about a fair adjustment, at which I have 
 glanced, are worthy of consideration ; I have a right to ask you 
 that you should express a strong opinion that it is the duty of 
 Government to consider these measures, and to adopt these 
 measures, if they cannot devise others less objectionable which 
 will achieve the same result. That is what I say, I do not 
 want, you to pledge yourselves to any fixed duties or counter- 
 vailing duties, or shifting of burdens, or changing the law of 
 settlement, or amending the laws of partnership. They are 
 all of them great and important questions, and well worthy 
 of the attention and consideration of the House of Commons. 
 Sufficient information exists upon all these subjects for a 
 minister to act upon. All I say is : Declare to-night that in this 
 respect a minister shall act ; that the minister who has year 
 after year acknowledged these complaints and difficulties, and 
 VOL. I. Y 
 
322 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 who himself by his tone would seem to imply that he has in 
 his heart recognised the injustice which the land and the 
 landed classes are enduring, shall act. 1 ask you to-night to 
 declare in a manner which cannot be mistaken that it is in- 
 tolerable that in a state of general prosperity a suffering class 
 should exist, suffering from unjust legislation, and that it is 
 the duty of the administration of this country to bring forward 
 measures that may terminate a state of affairs so much to be 
 deprecated. 
 
 Sir, as I said before, I wish the noble lord to undertake this 
 office. I am altogether innocent of mixing up this question 
 with the passions of party politics. The speeches I have made 
 in this House are not speeches which are adapted to please 
 thoughtless societies out of doors or meetings which are often 
 held in the country, at which my name is mentioned as one 
 who does not do sufficient justice to the sufferings of those who 
 complain. Sir, Ip9,rdon all these ineuendoes ; I can make allow- 
 ance for the strong feelings of worthy men placed in the trying 
 circumstances in which the farmers of the United Kingdom are 
 now labouring. But right or wrong, of this I am convinced, 
 that the course I have taken with respect to their interests has 
 been the result of long thought and careful observation, and 
 that I have asked for nothing for them which justice does not 
 authorise and policy recommend. If I make no further appeal 
 to the noble lord, it is from no hostile feeling that I decline 
 doing so, but because I have appealed twice in vain. I now 
 appeal to the House of Commons, though it is called a free- 
 trade House of Commons, and may be a free-trade House of 
 Commons ; but I appeal with confidence because I have con- 
 fidence in the cause which I advocate, and confidence in the 
 fair spirit which I believe animates their bosoms. They have 
 now an opportunity which ought not to be lightly treated — a 
 golden occasion, which in my mind will not easily find a parallel 
 in the records of our Parliament of England. They may 
 perform • a great office and fulfil an august duty. They may 
 step in and do that which the minister shrinks from doing — 
 terminate the bitter controversy of years. They may bring 
 back that which my Lord Clarendon called 'The old good- 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, FEBRUARY 1851. 323 
 
 nature of the people of England.' They may terminate the 
 unhappy quarrel between town and country. They may build 
 up again the fortunes of the land of England — that land to 
 which we owe so much of our power and our freedom ; that 
 land which has achieved the union of those two qualities for 
 combining which a Roman Emperor was deified, Imjperiwm et 
 Libertas. And all this too, not by favour, not by privilege, 
 not by sectarian arrangements, not by class legislation, but 
 by asserting the principles of political justice and obeying the 
 dictates of social equity. 
 
 T 2 
 
'o2i SPEECHES OE THE EARL OE BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 AGEICULTUEAL DISTRESS, March 28, 1879.' 
 
 [After an interval of nearly thirty years men once more found 
 themselves confronted with problems which a long continuance of 
 abundant harvests had consigned to temporary oblivion. The un- 
 exampled distress, however, brought about by the failui'e of foui- 
 harvests in succession overthrew all ordinary calculations : while the 
 increasing competition from America led many men to believe that, 
 even 'with the return of better times the farmer would still find him- 
 self far removed fiom his former prosperity. Then at last the cry 
 for Protection was revived. And twice in the House of Lords in the 
 session of 1879 was Lord Beaconsfield obliged to remind his followers 
 that the country had settled this question ' in another generation,' and 
 that it was too late now to revive it. The following speech was in 
 reply to the Marquis of Huntly, who rose to call attention to the 
 depressed condition of agriculture, and to ask Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment if they intended to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into 
 the causes of it.] 
 
 MY lords, although the appearance of this House to-night is 
 not one which shows that interest in the subject which 
 the noble marquis probably anticipated, that is not, I am sure, 
 occasioned by any want of sympathy with the suffering classes of 
 this country. Myself, I should have been quite prepared to 
 leave the matter in the hands of those noble lords who have 
 dealt with it, had not a direct appeal been made to the Grovem- 
 ment by the noble marquis ; but I feel I should be wanting, 
 not only in my duty, but in courtesy to the noble marquis, if 
 I allowed that appeal to pass unnoticed. The noble marquis 
 has called our attention to the depressed state of agriculture 
 and of commerce and trade in this country ; but he has not 
 offered us any information in detail upon any head of his 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
AGEICULTURAL DISTEESS, MARCH 1879. t;2o 
 
 motion— or rather of his inquiry— except with regard to agri- 
 culture. I am sure the noble marquis will pardon me if I 
 venture to observe that I think his treatment of that subject 
 was not characterised by novelty or by that adequate acquaint- 
 ance with the proceedings which have occurred in both Houses 
 of Parliament upon the subject upon which he chiefly dilated — 
 namely, the peculiar burdens upon real property — which might 
 have been expected. The noble marquis seems to have 
 founded his inquiry to-night in a great degree upon some 
 speeches which I myself made — made in ' another place,' and in 
 another generation. Then I thought it my duty to open a 
 subject which had been very seldom entered into; and at a 
 time when the agricultural interest of this country was deeply 
 suffering, and was by no means hopeful as to the future, I 
 endeavoured to show that some relief might be obtained by a 
 more equitable adjustment of the public burdens. It was im- 
 possible to deny the justice of the principle upon which those 
 motions were made. Indeed, although I was then, as the noble 
 marquis has reminded us to-night, the leader of the Opposition 
 in another House of Parliament, on every occasion on which I 
 brought that subject before the consideration of the House of 
 Commons, my motions were supported by numbers which 
 almost equalled the majorities which, for the moment, defeated 
 them. 
 
 Many of your lordships will remember that, though the 
 justice of the plea is undeniable, still at no time was the relief 
 contemplated of a character or amount adequate to meet a state 
 of affairs like the present, and to be a competent remedy for the,, 
 evils to which the noble marquis has called attention to-night. 
 The noble marquis should remember that the answer to my 
 appeal to Parliament at that time made by those who resisted, 
 not the justice, but the adequacy of the remedy I proposed, was 
 that if a readjustment of local burdens did take place, the 
 relief of the land, which then only was suffering, could not 
 be measured by the amount of local taxation. It was shown at 
 the time by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that, taking the 
 sum of 85,000,000L a year as the amount of rental upon which 
 rates were charged thirty years ago, the amount on which 
 
326 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OE BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 landed interest was assessed was only 40,000,000L But the 
 .noble marquis should be, and no doubt is, aware that during 
 those thirty years two things have happened : In the first place, 
 that there has been considerable relief afforded to the real 
 property of the country, of which land forms a large portion ; 
 and, secondly, that the proportion of rates, in so fax as 
 they fall upon land, is much reduced, so as to be levied now on 
 no more than one-third of the real property of the country. If 
 these are facts — and they are founded on official returns — I cannot 
 for a moment bring myself to believe that some small readjust- 
 ment of our local taxation can bring such relief to the land as 
 will reanimate it under the unexampled depression it now 
 endures. Then the noble marquis omitted to remember that 
 there has been, in fact, a considerable amount of local taxation 
 remitted from real property during the period from which he 
 originated his speech ; and he also should have recollected the 
 circumstances in which that reduction was made. The adjust- 
 ment of our local taxation ceased to be a party question in the 
 House of Commons. The gentleman who of late brought it 
 forward was a county member (Sir Massey Lopes), and his 
 political connection was with the party that was then in Opposi- 
 tion, and of which I was the representative and the leader. 
 But it was not a party motion, and he carried it by a majority 
 of a hundred, because it was acknowledged, on both sides of the 
 House, not to be a party motion, and because those who peculiarly 
 represented the house population of the towns perceived that 
 they would themselves have the lion's share and principal 
 benefit of any considerable remission of local taxation. All 
 this must be known to the noble marquis, and I am surprised 
 that he did not hesitate before he recommended a remedy for 
 agricultural distress which, on reflection, he must perceive to 
 be utterly inadequate to give the relief which is required. 
 No one, I think, can deny that the depression of the agricul- 
 tural iiiterest is excessive. Though I can recall several periods 
 of suffering, none of them have ever equalled the present in its 
 intenseness. Let us consider what may be the principal causes 
 of this distress. 
 
 My noble friend who has addressed you (Lord Norton) has 
 
AGRICULTUEAL DISTEESS, MAECH 1879. 327 
 
 very properly touched upon the effect of the continuous bad 
 harvests in this country. If we are to accept the figures of the 
 highest authority upon agricultural subjects and statistics, the 
 loss on a bad harvest, such as we had in the year 1875, was no 
 less than 26,000,000?. sterling. It is, however, true that at 
 that time the loss and suffering were not experienced or recog- 
 nised as they were in the old days when the system of protec- 
 tion existed, because the price of the food of the people was 
 not immediately affected by a bad harvest ; and it was not till 
 the repetition of the misfortune, by two bad harvests in further 
 succession, that the diminution of the wealth of the country 
 began to be severely felt by the people generally — not by the 
 agriculturists only, but by those who were interested in trade 
 and commerce generally. The remarkable feature of the pre-, 
 sent agricultural depression is this — that the agricultural in- 
 terest is suffering from a succession of bad harvests, and that 
 these bad harvests are accompanied for the first time by ex- 
 tremely low prices. That is a remarkable circumstance which 
 has never before occurred — a circumstance which has never 
 before been encountered. In old days, when we had a bad 
 harvest, we had also the somewhat dismal compensation of 
 higher prices. That is not the condition of the present ; on 
 the contrary, the harvests are bad, and the prices are lower. 
 That is a new feature that requires consideration. There can 
 be no doubt that the diminution of the public wealth by the 
 amount of 80,000,000?., suffered by one class, begins to affect 
 the general wealth of the country, and is one of the sources of 
 the depression, not only of agriculture, but also of commerce 
 and trade. JSfo candid mind could deny that this is one of the 
 reasons for that depression. Nor is it open to doubt that foreign 
 competition has exercised a most injurious influence on the 
 agricultural interests of the country. The country, however, 
 was perfectly warned that if we made a great revolution in our 
 industrial system, and put an end to the policy of protection, 
 such would be one of the consequences which would accrue. 
 I may mention that the great result of the returns we possess 
 is this — that the immense importations of foreign agricultural 
 produce have been vastly in excess of what the increased de- 
 
328 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 mands of our population actually require. And that is why 
 such low prices are maintained. 
 
 I have here the average import of wheat in the years 1867 
 and 1868 and in the years 1877 and 1878. Stated in quarters, the 
 quantity was 8,000,000 quarters in 1867and 1868, and 13,848,000 
 quarters in 1877 and 1878. Now, 3,000,000 quarters would have 
 been quite sufficient to meet the wants of our increased popula- 
 tion; but the actual increase of 5,000,000 quarters is equal to the 
 supply of more than one-sixth of our whole population, or nearly 
 twice what was required by its actual increase. That is to a great 
 degree a cause of this depression. You have, then, in the first 
 place, continuous bad harvests, which would in any case bring 
 depression, not on the agricultural interest only, but, by the 
 diminution of the public wealth, on trade and commerce gene- 
 rally ; and, secondly, you have, as far as the agricultural interest 
 is concerned, this greatly increased competition from abroad. 
 I think there is another cause, but, as it is not peculiar to 
 agriculture, I will leave it while I make one or two observations 
 on a subject very slightly treated by the noble marquis, and 
 not so fully as I could have desired by my noble friend who 
 has addressed us. It has been assumed throughout this debate 
 that there has been on the part of the trade and commerce of 
 the country a depression not only equal to that which the 
 agricultural interest is labouring under, but that that depres- 
 sion was identical and similar in its effects and causes to those 
 by which agricultural distress has been produced. Now, so far 
 as I can form an opinion from the documents I have seen, the 
 case is the reverse. That there is immense depression in trade 
 and commerce no one can deny ; but instead of the depression 
 of trade and commerce resembling at this moment that of agri- 
 culture, it is quite the contrary. Agriculture just now is pro- 
 ducing much less than it did before — nearly 1,000,000 acres 
 have gone out of cereal cultivation — and it is suffering from 
 foreign competition, which even in its own home market it has 
 unsuccessfully to encounter. That, however, is not the condi- 
 tion of our foreign trade. The volume of our foreign trade is 
 not at all dimmished. 
 
 It is perfectly untrue, so far as I can form an opinion on 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, 3VIARCH 1879. 329 
 
 the subject, that we have lost the markets of the world, or that 
 any branch of foreign industry- — generally speaking, of course — 
 is successfully competing with the English. That there may 
 be occasionally, in the multifarious transactions of English 
 commerce, some particular article that may find itself for a 
 moment shut out from the markets, or that, owing to a com- 
 bination of circumstances, it might meet with a successful and 
 unexpected competitor, is one of the necessary consequences of 
 that multifariousness. The great fact nevertheless remains, 
 that after a period of continued depression the volume of pro- 
 duction has been exactly the same. There has been of coiuse 
 less profit ; but the volume of industry has been the same ; 
 the same quantity of goods has been manufactured ; there are 
 no markets from which we have been successfully shut out, 
 and no competitors with whom we cannot satisfactorily enter 
 into rivalry. Here is a return which I think proves the case — 
 it is a return of British and Irish exports. I find that the exports 
 in 1873 were, in round numbers, 255,000,000L ; while in 1877, 
 they were only 198,000,OOOZ. — showing an apparent falling off 
 of 57,000,000^. But if you value the products of 1877, which 
 only produced 198,000,000^, at the same rate as the products 
 of 1873, which were valued at 255,000,000?., you will find that 
 the difference between them is less than 1,000,000L It is, 
 therefore, clear that, although the depression of trade and com- 
 merce is undeniable, that depression does not arise, as in the 
 case of the agricultural distress, from the loss of the power of 
 production, or from severe and successful competition with 
 foreign industry. On the contrary, diiring all these years of 
 depression we have been producing an equal quantity of goods 
 — the same volume of English manufacture has been sent into 
 the world — only we have been obtaining for them lower and 
 still lower prices. That, it appears to me, is an important cir- 
 cumstance, and one which demands our deep consideration. 
 
 I doubt not the depression in our home trade is affected 
 very much, as I freely admitted at the first, by bad harvests, 
 totally irresjiective of the principle on which our industrial 
 system may be established, whether it be a protective one or 
 one of free imports. It is clear that a series of bad harvests 
 
330 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 greatly diminishes the sum of national wealth, and must mate- 
 rially, in any circumstances, interfere with the trade of the 
 country. It is quite possible, as we have known from our own 
 experience, that one bad harvest, which years ago would have 
 created discontent and great suffering recognised by every 
 class, might be passed over in the circumstances in which we 
 now find ourselves. But if you cannot pass over two, you car- ' 
 tainly cannot pass over three or four ; for, although the last 
 harvest was not bad, it was garnered under such circumstances 
 that, so far as the farmer was concerned, it was a bad harvest. 
 I have said I admitted that the causes of agricultural depression 
 were principally these : in the first place, the bad harvests ; in 
 the second place, foreign competition, which the country adopted, 
 not with haste or in rashness — which it had an opportunity of 
 rejecting, because a considerable party in Parliament gave it 
 that opportunity, and on the merits of which, after it was es- 
 tablished, the country was appealed to and a Parliament elected 
 on the issue placed before it, and yet which it did not choose 
 to change. The second cause, I say, is to be found in this 
 competition which you have, not precipitately, but determinedly, 
 adopted ; and there is besides another cause, which is, in my 
 mind, not peculiar to agricultural distress, but which is equally 
 applicable to commercial distress : and that is the effect which 
 the production of gold has exercised, and is at this moment 
 particularly exercising, not only on commercial transactions, 
 but on the value of the other precious metals. 
 
 I do not know that I can put the matter more clearly before 
 your lordships than in this way. After the repeal of the Corn 
 Laws there was considerable suffering among all classes. Not 
 merely in the agricultural classes, but in trade generally, there 
 was great discontent and dissatisfaction. I do not myself be- 
 lieve it was the immediate effect of the repeal of the Corn Laws : 
 it was probably a reaction after the great stimulus, no doubt, 
 which had been created in consequence of the extraordinary 
 expenditure on the railway system in England. Be that as it 
 may, very great discontent existed. Suddenly, after three or 
 four years, there was an extraordinary revival in trade and a 
 great elevation in prices. How did that occur ? One of the 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTRESS, MARCH 1879. 331 
 
 most wonderful events in the history of the world happened, 
 and that was the discovery of gold in California. In 1852, 
 36,000,000L of gold were poured into Europe, and when your 
 lordships recollect that the business of the world until that 
 time had been carried on by an amount of gold which, I believe, 
 never reached 6,000,000L a year, you can at once apprehend 
 the effect of this discovery. In one year there came 36,OO0,00OL 
 of gold, and in five years 150,000,000L were poured into Eu- 
 rope. The effect of this was that prices were raised immensely. 
 But a marvellous thing occurred also shortly after. There was 
 a Commission of all the great States of Europe, who took advan- 
 tage of the holding of the Exhibition at Paris to meet there, 
 with the consent of their Governments, to consider whether a 
 uniform system of coinage could not be established in the 
 world ; and they came to a resolution that a uniform system 
 could be established, and that advantage ought to be taken of 
 the gold discoveries to bring about this result. 
 
 Whatever may have been the exact circumstances of the 
 case which was in the result such as I have indicated, the 
 Grovernment of Germany, which had 80,000,000Z. of silver, 
 availed themselves of the great change of which I am speaking, 
 to substitute gold for their 80,000,000Z. of silver ; France re- 
 solved that her bi-metallic currency should, if possible, be re- 
 placed by entirely a gold currency ; and the example of those 
 two countries was followed by Holland and the smaller States 
 of Europe ; and the great process of converting silver into gold 
 currency continued. These vast changes have been going on 
 for ten years ; and we cannot, therefore, be surprised at the 
 revolution which has occurred in the price of silver, when both 
 France and Germany, the one with 60,000,000?. and the other 
 with 80,000,000?. of silver, were anxious to avail themselves of 
 the change which has occurred, and to substitute a gold cur- 
 rency. All this time the produce of the gold mines in Australia 
 and California has been regularly diminishing ; and the conse- 
 quence is that, while these large alterations of currency in 
 favour of a gold currency have been taking place in the leading 
 countries of Europe — notwithstanding an increase of popula- 
 tion, which alone requires always a considerable increase of gold 
 
332 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 currency to carry on its transactions — -the amount every year 
 has diminished and is diminishing, until a state of affairs has 
 been brought about by the gold discoveries, exactly the reverse 
 of those they produced at first. Gold is every day appreciating 
 in value, and as it appreciates in value, the lower become 
 prices. This, then, I think, is the third cause — not dogmati- 
 cally stated, but only with that diffidence which becomes one 
 who has to speak on an abstruse and complicated subject — 
 which, I think, earnestly requires the consideration of your lord- 
 ships, and which may lead to consequences which may be of a 
 very serious character. 
 
 Now, my lords, I do not wish to speak at too much length 
 on this subject. I have noticed, on the part of the Govern- 
 ment, a series of causes which, I think, have led to the present 
 most unsatisfactory state of the public fortunes. The greatest 
 sufferers at this moment, undoubtedly, are the cidtivators of 
 the soil and the farming class. They are a class who, if you 
 look to the amount of labour they employ, if you look to their 
 general character, their connection with local interests, and a 
 variety of other considerations, must ever be deeply valued by 
 those who value the order of society, and, I will say, even the 
 freedom of this country. There is no other country in which 
 we find an identical class such as the British farmer ; and, 
 whatever may be the consequences of our legislation that is 
 past, if it should be the disappearance or a great diminution of 
 the influence and numbers of that class, it would be a political 
 injury which never could be compensated for by any fiscal or 
 financial results. I am sure your lordships will sympathise 
 with that class. You are deeply connected with the land. You 
 know well all shades of rural life — you have lived among these 
 men ; and I feel confident that the sympathy you express is as 
 cordial and as profound as can animate the breast of man. But, 
 my lords, do not let us be afraid of telling them at this moment 
 that, while we deeply sympathise with them — that while we wUl 
 lose no opportunity that we can use of legitimately assisting 
 them in the hard trials which they have to encounter — there is 
 nothing, in my mind, which would be a more bitter mockery 
 than to pretend by some small adjustment of local taxation 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, MARCH 1879. 333 
 
 that we can offer them a remedy for the distress which is pro- 
 duced by such vast, such numerous, and such complicated 
 causes. If there is anything in the state of our system of 
 taxation which acts unfairly to the British farmer, I cannot 
 doubt that Parliament — that both parties in the State — will be 
 prepared and even eager to remedy it. We have shown that 
 before by the series of relief that we have given him. 
 
 When an honourable gentleman in the other House, a 
 county member (Sir Massey Lopes), carried a resolution that it 
 became the duty of the Government to revise the local taxation 
 of the country, and relieve real property — including land, of 
 course, as one of the most important portions of real property — 
 from unjust burdens, he was asked to define what were the 
 burdens which he thought were so peculiar and unjust ; and it 
 was then that he said the rates on Grovernment property ought 
 to be assessed as on all other property ; that the care of pauper 
 lunatics should fall on the State ; that the registration of births, 
 deaths, &c., should no longer be supplied by local taxation ; that 
 the metropolitan police should be supported o\it of the Con- 
 solidated Fund ; that the police of the counties and boroughs 
 of Great Britain — omitting Ireland, because that was already 
 supplied — should be borne upon the Consolidated Fund ; that 
 local prisons should be equally sustained by the general revenue 
 of the country; and so on. That was a definition of the 
 practical claims which were then preferred, and which were 
 sanctioned by a majority of 100 in the House. My lords, from 
 every one of those items during the last five years real property 
 has been relieved, and every one of those burdens has been 
 assisted from the Consolidated Fund. Of these things the noble 
 marquis has omitted to tell us. 
 
334 SPEECHES OP THE EARL OF BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, April 29, 1879.> 
 
 [The second of the two speeches was in answer to Lord Bate- 
 man, who moved : — 
 
 'L That, this House fully recognising the benefits which would 
 result to the community if a system of real free trade were univer- 
 sally adopted, it is expedient in all future commercial negotiations 
 with other countries to advocate a policy of Reciprocity between all 
 inter-trading nations ; and 
 
 '2. That the long- continued depressed state of the commercial, 
 manufacturing, and agricultural interests should form the subject of a 
 full Parliamentary inquiry with the view of ascertaining the causes, 
 the best means of redress, and of counteracting the injurious efiects of 
 the excessive tariflFs levied by foreign nations against the produce 
 and manufactures of this country.'] 
 
 MY lords, it cannot be denied that a state of great national 
 prosperity is quite consistent and compatible with legis- 
 lation in favour of the protection of native industry. That 
 proposition, years ago, was denied ; but viewing the position of 
 things around us, with the experience we have had of France 
 and the United States of America — the two most flourishing 
 communities probably in existence — it cannot for a moment be 
 maintained that the existence of a protective system to the 
 industry of an ancient country is inconsistent with a flourishing 
 condition. Well, my lords, many years ago — nearly forty — this 
 country, which no one can say^for a moment did not flourish 
 under the old system of protection, deemed it necessary to 
 revise the principles upon which its commerce was conducted. 
 There were three courses — to use a Parliamentary phrase com- 
 mon to those times — which were then open to the eminent man 
 to whom it fell to solve this problem. Sir Kobert Peel might, 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Delates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
AGEICULTUEAX DISTRESS, APEIL 1879. 335 
 
 in the first place, have reconstructed our commercial system 
 on a scale of low duties, but applied generally to every item in 
 the tarifif. In the second place, he might have endeavoured to 
 reconstruct our commercial system by those commercial 
 treaties of which we have heard so much to-night. And, lastly, 
 it lay before him to take a third course, which was at once to 
 determine to fight hostile tariffs with free imports. It is im- 
 possible to say what may have been the reasons that ultimately 
 induced that great statesman to take the course which he pur- 
 sued. I dare say, if we knew it, it probably was that the 
 difficulties of the two other courses, with our complicated 
 Parliamentary system, were such that it was impossible to carry 
 them through — that he could not found a system upon a scheme 
 of small and universal duties, and that the attempt to negotiate 
 commercial treaties upon the scale and in the number that were 
 requisite was not possible at that particular time, and with the 
 passionate feelings which the changes then proposed would 
 naturally excite. 
 
 The scheme that was adopted was this — that we were to 
 fight hostile tariffs with free imports. I was among those who 
 looked upon that policy with fear — I believed it to be one very 
 perilous ; and these feelings were shared by numerous parties 
 in both Houses of Parliament and by a numerous and influential 
 party in the country. The decision of England on the question 
 was a decision which was not hurried. Opportunity was offered 
 to discuss it ; a whole session of Parliament was devoted to it, 
 before the Bill which commenced and, I may say, was the crown 
 of the system, the repeal of the Corn Laws, was carried. After 
 that, two or three years passed when the country experienced 
 great distress in its industry — a distress perhaps not inferior to 
 that it is now going through. There was, of course, much dis- 
 content. There was, on the part of those who had opposed 
 the recent change, an earnest and anxious desire naturally to 
 avail themselves of this sharp experience of the country, and 
 obtain a reversal of the policy which, in their opinion, had pro- 
 duced these evils — but which were naturally not produced by 
 the commercial changes of that day, for sufficient time had not 
 elapsed after they had been carried to have produced the evils 
 
336 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 which were then suffered by the country. The question of free 
 trade was again discussed in both Houses of Parliament. It 
 enlisted the abilities of leading men on both sides. It was put 
 before the country by the Press in all its forms. A dissolution 
 of Parliament then occurred. At the very time when there 
 was great public distress the country had thus the opportunity 
 of rescinding the national resolution on which the new system 
 was based — and the country refrained from taking that oppor- 
 tunity to pass a verdict which would have forced a reconsidera- 
 tion of the new commercial policy. 
 
 Many of your lordships must know, from your own in- 
 dividual experience, that under these circumstances it was 
 impossible for public men, whatever might have been their 
 opinions upon these great commercial questions when these 
 important changes were first introduced, to have had an open 
 controversy for a quarter of a century. The-Govemment of the 
 country could not have been carried on. It was necessary to 
 bow to the decision of Parliament and the country, expressed by 
 its representatives in both Houses, and ultimately by an appeal 
 to the whole nation itself. That has been the state of affairs 
 as regards the two great parties in the State, however they may 
 have differed originally upon this subject. We have watched, 
 not without anxiety, all that has occurred during this long 
 period ; we have modiiied our opinions with great precaution ; 
 we have felt the great sacrifices that were to be made, for the 
 sake of the country, to the expression of the sentiments of the 
 majority. We have not been unaware of the remarkable cir- 
 cumstances, such as the gold discoveries and others, that 
 happened, which could not have been taken into calculation 
 either by those who proposed or those who opposed the great 
 commercial change. The country is now in a state of much 
 suffering and some perplexity ; and it is not unnatural your 
 lordships should be asked to consider whether the principles 
 upon which for the last thirty-five years we have acted are really 
 sound and true. The question has been brought before us by my 
 noble friend (Lord Bateman), who for some time has given his 
 attention to the subject. My noble friend read to us some 
 extracts from a pamphlet he has written. We know he has 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, APRIL 1879. 337 
 
 been in active communication with experienced persons who 
 axe suffering in the present state of the country. Though I 
 cannot agree that my noble friend addressed us — as I fear I 
 shall have to show — in a manner amounting to logical convic- 
 tion, he at least showed us by the manner in which he treated 
 the subject generally that it was one with which he was familiar 
 and on which he was perfectly justiiied in putting his opinions 
 before the House. I regret to say that with most of his state- 
 ments I cannot agree. I was very much struck by the course 
 my noble friend took. I listened to him with an attention 
 which I am sure was not ' surpassed by any of your lordships. 
 My noble friend took an early opportunity of saying that he 
 was in favour of the repeal of the Corn Laws, and nothing 
 would induce him to agree to any recurrence to our old legisla- 
 tion upon the subject. This statement did not seem to be 
 endorsed by the recent remarks of the noble duke (the Duke 
 of Eutland), who seemed to look forward to the placing of an 
 import duty on corn as one of the measures which might extri- 
 cate us from our present difficulty and perplexity. 
 
 The noble lord who has devoted himself to this subject 
 commenced his speech with the most formal declaration that, 
 whatever relief might be devised for the suffering classes and 
 trades of this country, the landowner and the farmer are to have 
 no share in the solace and assistance which are to be found in a 
 duty upon com. My noble friend proceeded to state that' he 
 was entirely opposed to all duties that were levied for revenue, 
 provided that they concerned the food and sustenance of the 
 people ; and he gave us one example — one of a group — suf- 
 ficient in itself, the duty on tea. That, he said, is quite in- 
 defensible — why not repeal the duty on tea and put it on 
 spirits? Four millions is a sum which I believe the most 
 sanguine Chancellor of the Exchequer would hardly anticipate 
 that he could raise by an increase of duties on spirits — particu- 
 larly at this moment, as it is a declining revenue. My noble 
 friend asked why a duty on tea should be defensible if a duty 
 on corn of the same amount was not ? I remind him that by 
 his own position the duty on tea is a duty for revenue, and a 
 duty of the same amount on com would be a duty for protection. 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
338 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Having told us that he will not bring back the corn duties; 
 that he is prepared to put an end to all duties for revenue ; and 
 then having denounced commercial treaties because he considered 
 we have nothing to offer, and we never get anything by them ; 
 and having concluded that it is not by any of these the country 
 can be saved, the noble lord said it could be saved only by the 
 principle of reciprocity. Your lordships must have hung upon 
 the accents of the noble lord when he promised to tell us what 
 reciprocity is. At one moment I thought we were to be 
 enlightened ou the subject. He gave a picturesque description 
 of a person who had crossed his path in these investigations — 
 he had probably lost his way — the opportunity seemed to have 
 arrived ; but it passed and never recurred again. 
 
 So far as I understand him, reciprocity is barter. I have 
 always understood that barter was the first evidence of civilisa- 
 tion — that it was exactly the state of human exchange that 
 separated civilisation from savagery ; and if reciprocity is only 
 barter, I fear that would hardly help us out of our difiiculty. 
 My noble friend read some extracts from the speeches of those 
 who had the misfortune to be in Parliament at that time, and 
 he honoured me by reading an extract from the speech I then 
 made in the other House of Parliament. That was a speech in 
 favour of reciprocity — a speech which defined what was then 
 thought to be reciprocity, and indicated the means by which 
 reciprocity could be obtained. 1 do not want to enter into the 
 discussion whether the principle was right or wrong— but it 
 was acknowledged in public life, favoured and pursued by many 
 statesmen who ccnceived that by the negotiation of a treaty of 
 commerce, by reciprocal exchange and the lowering of duties, 
 the products of the two negotiating countries would find a 
 freer access and consumption in the two countries than they 
 formerly possessed. But when my noble friend taunts me with 
 a quotation of some rusty phrases of mine forty years ago, I 
 must remind him tbat we had elements then on which treaties 
 of reciprocity could be negotiated. At that time, although the 
 great changes of Sir Robert Peel had taken place, there were 
 168 articles in the tariff which were materials by which you 
 could have negotiated, if that was a wise and desirable policy, 
 
AGEICULTUEAL DISTRESS, APRIL 1879. 339 
 
 commercial treaties of reciprocity. What is the number you 
 now have in the tariff? Twenty-two. Those who talk of 
 negotiating treaties of reciprocity — have they the materials for 
 negotiating treaties of reciprocity ? You have lost the oppor- 
 tunity. I do not want to enter into the argument, at the 
 present moment, whether this was wise or not ; but the policy 
 which was long ago abandoned you cannot now resume. 
 
 You have at this moment a great number of commercial 
 treaties. I will not charge my memory with stating the exact 
 number of conamercial treaties we have, they are very numerous ; 
 but this I know : you have nearly forty commercial treaties 
 with some of the most considerable countries in the world — 
 the United States, Germany, and others — in which ' the most 
 favoured nation clause ' is included. Well, suppose you are 
 for a system of reciprocity, as my noble friend proposes. He 
 enters into negotiations with a State ; he says : ' You complain 
 of our high duties on some particular articles. We have not 
 many, we have a few left ; we shall make some great sacrifice 
 to induce you to enter into a treaty for an exchange of products.' 
 But the moment you contemplate agreeing with the State that 
 you will make concessions by lowering some duties on the few 
 articles remaining, every other of the forty States with ' the 
 most favoured nation clause ' claims exactly the same privilege. 
 The fact is, practically speaking, reciprocity, whatever its merits, 
 is dead. You cannot, if you would, build up a reciprocal system 
 of commercial treaties. You have lost the power; you have 
 given up the means by which you could before obtain such a 
 result as my noble friend desires. But he haS^no other scheme 
 to put before us but the scheme of reciprocity, which I wish to 
 show your lordships does not exist. The noble lord sneered at 
 our last treaty with Servia. It secures us the advantage of 
 ' the most favoured nation clause.' The noble earl who last 
 addressed us (the Earl of Morley) showed, according to his 
 views, the fallacy of the principle of commercial reciprocity. I 
 do not want to get into that part of the case. I hold myself 
 free on that subject. But here it is a phantom; There are no 
 means, and no men — from whatever side the Government of the 
 country m'ay be drawn, whatever members may form it — who can 
 
 z 2 
 
340 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OE BEACONSflELD. 
 
 come forward now with a large system of commercial exchange 
 founded on the system of reciprocity. The opportunity, like 
 the means, has been relinquished ; and if this is the only mode 
 in which we are to extricate ourselves from the great distress 
 which prevails, our situation is hopeless. I should be very sorry 
 to say, whatever the condition of the country, its condition is 
 hopeless. I have had the opportunity, and it was my duty, 
 during the last six months to investigate the real condition of 
 some of the principal industries of this country, and I cannot 
 trace to our great commercial changes any of the depression 
 and evils which they experience and complain of — except, I 
 admit, in the case of land. 
 
 I cannot for a moment doubt that the repeal of the Corn ' 
 Laws — on the policy of which I do not enter — has materially 
 affected the condition of those who are interested in land. I 
 do not mean to say that this is the only cause of landed distress. 
 There are other reasons — general distress, the metallic changes, 
 have all had an effect ; but I cannot shut my eyes to the con- 
 viction that the termination of protection to the landed interest 
 has materially tended to the condition in which it finds itself. 
 But that is no reason why we should come suddenly to an 
 opinion that we should retrace our steps, and authorise and 
 sanction any violent changes. This state of affairs is one which 
 has long threatened — it has been contemplated by many high 
 authorities. It has arrived. I cannot shut my eyes to the fact, 
 and we must consider every step we take with reference to it. 
 I cannot give up the expectation that the energy of this country 
 will bring about a condition of affairs more favourable to the 
 various classes which form the great landed interest of this 
 country. I should look upon it as a great misfortime to this 
 country that the character, and power, and influence of the 
 landed interest and its valuable industry should be diminished, 
 and should experience anything like a fatal and final blow. It 
 would in my opinion, be a misfortune, not to this country alone, 
 but to the world, for it has contributed to the spirit of liberty 
 and order more than any other class that has existed in modern 
 times. 
 
 My lords, I have put before you the remarks that have oc- 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS, APRIL 1879. 341 
 
 curred to me on the motion of my noble friend. He has got 
 hold of a very good question in the national distress ; but it 
 appears to me that before he proceeds in his adventure of find- 
 ing the remedy for it, it is absolutely necessary that he should 
 study more precision, both of thought and language. I listened 
 with much attention to his agreeable speech ; but I really do 
 not know what he requires. He is against protection. I under- 
 stand the views of my noble friend the noble duke (the Duke of 
 Rutland). They are consistent. They are the same he exr 
 pressed when seated on my right hand, forty years ago, and he 
 is still ready to act upon them. He is prepared to propose and 
 carry out, if he can, a certain degree of protection to the land. 
 But my noble friend who asks us to pass this resolution utterly 
 disclaims that ; he utterly disclaims everything but a phantom. 
 I cannot support my noble friend when he asks us to pass reso- 
 lutions of this grave character, and when he himself disclaims 
 the very grounds on which he might have framed, not what I 
 think was a correct, but a plausible case. It is a yery unwise 
 course, in my opinion, when the country is not in a state so 
 satisfactory as we could wish, when all classes, no doubt, of the 
 industry of the country are in a position of uneasiness — it is, in 
 my opinion, an unwise course to propose any inquiry which has 
 not either some definite object, or is likely to lead to some 
 action on the part of those who bring it forward. I think it 
 would be most unwise for us to come to a resolution to have an 
 inquiry into the causes of public distress when that inquiry is 
 evidently one which would end only in asking questions. It 
 would lead to great disappointment and uneasiness on the part 
 of the country ; and the classes who are trying to realise the 
 exact difficulties they have to encounter, and devising the best 
 means to overpower and change them, would relapse into a lax 
 state which might render them incapable of making the exer- 
 tions it is necessary for them to make. Therefore, I cannot 
 sanction, so far as my vote is concerned, the course recommended 
 by my noble friend. 
 
 Looking into the state of the country, I do not see there is 
 any great mystery in the causes which have produced a state of 
 which there is undoubted general complaint. What has hap- 
 
342 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 pened in our own commercial fortunes during the last ten years 
 will explain it. The great collapse which naturally followed the 
 convulsion of prosperity which seemed to deluge the world, 
 and not merely this country — the fact that other countries 
 have been placed in an equally disagreeable situation, though 
 their commercial systems were founded upon principles the 
 contrary of our own — these are circumstances which appear 
 to me to render it quite unnecessary to enter into an inquiry 
 on this subject. I do not mean to say that there are not 
 moments — that there are not circumstances — in which an 
 inquiry by Parliament or by a Eoyal Commission into the 
 causes of national distress may not be allowable — may not be 
 necessary ; but it must be a distress of a very different kind 
 from that which we are now experiencing. We must have the 
 consciousness that the great body of the people are in a situation 
 intolerable to them, and that no persons with any sense of 
 responsibility would think they had done their duty without 
 examining and reporting on the causes of it. That is not the 
 condition of the people. That there is great suffering — that 
 the leading personages of all classes are suffering — I admit; 
 but the bulk of the people are in a condition which everyone 
 must acknowledge it would be absurd to describe as one of dis- 
 tress and despair. I hope myself, and firmly believe, although 
 I know that many of great authority in this matter are sceptical 
 — I believe that there is a change for the better in the condition 
 of the industrial world ; and though, after what has been said 
 to-night, I do not care again to talk about America, much that 
 I hear from America confirms that belief. I am sure there will 
 be no want of sympathy in this House with the sufferings of the 
 people of this country ; and if to-night your lordships do not 
 accept the proposition of my noble friend, it is because — and 
 the country will understand what is meant — it is because it is 
 a proposition which can lead to no public beneiit. 
 
PAET III, . 
 LATER FINANCIAL SPEECHES. 
 
 BUDGET Dec. 3, 1852. 
 
 REPLY Dec. 16, 1852. 
 
 SPEECH ON GLADSTONE'S BUDGET May 2, 1853. 
 
 BUDGET . April 19, 1858. 
 
 ON MR. DUCANE'S MOTION . . Feb. 24, 1860. 
 
 WAYS AND MEANS .... April 7, 1862. 
 
 COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH ITALY Feb. 17, 3863. 
 
345 
 
 BrDGET, December 3, 1852.' 
 
 [The principal features of this Budget were the remission of half 
 the malt-tax ; the gradual remission of half the tea-duty ; the assess- 
 ment of .income-tax on one third of the farmer's rental instead of one 
 half; the extension of income-tax to incomes of lOOZ. a year of pre- 
 carious income, and to 501. a year of permanent income ; the exten- 
 sion of the house-tax to houses of 101. a year rateable value, and 
 an increase of the assessment to Is. 6d. in the pound on houses and 
 Is. on shops ; the whole produce being calculated at 1,723,000Z. It is 
 easy to see that these proposals were not likely to command the 
 assent of the new House of Commons, in which the majority was 
 hostile to the claims of the agricultural interest. But it may not be 
 so generally understood why the Chancellor of the Excheqiier was 
 obliged to introduce them. In the autumn of 1852, the agricultural 
 depression of the last three years, though diminishing, had not en- 
 tirely disappeared. The Opposition perceived that if the Chancellor 
 could be forced to make his financial statement before the expiration of 
 the year, instead of waiting until the usual time in the spring of 1853, 
 it would be morally impossible for him not to propose something 
 for the farmer which, in all probability, they would be able to use 
 against him. What they foresaw came to pass. Being compelled to 
 make his statement in December, instead of in the following April, 
 the reduction of the malt-tax and the alteration in the assessment of 
 the income-tax on agricultural incomes were forced upon him : and 
 to compensate for these remissions he was compelled to resort to the 
 unpopular provisions above mentioned — the extension, namely, of the 
 house-tax and the income-tax. Four months later he would have 
 been relieved from this necessity. But his opponents were aware 
 of the fact, and forced his hand, as we have seen. The Government 
 were defeated, on December 16, by a majority of 19, and were suc- 
 ceeded by the Aberdeen administration. 
 
 After commenting on three separate instances of particular inter- 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's [Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
346 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 ests-whicli liad suffered from recent legislation — the shipping interest, 
 the sugar colonies, and the classes affected by local taxation — Mr. 
 Disraeli proceeded as follows : — ] 
 
 I HAVE now, Sir, considered three instances of peculiar 
 interests that have, in my opinion, suffered by recent legis- 
 lation. 1 have placed before the House the general views of 
 Her Majesty's Grovernment with respect to those interests. I 
 have offered, with regard to the shipping interest, measures 
 which, so far as I could judge of the feelings of the House, 
 were, I think, considered moderate but satisfactory. I mean 
 moderate so far in their conception that they have not been 
 framed with an ad captandum purpose ; satisfactory, because I 
 believe this House and the country will take them as a final 
 settlement to that controversy. I have endeavoured, on the 
 part of the Grovernment, to view the claims of the sugar colonies 
 in a just and fair spirit. I am sure that those who are connected 
 with that interest must be satisfied that it would be quite im- 
 possible to propose a differential duty ; and that claim could 
 only have been urged by those who were not masters of the 
 facts ; and they must see from the course taken on the part of 
 the Grovernment as to encouraging immigration to the colonies, 
 and permitting them to carry on the manufacturing processes 
 without the restrictions which before esdsted — a boon which has 
 been described to me by an eminent member of the West India 
 body as equal itself to a differential duty of Is. 6d. per. cwt. — 
 they must feel, when the Grovernment have taken upon them- 
 selves the responsibility — for it is a grave responsibility — of re- 
 commending that step, besides others to which I shall have to 
 advert, having the same object in view, that there has been an 
 anxious desire on our part to place them in as good a position 
 as present circumstances and the temper of the public mind 
 would permit. I believe. Sir, that the measures we have re- 
 commended with respect to the West India body will sensibly 
 improve the condition of that interest. I shall not touch any 
 further upon the subject of local taxation. 
 
 I now approach the more important topic of viewing the 
 taxation of this country under the new circumstances in which 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852.' 347 
 
 all parties and conditions of men have now agreed they are to 
 be placed. So long as there were two great parties in this 
 country who questioned the principle upon which our commercial 
 code ought to be established, it was impossible to obtain any 
 general adhesion to the principle upon which our financial policy 
 ought to be constructed. So long as a man thought that his 
 industry ought to be protected, he was prepared to endure a 
 heavy burden of taxation artificially distributed. So long as a 
 man thought that his industry should be free from all restric- 
 tion, of course he demurred against the system which imposed 
 restriction upon the financial arrangements of the country and 
 raised the prices of the articles which he consumed. It is 
 obvious, generally speaking, that the doctrine of unrestricted 
 competition is not consistent with restricted industry — -in a 
 word, if you decree that the community are to receive low prices 
 for their produce, your policy ought to be one which will put an 
 end, as soon as possible, to high taxes. Well, Sir, after the 
 general election, and after the solemn verdict of the country, 
 we had to consider the general system of our taxation, and to 
 apply to it the principle of unrestricted competition. We had 
 to ask ourselves what were the measures which it was best to 
 recommend to Parliament, now that this principle was formally 
 and definitely established, and what were the measures most 
 consistent with that principle, and which would enable the 
 community to encounter that competition which it must now, 
 in every form and in every sense, be prepared to meet? Well, 
 Sir, when we took that subject into consideration, giving it the 
 utmost thought we could command, it appeared to me that we 
 must arrive inevitably at this result — that we should best enable 
 the people to engage in that competition to which they are now 
 for ever destined by cheapening as much as possible that which 
 sustains their lives. We look, therefore, to articles that are of 
 prime necessity, and if we find that those articles of prime 
 necessity are subjected to some of the heaviest taxes in our 
 tariff, then we say that these are arrangements inconsistent with 
 the new system established, and the new principles of which we 
 have approved. 
 
 It is the boast of the honourable gentlemen opposite that 
 
348 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 they have given cheap bread to the community ; but the prin- 
 ciples upon which you have given cheap bread to the community 
 are principles which ought to make you cheapen the sustenance 
 of the community in every form ; and I think I shall be able to 
 show to the House that if they adopt that principle of finance, 
 they will, in a legitimate manner, without going out of their 
 way, and without artificial means, be giving the greatest possible 
 impulse to every branch of industry of the country, and 
 especially to those very branches that have most suffered by 
 recent legislation. The House, therefore, will not be astonished 
 that Her Majesty's Grovemment are prepared to recommend to 
 Parliament to deal with the malt-tax. Here is a prime necessity 
 of life subject to a very high tax, and a very high tax levied 
 under circumstances which greatly restrict industry. I am not 
 called upon to recommend the change I am about to propose 
 to the House to honourable gentlemen opposite on any other 
 plea than that which they have always declared to be the 
 sovereign plea — namely, the benefit of the consumer. Honour- 
 able gentlemen opposite have sometimes told friends of mine, 
 when they have proposed dealing with the malt-tax as a means 
 of assisting the agricultural interest, that it was only a con- 
 sumer's tax ; but I am sure honourable gentlemen opposite will 
 not oppose the plan of the Grovemment on that plea — that they 
 will not get up and tell me I am about to propose a change in 
 the law which will only benefit the consumer. It can hardly 
 be the efiect of the dissolution of Parliament, it will hardly be 
 the effect of the triumph of unrestricted competition, that I 
 am to be told by honourable gentlemen opposite, on the first 
 occasion when I propose a remission of a tax, that it can only 
 benefit the consumer. On the contrary, I give honourable 
 gentlemen opposite credit for the consistent and sincere con- 
 viction that the interest of the consumer is the interest which 
 we ought first to consider. I have never disguised my own 
 opinions on this subject. I have always told my friends that 
 though it was certainly the interest of the consumer that the 
 malt-tax should be dealt with, still it was my opinion that 
 there was no tax with which we could deal which, if properly 
 dealt with, would more benefit the agricultural interest. I 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1882. 349 
 
 hope honourable gentlemen opposite will not grudge me a few 
 observations on this view of the question to those with whom I 
 have so long been in connection, r 
 
 It appears to me that the question of the malt-tax has as- 
 sumed a totally different aspect since the repeal of the Corn 
 Laws. I know it was said by one who was justly of great 
 authority in this House — one of very great authority with me — 
 that the moment you repealed the Corn Laws the repeal of the 
 malt-tax was inevitable ; and, Sir, I think there will be no 
 great difficulty in demonstrating the soundness of that opinion. 
 But it is quite clear, when ministers of the State take every 
 opportunity of informing the cultivator of the soil that he 
 must grow as little wheat as possible, that the difficulty of 
 maintaining the policy of a law which restricts the production 
 of the next generous grain is proportionately increased. There 
 is no doubt, when the tendency of your recent legislation is to 
 diminish the production of wheat, and, in fact, to limit its pro- 
 duction to those soils only which are eminently and naturally 
 qualified for it, that the tendency of your legislation should be, 
 if not to encourage those productions which should be natural 
 to the soil, now that wheat is to be relinquished, at least not 
 to maintain laws which would discourage the production of 
 them. Even as regards wheat, it is impossible that any legis- 
 lative means can be devised which would more tend to the 
 encouragement and support of the wheat land than, in fact, 
 diverting those soils that were improperly employed in the 
 cultivation of wheat back to their original purpose. The more 
 you produce barley upon the soils qualified to produce barley, 
 the more you are improving the market for the production of 
 those soils eminently qualified to give us wheat ; and the in- 
 direct influence of any change in the malt-tax upon the pro- 
 duction of wheat will be, in my opinion, very considerable. 
 Well, Sir, we now have to consider, in the first place, how we 
 shall deal with this tax, in what manner, and to what degree. 
 If we deal with it in a small manner, we shall probably accom- 
 plish none of those objects to which I have alluded. The con- 
 sumer will not be benefited ; the cultivator of the soil will not 
 be benefited ; you'll neither have cheap beer nor will you have 
 
350 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 a freer cultivation of the land of the country. What you want 
 is, that you shall have as much as possible unrestricted industry, 
 and its consequences, as far as the cultivation of the soil is con- 
 cerned ; and that one of the consequences of that unrestricted 
 industry should be that the consumer should be enabled to pro- 
 cure one of the main caiises of his expenditure, and one of the 
 principal sources of his health and strength, supplied to him 
 at a reduced price. Those are the objects we wish to obtain, 
 and they appear to us to be the objects which cannot be obtained 
 if we deal in a small manner with this great subject. The 
 existing duty upon malt is 2s. 7^d., and 5 per cent, on the 
 bushel. The consumption is increasing. In 1849 it was 
 38,935,000 bushels ; in 1850 it was 40,744,000; and in 1851 
 it went a little back, and was 40,377,000 bushels. But though 
 increasing, there is no article of consumption which has less 
 proportionately increased, and the diminution of the consump- 
 tion of which can, I think, be more clearly attributed to the 
 large tax levied on it, and to the restrictions which that tax 
 occasions. 
 
 I know there are gentlemen who have endeavoured to main- 
 tain at times that the reason the consumption of malt has 
 not increased to a greater extent is that the taste of the 
 country has been diverted to other sources of sustenance and 
 excitement ; but I think I could show to the House, by a 
 reference to a few general statistics upon these subjects, that 
 that is a position which cannot be maintained. Well, Sir, 
 under these circumstances Her Majesty's Government think it 
 their duty to recommend to the House that the malt-tax should 
 be considerably diminished — that we should diminish by one- 
 half the amount of the present duty on malt. The siim which 
 we have to deal with is a sum which exceeds 5,000,000^. as 
 regards the revenue, and we propose that we shall diminish the 
 duty exactly by one-half ; we propose that there should be paid 
 a uniform duty of Is. 3^d. and 5 per cent, per bushel upon 
 barley, and also upon every bushel of bere and bigg ; we pro- 
 pose to terminate the restrictions and the difference in the duty 
 which has been injuriously and improperly maintained between 
 malt raised from barley and from bere and bigg ; and we pro-- 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 351 
 
 pose also to do away with the drawback iu Scotland upon spirits 
 produced from malt. That drawback has already been re- 
 nounced by Ireland as unnecessary. It was recommended by 
 the Commissioners of Excise Inquiry as one which shall be ter- 
 minated whenever any considerable reduction took place in the 
 duty upon malt ; and I think I shall have no difficulty in show- 
 ing to the House, when we come to points of detail, that this is 
 a change which ought no longer to be postponed. Now, allow 
 me to read to the House the recommendation which was made, 
 in the year 1831, I think, upon the subject of the malt-duty, 
 by a distinguished member of this House, Sir Henry Parnell, 
 who was at the head of the Eoyal Commission to inquire into 
 the Excise, and to whose labours we are indebted for some of 
 the most valuable documents in our Parliamentary library. 
 Now, these words are very interesting when we remember the 
 circumstances under which they were written. Having entered 
 into a general statement that the most effectual mode of sup- 
 pressing illicit malting would be by a reduction of the duty on 
 malt, he went on as follows : — 
 
 ' But if the importation of foreign barley be not permitted, 
 the tendency of a reduced duty to increase the consumption of 
 malt would be counteracted by the price of British barley be- 
 coming higher in consequence of the new demand for it, which 
 would arise from the duty having been lowered ; and thus the 
 consequence of a reduction of duty would be, not such an in- 
 creased consumption of malt as would keep the revenue up to 
 its present amount, but a higher price of barley, and a certain 
 loss of revenue. As, therefore, there is no probability of a re- 
 duced duty being followed by such an increased consumption of 
 malt as would prevent a loss of revenue, so long as the im- 
 portation of foreign barley is restricted, we are of opinion that 
 it will be pj-eferable to endeavour to cheek illicit malting by the 
 enforcement of the excise laws, however inadequate they may 
 be to produce a complete remedy, rather than to try the ex- 
 periment of stopping it by a reduction of duty. If there were 
 no factitious cause for elevating the price of barley, arising 
 from t*he direct effect of a duty on foreign barley, or from the 
 indirect effect of duties on other kinds of foreign corn, we 
 
352 SPEECHES OF THE EAKL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 should not feel any hesitation in saying that the proper way of 
 dealing with the malt-duty would be to reduce it one-half.' 
 
 Those were the words of Sir Henry Parnell. Practically, 
 he said that, if your Corn Laws were repealed, he recommended 
 you to reduce your malt-duty one-half. That, too, is the 
 opinion of a gentleman as tender of the reveniie as any gentle- 
 man who ever spoke in this House. Those circumstances, 
 which Sir Henry Parnell possibly did not contemplate, have 
 occurred ; you have repealed your Com Laws, and I ask you now 
 to sanction the recommendation made by Sir Henry Parnell at 
 that time. For, says he — 
 
 ' Nothing in our opinion can be more unwise than to 
 reduce duties on articles which are fit subjects of taxation, with- 
 out at the same time taking care to secure the most abundant 
 supply that is possible to be secured of the materials which are 
 necessary for their production.' 
 
 Well, you have done that. The circumstances which he 
 anticipated have occurred, and now I ask you to adopt the mea- 
 sure which he recommended. 
 
 Mr. Cayley : Is that the Report of the commissioners that 
 you have quoted from ? 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer : Yes ; the Report of the 
 Commissioners f Excise Inquiry, of which Sir H. Parnell was 
 the chairman. The Report of the commissioners also recom- 
 mended terminating the drawback on spirits made from malt 
 in Scotland. That is at present 8d. per gallon ; and, of course 
 if there were a reduction of the duty by one-half, it would only 
 be id. per gallon. But here is the Report of the Committee on 
 the Spirit Duties in Ireland : 
 
 ' That it is the opinion of this Committee that the repeal of 
 the malt drawback in Ireland will not be prejudicial either to 
 the trade in spirits, or to the revenue, in that country.' 
 
 That was in 1842. In consequence of that, the drawback 
 in Ireland terminated without a murmur. It has given great 
 satisfaction, and I am certain that the repeal of the drawback 
 in Scotland will prove equally successful. There are many 
 points in the Report of the Commissioners of Excise Inquiry 
 as regards malt which are well worthy of the consideration of 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 353 
 
 the House. They particularly dilate on the length of credit 
 which is given in that trade. They show the vicious principle 
 on which that system has been established ; and they recommend 
 that the credit should be limited to the same duration which 
 applies to all other exciseable articles. I confess I am not pre- 
 pared to give unqualified adhesion to that recommendation. I 
 think it is of the greatest importance that in all these changes 
 the particular trades involved should be disturbed as little as 
 possible ; and, though I think that the principles laid down 
 in that report are sound principles, and that ultimately we 
 should look as much as possible in this country to diminish the 
 system of long credits, which is not adapted to the principle on 
 which our commerce is conducted at present, but which was the 
 result, I think, of paper currency and war speculations — still at 
 the same time I think it would not be wise unqualifiedly and 
 entirely to adopt the recommendation of the commissioners in 
 this respect. We propose, then, that on October 10 next the 
 malt-duty shall be reduced one-half. We have fixed on that 
 period, of course, after due examination into the question when 
 the change could take place with the least inconvenience to the 
 trade, and, as we believe, with the most general benefit to the 
 community, and October 10 is the day on which we have fixed. 
 On that day we propose to take the stock-in-hand throughout 
 the country, and of course we shall guard those who are then 
 possessors of malt from the competition, so far as the one-half 
 in the amount of the duty is concerned, to which they will be 
 subjected, and for that stock-in -hand they wiU receive a draw- 
 back in proportion to the reduction of the duty. 
 
 I do not know that this is the convenient moment at which 
 I should attempt to place before the House the effect of these 
 changes upon the revenue. It will probably be more con- 
 venient that at a subsequent part of my statement I should 
 place the effect of those changes before the House. I will, then, 
 once more, merely capitulate, for the sake of clearness, what 
 this change is. We propose to reduce the duty on malt one- 
 half ; we propose that there shall be no difference between the 
 duty on malt raised from barley and from here and bigg. This 
 wiU occasion some accession to the revenue, though it is not 
 
 VOL. I. A A 
 
354 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 for that object, but in order to simplify the subject as much aa 
 possible, that I recommend it to the House. We propose to 
 put an end to the drawback allowed in Scotland on spirits 
 raised from malt ; and we propose that the reduction shall take 
 place on October 10 next, on which day the whole stock-in^ 
 hand throughout the country will be taken, and a drawback 
 allowed to the holders of that stock proportionate in amount to 
 the reduction of the duty. 
 
 Well, Sir, following the principle which I have laid down, 
 that in the present state of affairs we should consider our 
 taxation mainly as it regards the great body of the consumers, 
 believing that the policy wUl afford the most legitimate, the 
 surest, and the most efficient means of relieving the industry of 
 the country, I proceed now to another branch of the question. 
 I have shown you by the manner in which we propose to deal 
 with the malt-tax we benefit largely, as we believe, the con^ 
 sumer ; but in doing so we think that incidentally — and that 
 was only a secondary purpose — we are giving most efficient aid 
 to the agricultural interest, far beyond what dealing with local 
 taxation would give. Now, Sir, I come to another branch of 
 the subject. I come to deal with an article as popular with the 
 people as malt, as much a necessary of life, and subjected to a 
 much heavier tax. I am about to recommend the House to 
 deal with the tea-duties. Sir, I know the prejudices that exist 
 among a certain class of persons on the subject of the tea- 
 duties; but having had occasion to look very much into this 
 question, I have been amused in marking the rise of opinion — 
 the gradual formation of opinion — on this article of produce, 
 now almost one of paramount interest in this country. I hardly 
 know anything more diverting than to open ' Pepys's Diary,' 
 where we see it stated, ' Took a cup of the new China drink — 
 very pleasant,' and to remember that not two centuries have 
 passed, and the exotic novelty that pleased one evening that 
 fantastic gentleman is now the principal solace of every cottage 
 in the kingdom. 
 
 Well, Sir, the great objection which has been urged at dif- 
 ferent times and by persons in authority — for I think it right to 
 State a case of this kind as fairly as possible — is, that in dealing 
 
BUDGET, DECEjVIBER 1852. 355 
 
 •with tea we deal with an article of limited production. True it is 
 that since Mr. Pepys had his cup of the ' new China drink ' — true 
 it is that since certainly the commencement of the last century, 
 when only 500,000 lbs. of tea were imported into this country 
 at a very high price, we have ended in importing more than 
 70,000,000 lbs. in one year, and every year at a cheaper rate. 
 These would seem to be facts in the face of which it is very 
 difficult to believe that the production of tea can be limited. 
 A production so immensely increased, and always imported at a 
 lower price, appears to be one the supply of which cannot be 
 likely to fail. But in the year 1834, I think, or shortly after 
 the passing of the Reform Bill, when the trade with China was 
 opened — when the charter of the East India Company was about 
 to be, or had become, matter for discussion — it was always urged 
 by persons of authority against opening the trade wit"h China, 
 that we should be greatly disappointed in what would occur, 
 because, the supply of tea being limited, it was quite impossible 
 that there could be any reduction in the price. The supply of 
 tea was then, I think, about 30,000,000 lbs. per annum. Now 
 we have, last year, imported the unprecedented amount of 
 71,466,000 Ibs.,^ our consumption being, in round numbers, 
 54,000,000 lbs. It is quite clear, therefore, that the importa- 
 tion of tea is still greater than our consumption, and it is also 
 quite clear that the duties which exist, which are nearly 240 
 per cent, per pound, check a consumption equal to the importa- 
 tion. Well, Sir, when we look at the gradual increase in the 
 importation of tea ; when we look to the broad fact that 
 30,000,000 lbs. under the restricted trade have increased to 
 71,466,000 lbs. under the freer trade, though subjected to a 
 colossal duty ; when we look to all the evidence before us. and 
 to the gradual diminution always of price, we have a right, I 
 think, prima facie to conclude that there will be no difficulty 
 in supplying the demand for tea in this country. But, Sir, Her 
 Majesty's Grovernment, in dealing with this important subject 
 have not deemed it consistent with their duty merely to 
 depend upon their own conclusions, framed from books and 
 
 1 The quantity of tea 'imported in 1880 was 206,971,570 lbs. ; and the 
 quantity retained for home consumption, 158,321,572 lbs. 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 their observations of what occurs around them. They have had 
 an opportunity of consulting those who are great authorities on 
 the subject, who, by their foreign residence, their particular 
 study of the matter in question, and their natural aptitude to 
 form conclusions upon such subjects, should be entitled to 
 guide the judgment of any administration. They have applied 
 to those who, locally, were the best capable of forming an 
 opinion — though, of course, to form any opinion on a subject in 
 a country like China is much more difiBcult than in other coun- 
 tries : nevertheless, we have now some knowledge of China ; 
 nevertheless, there are individuals who are very competent to 
 guide even a Grovernment on such subjects ; and after bestow- 
 ing upon this question the most laborious investigation, and 
 having omitted no efforts to obtain the most accurate informa- 
 tion ; having suggested every means and every test by which 
 information could be brought to bear ; having even personally 
 bad the honour and satisfaction of conferring with some pecu- 
 liarly qualified to offer an opinion on the subject, Her Majesty's 
 Government have arrived at the conclusion which, to use the 
 most moderate language I can command, may be thus expressed 
 — that there can be no prospect of any want of a supply of tea 
 to this country. 
 
 It is under these circumstances, Sir, that we approach the 
 question. We must remember some facts of importance ; we 
 must remember that since the year 1841 the annual increase in 
 the consumption of tea in this country has been 1,727,000 lbs. 
 There has been a gradual increase since 1841 of the consump- 
 tion of tea, even at a duty of 240 per cent., and that increase 
 during the last few years has been much larger. The increase 
 in the consumption during the last six years, without any 
 reduction of duty, has been nearly 10,000,000 lbs. In 1851 
 the consumption in round numbers was 54,000,000 lbs., while 
 in 1844 it was 44,000,000 lbs. In considering this subject, it 
 was impossible to shut our eyes to what had occurred in respect 
 to the consumption of sugar. The consumption of sugar in the 
 year 1844, the year immediately preceding the great reduction 
 of the duty, was 4,129,000 cwt., in 1850 it was 6,200,000 cwt., 
 and in 1851 it was nearly 6,600 000 cwt., showing an increase 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 357 
 
 in the first six years of the reduced duty of about one-half, and 
 in seven yeaxs, of considerably more than one-half, the duty 
 having been reduced in the proportion of 25 to 10. In dealing 
 with tea, we are of opinion that it would be perfectly vain to 
 attempt to make any difference either between black and 
 green or between any qualities whatever. We are persuaded 
 that in making any such attempt we should only involve our- 
 selves in great trouble ; that we should not obtain the object 
 we all desire ; and that in this question, as in maltj or in any 
 other question of a similar kind, the boldest is the wisest 
 com-se. 
 
 I mentioned before that we were not of opinion that the 
 reductions of duties on articles so far of a similar character that 
 they both tend to the sustenance of the people in the form of 
 beverages, at all interfere with each other. I do not know any 
 more striking case than the case of coffee. I think that in 
 1808 there was little more imported into this country than 
 1,000,000 lbs. of coffee. The duty was then considerable. It 
 was changed : it was much lowered ; and in 1809— a,nd remem- 
 ber what our population then was as compared with what it is 
 at present — the importation was nearly 10,000,000 lbs. But 
 simultaneously with that increased consumption of coffee the 
 consumption of tea has increased, and we are now consuming 
 37,000,000 lbs. of coffee, while, as I have shown, last year we 
 consumed 54,000,000 lbs. of tea, and probably we shall not 
 consume much less than 57,000,000 lbs. in the financial year 
 ending January 3, 1853. Under these circumstances, availing 
 ourselves of the experience which dealing with the sugar-duties 
 has given, following a precedent which I think has been so 
 successful, we think the proposition that we oUght to make to 
 the House — a proposition which I believe is in every way a 
 safe propoaition — should also be one in its nature of a com- 
 plete and comprehensive character. The present duty upon tea, 
 with the five per cent, added, is 2s. 2^d. a pound. Without 
 making any distinction in the qualities of tea, we propose that 
 we should reduce that duty to Is. a pound ; and we propose 
 that, following the example of the sugar-duties, that reduction 
 shall extend over the term of six years i that in the first year 
 
358 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 there should be a reduction of 4:^d. per pound. (Laughter.) 
 I think honourable gentlemen, when they have reflected for 
 a moment, will find that they are too precipitate in their 
 laughter, because we have to consider two things ; we have not 
 only to consider the revenue, but also the ease as it afi^cts the 
 consumers, who seem to be quite forgotten by honourable gen- 
 tlemen opposite. There is not the slightest doubt that if the 
 state of the revenue allowed us at once to reduce the duty to 
 Is. a pound, you would probably find the greater proportion of 
 the reduction would not go to the advantage of the consumer : 
 because, although I have great confidence in the resources of 
 China for the production of tea ; although I know that China is 
 the most populous country in the world, without stating how 
 many hundred millions may be there ; and although I know 
 that tea is used in every part of China, and that the quantity 
 exported is comparatively a very small part of that which is 
 produced and consumed in China ; and although I know very 
 well that there is an annual surplus left of that exporting 
 quantity in China, still I am perfectly aware that if there is a 
 sudden demand in this market, and you have not taken the 
 usual and prudential care and consideration upon which all 
 trade must be conducted, you will not find the consumer will 
 benefit to the extent of the remission in ' question, while at the 
 same time the revenue must suffer considerably. It takes 
 three or four years to make a tea-tree, and that is a point to be 
 considered in dealing with these duties. If you want to increase 
 production, especially of such an article as tea, you cannot 
 suddenly go with a demand for which they are not prepared ; 
 but if you take the scale which Her Majesty's Grovemment 
 propose — a very moderate scale, I admit ; but, I believe, a very 
 safe one — I think, with very slight injury to the revenue, you 
 will ultimately obtain that cheap and superior article which you 
 would desire. Well, then, what we propose in dealing imme- 
 diately with this article — and it must be remembered that tea 
 is not like an article of domestic produce, but is subject to very 
 different conditions — what we propose is, that there should be 
 an immediate reduction of 4:^d. per pound in the duly on tea, 
 reducing it from 2s. 2 Jd. to Is. lOd. I believe I have taken the 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 359 
 
 increased consumption under tliat reduced duty at at a very safe 
 figure. Instead of 54,000,000 lbs, upon which the last January 
 revenue was raised, I only put 60,000,000 lbs. for the first year 
 of the reduced duty, being an increase of 6,000,000 lbs., but 
 virtually not much more than 3,000,000 lbs., because, as I have 
 told the House, the consumption of tea has so much increased 
 on the quantity on which the revenue was last taken in January 
 1852, that probably the amount of the consumption of tea for 
 this year will be 57,000,000 lbs. Therefore, virtually, I only 
 calculated upon an increase of 3,000,000 lbs., at the reduced 
 duty for the first year. I think, when we take the average of 
 a great many years, and find that we have from year to year 
 attained a similar increase, that we may well calculate upon an 
 increase of 2,000,000 lbs. a year. 
 
 This is not an excessive calculation. I think the reduction 
 we propose is one that we can make with perfect safety to our 
 finances, as I will show to the House when I sum up the 
 changes in the taxation of the country which Her Majesty's 
 Government have determined to recommend. J propose, then, 
 in regard to tea, that we should immediately reduce the duty 
 A^d. a lb., and that in each subsequent year it should be 
 reduced 2d. a pound until it arrives at Is. I believe that if 
 you will adopt that system, you will very little injure the 
 revenue, and that you will gradually enable the people of this 
 country to have a supply, at a very reasonable rate, of a very 
 favourite beverage, and that you will do more than that — that 
 you will give a great stimulus to the commerce, the shipping, 
 and the manufactures of this country. For my own part, I do 
 not know any measure more calculated to give a great stimulus 
 to the commerce and shipping of this country than a measure 
 dealing largely and extensively with the tea-duties; and, 
 although I might have been glad to offer to the House a 
 project with regard to this duty which, at the first blush, might 
 seem of a more favourable character, yet, coiisidering the cir- 
 cumstances under which Her Majesty's G-ovemment make 
 their exposition of the financial policy they recommend — that 
 the financial year is not yet concluded, and other circumstances — 
 I am persuaded that we have taken a prudent as well as a bold 
 
360 SPEECHES OF THE EAUL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 course, and that if the House accepts our proposition, they will 
 have consented to one of the most important arrangements, 
 and sanctioned one of the most effectual measures, ever brought 
 forward to stimulate the commerce of this country. 
 
 Sir, there is one duty I am about to deal with, and which is 
 connected with this branch of the subject, and which, perhaps 
 I ought to have adverted to before : and that is the hop-duty. 
 We are unwilling to make this effort to give cheap beer to the 
 people without dealing with one of the important ingredients 
 of that beverage. The House is aware there are two duties 
 now levied upon hops. There is the old duty of the time of 
 Queen Anne, and there is the war-imposed duty during our 
 great European struggle. Those duties are almost equal in 
 amount : in round numbers, without the fractions, they amount 
 nearly to about \d. per lb. each ; and what we propose is, that 
 the old war duty — a very unpopular duty ; a duty which ought 
 never to have been continued — should be remitted. At present 
 we do not propose to take off all. Something must be left for 
 future statements. Still, I think in reducing the hop-duty one- 
 half, and the malt-duty one-half, and reducing the tea-duties 
 immediately considerably in the pound, and in establishing 
 machinery which will bring them down to Is. a lb., it cannot 
 be said that we have been unmindful of the claims of the com- 
 munity, subjected to the principle of unrestricted competition. 
 
 Now, Sir, there is one point of some importance which I 
 think I ought to touch upon. We are raising the revenue of 
 this country and recommending all these measures on the 
 principle that the revenue of this country shall mainly depend 
 on the consuming power of the people. But it has been said 
 of late — it has been rumoured about with considerable vehe- 
 mence — that the consuming power of the people is rapidly 
 diminishing. Some modern economists — I speak of those 
 statements which meet us in many quarters and in many 
 places — say that the consuming power of the people is in rapid 
 diminution ; and I think I am only doing my duty in calling 
 the attention of this House to the subject, for it is one that 
 very much agitates the public mind ; and it is the duty of the 
 House to instruct the public mind upon subjects of so much 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 361 
 
 importance ; for, if that is true, certainly the principle upon 
 which I am recommending these measures is erroneous and 
 mistaken. Now, Sir, I have no hesitation in saying that no 
 evidence reaches me which in any way leads me to believe 
 there is the slightest foundation for the opinion which is said 
 to prevail — that the consuming power of the people is diminish- 
 ing. I apprehend the idea which has given rise to the opinion 
 that the consuming power of the people is diminishing is 
 founded upon the emigration which has taken place from this 
 country ; and that is a subject to which the honourable and 
 learned member for Wolverhampton called the attention of the 
 House the other night. There is no doubt that, if we look to 
 the returns of emigration, we shall find that there has been a 
 greater amount of emigration from this country within this 
 year than is counterbalanced by the births that have been 
 registered in England and Wales. In the year 1849 the emi- 
 gration was, in round numbers, 300,000 ; in 1850, 280,000; in 
 ,1851, 335,000; and on October 1, 1852, the last return I 
 have — that is to say, in three-quarters of a year — they are in 
 amount nearly equal to the whole of the year 1851 — namely, 
 332,000. There is no doubt also that the births of this country 
 in the year 1851 were in round numbers Uttle more than 
 600,000, and the deaths amounted to 400,000. So that it 
 would seem by these returns that our births exceeded our 
 deaths by 200,000 in the year 1851 ; and that our emigration 
 exceeded the superfluity of our births by considerably above 
 100,000; but if these facts are a little examined — if they are 
 a little analysed, it will be found there is no foundation for the 
 conclusions that have been hastily drawn from them. 
 
 In the first place the return of our births, marriages and 
 deaths is confined to England and Wales ; and, in the second 
 place, the amount of emigration from England and Wales is 
 small — two-thirds of it is from Ireland, a country which does 
 not figure in the returns of our births and population. Then 
 we have to consider the different causes that have produced 
 emigration from Ireland and emigration from England. The 
 emigration from Ireland is produced by a social system that 
 has broken to pieces ; it is produced, I may say, by the misery 
 
362 SPEECHES OE THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 of the people. Now, the emigration from England is produced 
 by causes exactly contrary to those I have stated with respect 
 to Ireland, The people in this country were never better off, 
 but they have foreign inducements that act upon their spirit of 
 energy and enterprise, and they are determined to seek even 
 better fortunes than they experience in their native land. That 
 is the first point — that is the great difference between the 
 causes that have produced the emigration of the two countries. 
 The emigration from England is, in fact, only 100,000 a year, 
 while there is an addition of 200,000 to its population. There 
 is nothing, it would seem, excessively to be apprehended in the 
 fact that our emigration, stimulated by the higher aspirations of 
 man, and not occasioned by a sense of misery, so far affects our 
 population that 100,000 persons quit us, while the natural in- 
 crease of our population is 200,000 ; but even if there were 
 200,000 or 300,000 of our population quitting England, I could 
 not view emigration, upon such conditions as those under which 
 the emigration from Great Britain takes place, as a source of 
 weakness to the country, or — which is the point for us to 
 consider, in speaking of the finances of the country — as a source 
 of diminution in its consuming power. On the contrary — 
 though one naturally shrinks from paradoxes upon a subject so 
 grave— my own opinion is that it has a tendency to increase 
 the consuming power. Every emigrant from England gene- 
 rally becomes an English colonist, and an English colonist be- 
 comes an English customer, and our markets are stimulated, 
 our people axe employed, and their wages are improved by the 
 very circumstance which some regard as tending to our decay 
 and dissolution. 
 
 But even if I look to the case of Ireland, where emigration 
 takes place under conditions so contrary to those of England, 
 I am still obliged to arrive at a similar conclusion. Have 
 honourable gentlemen remembered what the state of Ireland 
 was a few years ago ? Have they forgotten that memorable 
 document, the Eeport of the Devon Commission ? Have they 
 remembered that description, which circulated throughout 
 Europe, of there being in Ireland 2,400,000 paupers — that 
 more than gne-third of the people were i^eceivipg no wages of 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 363 
 
 any kind— that they were living in hovels — littered on straw, 
 feeding on dry roots, and often on seaweed ? That was the 
 description given by Eoyal Commissioners, under a Eoyal Com- 
 mission, of a great portion of the people in Ireland. Well 
 then, you have got rid, in a certain degree, of that population. 
 It is, no doubt, a dark passage — it is, no doubt, a gloomy chapter, 
 in the history of any country, that such events should occur ; 
 but I am only looking at it in a financial point of view to-night. 
 I am bound, in bringing forward measures such as, on the 
 part of the Grovernment, I am now bringing forward, not to 
 evade a matter of such vast interest, upon the truth of which 
 the whole subject depends. It is a question of the utmost 
 importance — -the consuming power of the people of this country. 
 But although we have lost in Ireland more than one million 
 and a-half of the population, has the revenue of Ireland suf- 
 fered a diminution in proportion to that loss ? On the contrary, 
 the revenue of Ireland, in its worst time, never very sensibly 
 diminished. Between the year before the famine and the pre- 
 sent year, there has not been a difference of anything like half 
 a million. I believe in the former year the revenue from Ire- 
 land was very little more than 4,000,000L, and — .1 am sorry I 
 am trusting to my memory on this point — it is now, I think, 
 3,700,000L and upwards, and it is in a very buoyant state. I 
 take the case of Ireland because we are there apparently labour- 
 ing under very disadvantageous circumstances. All this shows 
 that the consuming power of a people does not depend on their 
 numbers but on their condition ; and I am persuaded that if 
 the exodus, as it is called, of the Irish people continues, it will 
 end even in Ireland becoming a much wealthier country, and 
 that the consuming power of the people of that country will 
 not only be sustained, but will increase. But as regards Grreat 
 Britain, I believe that the emigration that has taken place, 
 instead-of being a source of disquietude and alarm, is, in fact, 
 the means by which the wealth of the country will be greatly 
 increased ; and that it will have a most beneficial effect upon 
 the people that remain ; that it will develop their resources, 
 and give opportunities to many that they never before possessed ; 
 that the general result will be beneficial to the revenue. 
 
364 SPEECHES OF THE EAKL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 and that not only the consuming power of the people will in- 
 crease, ,but also the population. 
 
 There is one point connected with this subject of very con- 
 siderable importance. There is an apprehension entertained by 
 some persons that there has been of late an unnatural rise in 
 the rate of wages. Great authorities are, I understand, of 
 opinion that the rate of wages is increasing so rapidly that the 
 profits will not only be diminished but destroyed. Now, I am 
 bound to say that in pursuance of my duty I have made inquiry 
 into this subject, but I have not received any evidence of that 
 extraordinary rise of wages of which we have heard. I believe 
 that there has been" a rise in wages, and I believe, moreover, 
 that it has been very much to the public benefit ; and that, if 
 it continues, the public will be still more benefited. One 
 thing, I think, is clear, that the consuming power of the 
 country has not been diminished by the augmentation in the 
 rate of wages. But, Sir, although the rate of profit depends 
 upon the rate of wages, that is not the only element in this 
 great question. There is another element still more important 
 in its solution, and that is the rate of interest. The employer 
 of labour may pay more to his workman — I hope he does ; but 
 the employer of Capital is obtaining that capital at the present 
 day on much more favourable terms, and with a facility which 
 no employer of labour has ever befoSre enjoyed. Sir, the 
 honourable gentleman the member for Wolverhampton (Mr. C. 
 Villiers) said the other night that the discovery of gold, like 
 the increase of any other article, gives great activity to com- 
 merce, but does not give it more activity than any other article 
 of exchangeable value ; and he called upon me to meet him 
 upon that point. I did not think that that was exactly the 
 fitting occasion to go into that question ; but I deny the 
 position of the honourable gentleman that the discovery of gold, 
 like the production of any other article, while it gives activity 
 to commerce, gives to it no more activity than would be occa- 
 sioned by the increase of auy other article. I maintain that it 
 has not only given activity to commerce, but that it has in- 
 fluenced the commercial operations of this country to an extent 
 ;which no other article could have exercised* I say that the 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 365 
 
 discovery of gold, considering the currency which we possess, 
 has established credit in this country in a manner which no 
 political economist could ever have imagined. I say that it has 
 increased and confirmed credit in this country, and that that 
 increase and confirmation of credit has, of course, proportion- 
 ately increased the employment of the people. It would seem 
 to be mere blind and obstinate prejudice to shut our eyes to 
 that conclusion. 
 
 But there is another question to be considered in regard to 
 our prosperity at this moment, and that is. Will the present 
 low rate of interest last ? I hope it will. My opinion is — 
 though it is, perhaps, imprudent in me now to volunteer it — 
 my opinion is that whatever imprudences may occur, and I need 
 not say that I deprecate them ; but, notwithstanding some im- 
 prudences, the present rate of interest will mainly continue. 
 It would seem to depend upon conditions and circumstances 
 which have never before prevailed in this country — natural 
 circumstances and permanent conditions — and I cannot but 
 believe that, if we only act with tolerable prudence, with such 
 advantages as we derive from a low rate of interest, arising 
 from natural causes, this country has before it an opportunity 
 of material progress such as never occurred before to the vision 
 of any statesman. 
 
 Sir, the Committee will remember that by the remission of 
 taxation which I have proposed on the part of the Grovemment, 
 through the measures I have attempted to place before them, 
 there will be a reduction of taxation to the amount of between 
 3,000,000L and 4,000,000^ sterling. I shall have occasion 
 hereafter to place the items more particularly before the House. 
 But by the remission which I propose in the malt-tax, there 
 will be a reduction of taxation to the extent of 2,500,000L ; by 
 the reduction on the tea-duties an immediate remission of 
 900,000L ; and by the reduction in the hop-duty, the revenue 
 from which, as you know, is fluctuating, but the average of 
 which, I think, may be taken at 300,000L, I have, in fact, pro- 
 posed a reduction of taxation to the amount of something be- 
 tween 3,000,000L and 4,000,000L sterling. But I must remind 
 the Committee that, although this is only December, in a few 
 
366 SPEECHES OF THE EAUL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 months one of the principal sources of the revenue will ter- 
 minate, and that, if they support the propositions of the Grovem- 
 ment, they must not only encounter the great remissions of 
 taxation, and, consequently, some considerable diminution of 
 the revenue ; but they must likewise be prepared to deal with 
 the consequences of a law expiring which now gives us more 
 than 5,000,000L sterling per annum. I mean the property 
 and income tax. It will become the duty of the House, then, 
 to decide what they will do with the property and income tax. 
 Now, it has always been to me, as I am sure it must be to any 
 gentleman, exceedingly disagreeable to read to the House 
 anything I may have said on a previous occasion ; and I am 
 quite sure that nothing would ever induce me to quote my 
 own language by way of authority ; but it is absolutely neces- 
 sary that on the present occasion I should presume to call the 
 attention of the House to some remarks which I made on the 
 subject of direct taxation, when I laid before the House in the 
 earlier session of this year the financial statement, more espe- 
 cially as many gentlemen are now in the House who were not 
 then members. I then called the attention of the House to 
 the difficulty with which the revenue of the country was raised. 
 I reviewed the objections which were made to indirect taxes in 
 the shape of customs' duties and excise duties, and I at last 
 showed that, although there had long prevailed an abstract 
 opinion in favour of direct taxation, yet all attempts that had 
 hitherto been made to apply it to the raising of our revenue had 
 only led to the conclusion that it was contrary to every principle 
 of science and justice. I then said, speaking of the Committee 
 on the Property and Income Tax, then sitting, and whose opinion 
 I naturally referred to with reserve, as they had not then made 
 their report to the House — I then said : — 
 
 ' There is another point on which I can speak with more 
 frankness in reference to the tax upon property and income. I 
 have not presumed, and will not presume, to give an opinion 
 upon the justice or injustice of a change in the mode by which 
 the assessment of permanent and temporary incomes is effected ; 
 but there is a point, I believe, on which the committee is so 
 unanimous that their opinion need not be a secret ; and it is also, 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBEE 1852. 367 
 
 I believe, the unanimous opinion of the House of Commons, as 
 I am sure it is of the country : namely, that if taxes of this cha- 
 racter — if measures of direct taxation like the income-tax — are 
 to form not temporary but permanent features of our system of 
 finance, they cannot rest upon a system of exemptions. "Well 
 but if they are not to rest upon a system of exemptions, do you 
 augment the methods to which a Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 may successfully appeal for the purpose of raising revenue ? 
 No doubt direct taxation is in its theory an easy, a simple, and 
 a captivating process ; but when you wish to apply that direct 
 taxation generally, it is astonishing the obstacles you encounter 
 and the prejudices you create. Sir, to my mind-^and I think 
 it is a theory pretty well established — direct taxation should be 
 nearly as universal in its application as indirect taxation. The 
 man who lives in a palace and a cottager, as consumers, are 
 proportionally assessed. It is not, perhaps, possible that in 
 direct taxation you can effect so complete a result ; perhaps it 
 is not necessary ; but that, if your revenue is to depend mainly, 
 or in a great degree, upon direct taxation — if it is permanently 
 to depend upon direct taxation — you must make the application 
 of the direct tax general, is to me a conclusion which it is im- 
 possible to escape. No doubt, by establishing a temporary 
 measure of direct taxation, based upon a large system of 
 exemptions, you may give a great impulse to industry ; you 
 may lighten the springs of industry very effectually for a time ; 
 but — not to dwell upon the gross and glaring injustice 
 of a system of finance that would tax directly a very limited 
 portion of the population — but looking only to the econo- 
 mical and financial consequences of such a system, who can- 
 not but feel that, in the long run, industry itself must suffer 
 from such a process ? For, after all, what is direct taxation 
 founded on a system of exemptions ? It is confiscation. It is 
 making war upon the capital which ultimately must employ 
 that very industry which you wish to relieve.' (3 Hansard, 
 cxxi. 16.) 
 
 I beg the House not to suppose that I have read this as any 
 authority on the subject ; but I feel that it is necessary that 
 the sentiments which I uttered in the financial statement I 
 
368 SPEECHES OE THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 made to the House six or eight months ago should be kept 
 clearly before them. I also said — 
 
 ' We deem it our duty to impress upon the Committee aud 
 upon the country the dangerous course in which they have 
 embarked — to impress upon them the absolute necessity, now 
 or in another Parliament, of arriving at some definite under- 
 standing on what principle the revenue of this country ought 
 to be raised. We deem it our duty to denounce as most per- 
 nicious to all classes of this country the systematic reduction 
 of indirect taxation, while at the same time you levy your 
 direct taxes from a very limited class.' (3 Hansard, cxxi. 35.) 
 
 Now, Sir, I cannot say that subsequent experience has 
 changed or modified my opinions on this subject. I am clearly 
 of opinion that, if we have recourse to direct taxation, that 
 direct taxation should be as general, at least in theory, as in- 
 direct taxation. How far it may be desirable to modify it in 
 practice, on the ground of expediency, is a fair subject for 
 consideration; but I hold that the practice of establishing 
 direct taxation on a large system of exemption is most perni- 
 cious, and ought as much as possible to be discountenanced. 
 Well then, Sir, I venture in offering to the House the views 
 which Her Majesty's ministers entertain with respect to the 
 property and income tax, to lay it down as a general principle 
 that, in considering this question, we ought to make our direct 
 taxation — in theory at least — as general as our indirect taxation. 
 And, Sir, when I consider the very large exemptions which are 
 connected with this tax, there is one which I am bound at once 
 to notice and take into consideration — the largest of all exemp- 
 tions — and that is the exemption of Ireland. Now, Sir, when 
 in the early part of the year I proposed, on the part of Her 
 Majesty's Grovernment, that this tax on property and income 
 should be continued for one year, I made no reference whatever 
 to Ireland. The arrangement then made was avowedly a mere 
 temporary arrangement, and it was therefore quite unnecessary to 
 enter into the discussion then. But, having now to consider 
 the question much more widely, I do not think it consistent 
 with my duty to evade expressing the opinion of Her Majesty's 
 Grovernment on the subject. 
 
BUDOET, DECEMBER 1852. 3G9 
 
 Sir Eobert Peel, in his financial statement of 1842, when he 
 first introduced the property and income tax, proposed to impose 
 on Ireland, as a;n equivalent for the property and income tax, 
 two other measures — the one was an increase of the duty on 
 spirits, which, I remember, he estimated would produce 
 250,000L a year, and the other was an increase of the duty on 
 stamps, in matters affecting property, which he estimated would 
 jDroduce 160,000L — making altogether 410,000L a year. That 
 was to be the contribution of Ireland to the revenue in another 
 form, and as an equivalent for the exemption from the property 
 and income tax. Now, I must remind the House — and it is 
 disagreeable to have to discharge that duty : one would 
 naturally like to be always taking off taxes, and never remind- 
 ing any gentleman that he had not perhaps paid those which 
 had been expected of him ; but it is necessary to inform the 
 House that the measure for increasing the duty on spirits, 
 which was estimated to produce 250,OOOZ. a year, has since been 
 rescinded, in consequence of its having been found to have 
 stimulated illicit distillation ; and that whereas in 1841, before 
 the passing of the Property and Income Tax Act, the aggregate 
 receipt from the stamp duties in Ireland was 470,000L per 
 annum, in the year 1852 they produced only 486,000L ; so 
 that Ireland has contributed, as an equivalent for the property 
 and income tax, instead of 410,000L per annum, as was expected, 
 only 16,000L 
 
 Well, Sir, but notwithstanding all this, it is impossible to 
 be insensible to what Ireland has gone through during that 
 interval. When Sir Eobert Peel brought forward the income- 
 tax in the year 1842 it was impossible for him or the most 
 experienced statesman to have foreseen the long catalogue of 
 calamities that awaited Ireland. Almost every cause that could 
 exhaust and every process that could debilitate a country and 
 society have been brought to bear on that unhappy land. I 
 freely admit — to use, not a classical, but a frequent epithet — - 
 that as regards its financial condition, Ireland since that period, 
 or at least during many years, has been in a very exceptional 
 state. But the state of Ireland is happily not now without a ray 
 of hope. As far as I can form an opinion — and I can assure 
 
 VOL. I. B B 
 
370 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OE BEAGONSFIELD. 
 
 my Irish friends that I have taken the utmost pains to make 
 myself acquainted with its condition — I think I may venture to 
 speak of Ireland without using the language of despair, or the 
 accents of desolation. You have had a crushing Poor Law ; 
 but what is your present position with regard even to that over- 
 whelming evil ? Is it not mitigated — is it not more endurable ? 
 Permit me to place before the House a return of the present 
 incidence of poor-law taxation in Ireland. I don't want to 
 insult any gentleman by showing him that his country is not 
 ruined — I prefer showing him that he possesses increased 
 means of contributing to the national taxation. I am only 
 anxious in fulfilment of my duty, to convey, as far as I can, a 
 correct view of the state of Her Majesty's dominions to her 
 faithful Commons. 
 
 Now, I have here a ' comparative summary, in provinces, of 
 the expenses inctirred in the poor-law unions of Ireland during 
 the financial year ended September 29, 1850, 1851, and 1852 
 respectively.' I find from that document that the poor-law ex- 
 penditure in Ireland in 1850 amounted to the vast sum of 
 1,320,000?. ; that in 1851 it was reduced to 1,129,000^.; that 
 in the year ending September 29 last the expenditure which in 
 1850 was 1,320,000L had been reduced to 885,000Z. I find 
 also that the decrease of expenditure in 1851, as compared with 
 1850, amounted to nearly 200,000?., or at the rate of 14 per 
 cent. ; that the decrease of expenditure in 1852, as compared 
 with 1851, was in amount 274,000?. or at the rate of 24 per 
 cent., and that the decrease in the expenditure of the year 
 1852, as compared with 1850, was in amount not less than 
 465,000?., or at the rate of 35 per cent. Now, Sir, I am sure, 
 when one has this authentic return before him, he is justified in 
 not altogether despairing of the condition of Ireland. In Con- 
 naught alone I find that the diminution of expenditure in 1 852 
 as compared with 1850, was no less than 116,000?., or at the 
 rate of 48 per cent. Now, Sir, in looking to the condition of 
 Ireland, I must call the attention of the House to another 
 document before me, because it completes the picture of the 
 incidence of poor-law taxation, of which we have heard so much. 
 I don't deny that our friends in Ireland have suffered from the 
 
BUDaET, DECEMBER 1852. 371 
 
 severe incidence of taxation. I admit that they have gone 
 through a terrible ordeal ; but I say to them as I say to the 
 West India interest, ' What I do for you must be with reference 
 to your present position, and not with reference to the past.' 
 Now, here is a document which reached me just before I came 
 down to the House, and which completes the picture of the 
 state of Ireland with reference to the Poor Law, of which we 
 have heard so much, and from which Ireland has- suffered so 
 severely. It is addressed to me officially, and is as follows : — 
 
 ' You may remember that, in September last, the sum of 
 30,000Z., being the greater portion of the balance of the Irish 
 Eate-in-Aid Fund, was appropriated by the Treasury to the 
 liquidation of the debts of certain unions in the west of Ire- 
 land, subject to the condition that any union assisted in this 
 manner would thenceforth be considered as excluded from the 
 list of distressed unions, and that, previously to such relief 
 being recommended the Poor Law Commissioners must be 
 satisfied that proper provision would be made by rates for the 
 immediate future requirements of the union. A report has 
 been this day received from the Poor Law Commissioners de^ 
 scribing the proceedings taken by them under the above in- 
 struction, from which it appears that all the unions affected by 
 
 this arrangement, except the Union ' [I forbear mentioning 
 
 the name] ' have given the assurance and struck the rates as re- 
 quired, and that the reluctance of the guardians of the 
 
 Union to comply with the prescribed condition does not arise from 
 inability, but from a desire to transfer a greater share of the 
 burden of their rates to the public' 
 
 I don't wonder at the laughter of honourable members, and 
 that is the reason why I did not read the name of the union. 
 
 'This declaration of solvency, in respect to all the remain- 
 ing unions of Ireland about whose power of maintaining their 
 poor any doubt remained, is a fact of great importance, and you 
 may think it proper to refer to it in your financial statement. 
 The object of establishing a comprehensive and complete Poor 
 Law in Ireland has been finally accomplished, and the whole of 
 Ireland is now able to maintain its own poor, without external 
 pecuniary assistance from any quarter. There is still a balance 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OE BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 of the Eate-in-Aid left of upwards of 12,000Z., which will b") 
 more than suflScient to meet any more than usually distressed 
 cases of particular electoral divisions.' 
 
 Such, then, is the picture of the condition of Ireland. I 
 don't say it is perfectly satisfactory. Don't let my honourable 
 friends from Ireland suppose that I am malignantly misrepre- 
 senting them, and that I am not doing justice to their calami- 
 ties. All I ask them to admit is that, having gone through 
 great difficulties and borne them like rnen, their position is 
 now very much improved. That is aU I ask. But there are 
 other reasons why there has been some discontent evinced that 
 Ireland has not been subjected to the income-tax. People are 
 discontented that instead of getting 410,000Z. from Ireland, 
 as was originally expected when the property and income tax 
 was imposed on this country, they have only got 16,000i. 
 People, too, have been disinclined to remember — although I 
 confess it is churlish — the actual circumstances of the case, and 
 to forget the sorrows and calamities of Ireland ; but there are 
 other complaints of a very different character, with regard to 
 the non-extension of the income-tax to Ireland. The Governor 
 of the Bank of England has made an official complaint to me 
 that at the present moment the Bank of England is prepared 
 to purchase terminable annuities, but that it is impossible for 
 him to contend with the Governor of the Bank of Ireland, in 
 consequence of Irish funded property not paying income-tax. 
 He says : ' I have no doubt the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 will be receiving deputations from injured interests ; but there 
 is really nobody more unjustly treated by recent legislation than 
 the Governor and Company of the Bank of England by the 
 property-tax not being extended to Ireland.' There is another 
 point of view in which the subject ought to be considered. 
 The amount of public funded property in Ireland is increasing 
 yearly, and has for a long time increased in consequence of its 
 not being liable to the tax which the same description of pro- 
 perty has paid in England. I mention this to show what a 
 difficult thing an income-tax is based upon exemptions. 
 
 Now, Sir, I shall venture to treat this great exemption in 
 the following manner, I do not think that it would be wise to 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 373 
 
 treat with any harshness the landed proprietors of Ireland. 
 They have suffered severely from the late famine and conse- 
 quent legislation, and I should be sorry suddenly to pounce on 
 Ireland and to say, ' You shall pay your quota.' I think we 
 ought to do everything that is possible to assist that ' wise, just, 
 and beneficial ' change that has taken place in Ireland ; and I 
 do not think that it is expedient that we should throw any 
 obstacles at the present moment in the way of the regene- 
 ration of that country. But I must say this, that, remember 
 ing what has been done for that country, I shall feel it my duty 
 when I lay before the House the schedules of the new property 
 and income tax, to recommend an extension of the tax to 
 funded property in Ireland and to salaries in that country. 
 
 Sir, an honourable gentleman, a friend of mine, with refer- 
 ence to this subject, asked me the other night whether Her 
 Majesty's Grovernment were prepared to carry into effect the 
 recommendations of the committee of the House of Lords with 
 regard to the Consolidated Annuities. The amount of the 
 Consolidated Annuities is 240,000L per annum, or something 
 like that sum. Sir, the House will recollect how the Consoli- 
 dated Annuities came into existence. There was a loan made 
 to Ireland of nearly 10,000,000L Subsequently that loan was 
 reduced in amount to about one-half. I was always one who 
 believed that that loan was in a great degree advanced for an 
 Imperial calamity, and that it ought, consequently, to be con- 
 sidered in that light ; and I do not object to the arrangement 
 then made, in any sense whatever. But the House will under- 
 stand that the balance of that loan, after being reduced by that 
 amount, was thrown into the form of Consolidated Annuities, 
 which were calculated with reference to the peculiar circum- 
 stances of each case. I must refrain from entering into the 
 discussion of this question at present, but I think I am not 
 free to avoid all allusion to the subject. I have shown to the 
 House to-night that in 1852 as compared with 1851 there has 
 been a diminution in the charge of poor-rate in Ireland of no 
 less than 274,000?., and this is a sum considerably greater than 
 the whole of the Consolidated Annuities. And I must beg my 
 honourable friend who asked me the question, to recoUect what 
 
374 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 I have said with reference to those persons who in England are 
 suffering from what they consider the unjust incidence of local 
 taxation. I have shown that the reduction in the amount of 
 pauperism this year is greater than the whole establishment 
 charges ; and I tell him, also, that in considering this question he 
 must rememher that the state of Ireland is much improved since 
 the recommendation made by the committee of the House of 
 Lords. Let me not be misinterpreted. It is the intention of 
 Her Majesty's Government to consider the subject of the Con- 
 solidated Annuities ; but they are not prepared to bind them- 
 selves in any way by the recommendations of the committee of 
 the House of Peers. The Grovemment will consider the ques- 
 tion entirely on its merits ; and I have myself prepared, and 
 will submit to the House, some resolutions which I have care- 
 fully considered, and which I believe are justified by the cir- 
 cumstances, and will be beneficial in their operation ; but I beg 
 my honourable friend not to go away under the false impression 
 that the Government are prepared to carry into operation the 
 recommendations of the committee of the House of Lords. 
 
 With regard to the income and property tax, I have laid 
 down one principle — that direct taxation should be as general 
 as indirect taxation, and that a measure of direct taxation 
 founded upon a large scheme of exemption ought not to be 
 tolerated. With respect to that important measure, the pro- 
 perty and income tax, I have to state another principle which 
 Her Majesty's Government axe prepared to assert, and that is 
 to acknowledge a difference between permanent and precarious 
 incomes. Sir, I will not enter into any arguments upon that 
 subject at present. Although I have curtailed my observations 
 as they have occurred upon various topics which I have had to 
 encounter, and although there is much that I must still advert 
 to, I feel that it would be impossible that I should on this 
 occasion enter into a discussion which deserves, and probably 
 will receive, on the part of the House of Commons, prolonged 
 and mature deliberation. My duty now I conceive to be, to 
 make an exposition of the policy that Her Majesty's Governr 
 ment are prepared to recommend ; and all I have to do is to 
 place that before the House in as clear a manner as I can. 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 375 
 
 Sir, viewing' the property and income tax with reference to 
 the two principles I have laid down — namely, that direct taxa- 
 tion ought to be in its nature as general as indirect taxation, 
 and that it ought not to be estabHshed upon a system of exemp- 
 tions ; and, secondly, that a difference should be recognised by 
 the legislature between realised and precarious incomes — I will 
 now offer to the House the rate of duties such as Her Majesty's 
 Grovemment axe prepared to recommend to the adoption of 
 Parliament. Sir, notwithstanding the large remission of taxa- 
 tion which Her Majesty's Government have recommended — a 
 remission of taxation immediately amounting to 3,500,000L, 
 and eventually relieving the consumer of the country to a much 
 greater extent — it is not the intention of the Grovemment to 
 recommend any increase of duty in any of the schedules of the 
 property and income tax. I will first consider and state to the 
 Committee the exemptions which Her Majesty's ministers 
 think it expedient to recognise and sanction. We shall recom- 
 mend that on all industrial incomes the exemptions shall be 
 limited to incomes below lOOl. a year, that being the point at 
 which we deem that wages enter into calculation. Upon in- 
 comes arising from property we take the point of exemption at 
 below 50^. a year. Sir, I have now to detail to the House the 
 rate of difference which we shall recommend should be estab- 
 lished between schedules B, D, and E, and the two schedules 
 of realised property. I have already told the Committee that 
 we do not propose to increase the rate payable in schedules A 
 and C. That will be taken, as heretofore, at 7d. in the pound. 
 We propose that the rate on the other schedules shall be esti- 
 mated at three-fourths of that rate, and therefore it will be 5^d. 
 (which will be exactly three-fourths) on schedules B, D and E. 
 The produce of schedule A, at 7d., will be, as before, 2,649,000L 
 The produce of schedule B, the farmer's schedule, will be esti- 
 mated in this manner: — We take the estimate of the profits of 
 the farmers, not at one-half the rent, as heretofore, but at one- 
 third. We have investigated that subject, and we find that, 
 however active trade piay be, the whole tendency of late years 
 has been to a diminution of profits, and we are persuaded that 
 the test of the farmers' profits has been taken too high. We 
 
376 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OP BEACONSFrELD. 
 
 have taken, therefore, one-third the rent as the measure of 
 profit, instead of one-half; and consequently, under schedule 
 B, the farmers will pay 156,000?., which in amount is exactly 
 one-half what they pay under the present rate. From schedule 
 C I calculate there will be received 746,000Z. at 7d., as at 
 present. Under schedule D, at the mitigated rate, the estimate 
 is that 1,162,000?. will be received, and that under schedule E 
 also, under the mitigated rate, 248,000L will be received. The 
 total of the five schedules will be, it is estimated, 4,961,000L 
 I estimate the increase — if the exemption is limited to incomes 
 under 50l. upon property, and under 100?. upon industrial in- 
 comes — I estimate the increase at about 431,000?. But I 
 think it right to say that in that estimate I have taken into 
 consideration the position of the clergyman whose income is 
 under 100?. a year. The position in which he is placed, in the 
 manner in which the duty is now raised, is extremely severe, and 
 I may say unfair. He is rated under schedule A at the highest 
 scale, whereas a Dissenting minister who has 100?. a year, 
 being rated under the scale of salaries in the mitigated sche- 
 dule, would have an advantage of the mitigated rate, and with 
 an income under 100?. per annum, would have the benefit of a 
 total exemption. The position of a clergyman is, in fact, the 
 position of a person working for a salary, but, from the nature 
 of the property from which he derives the sources of his mainte- 
 nance, he is deprived of the advantage of the mitigated sche- 
 dule. And therefore it is necessary to make special provision 
 for him, because he must still be assessed under schedule A. 
 I have estimated the probable diminution from giving clergy- 
 men the benefit of total exemption under 100?. per annum at 
 30,000?., but I have taken that into account, and it will not 
 affect the figures which I have put down, of 5,361,000?., as the 
 produce of the income-tax. I add for Ireland the modest sum 
 of 60,000?. The total sum will be about 5,421,000?. Gene- 
 rally speaking, I think I may say that the result will be, that 
 the property and income tax will produce the average that is 
 produced by the present existing Act. Perhaps it may be advis- 
 able for me to make provision for some slight diminution ; but, 
 generally speaking, I think the average will be about that of 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 377 
 
 the last three years of the present tax ; and therefore, if the 
 House should adopt our proposition, I think the result would 
 not materially affect our financial income. 
 
 Assuming, Sir, for the moment, that the property and 
 income tax, as I have now laid it before the House will not 
 affect our Budget of the year, it is now necessary for me to 
 approach the ways and means by which the diminution of the 
 revenue, occasioned by the measures that I have recommended 
 on the part of Her Majesty's Govemment, may be met. It is 
 necessary for me, however, before I enter upon that, to make 
 some reference to a subject of great interest, which wiH have 
 the effect of increasing the public expenditure. Sir, it will be 
 my duty on an early occasion to place before the House a sup- 
 plementary estimate for the expenditure of the present year 
 with reference to the national defences. It will, of course, be 
 necessary in the usual financial statement for the year 1853-4 to 
 make an estimate which I shall have to place before the House, 
 and to take into consideration the whole expenditure of the year ; 
 and therefore that will be the more convenient moment to 
 advert to the subject. Sir, I know the great difficulty and deli- 
 cacy of touching on a subject of this kind, but in my mind the 
 difficulty is much increased, and the delicacy becomes much 
 greater, by a prudish affectation of reserve, than by speaking to 
 the House with the same frankness with which I should address 
 them upon a less formal occasion. Sir, we are about to propose 
 an increase, and no inconsiderable increase, in the estimates, 
 and we may be met with the question of peace and war. Now, 
 the fact is that the measures which we are going to lay before 
 Parliament, and which we have the confident hope that Par 
 liament will adopt, have nothing to do with peace or war. We 
 should have brought them forward under' any circumstances, 
 and I believe that those who have preceded us, or those who 
 may succeed us, would act in the same manner. 
 
 Sir, when we came into office, we found the estimates for 
 the year already on the table ; we accepted them on the under- 
 standing that there should be no delay interposed— that we 
 should be enabled, as soon as possible, to appeal to the verdict 
 of the country; and as there was a general understanding that 
 
378 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 they were the estimates of our predecessors, they were passed 
 without being canvassed, and thus the progress of public busi- 
 ness was facilitated, and the appeal to the people hastened. 
 But, Sir, the appeal was one that naturally engaged the atten- 
 tion of the nation, and it was one that must engage the 
 attention of any cabinet that is charged with the conduct of 
 the government of the country. It matters not what may 
 be the original cause ; it matters not what dynasty may be 
 upon the throne upon the other side of the Channel ; it does 
 not turn upon what may have been said or done elsewhere, 
 that the attention of the nation has been drawn to the state of 
 the national defences. The attention was drawn originally by 
 the highest military authority of the land. The effect of being 
 so long in peace was brought to the consideration of the most 
 industrious people in the world ; it was drawn to their consider- 
 ation while all the tendencies of the age seemed to secure tran- 
 quillity and happy repose. I say that there was no panic or 
 precipitation, but, on the contrary, a prejudice against what the 
 people of this country supposed to be disturbing the dreams of 
 repose and prosperity in which they had indulged. But sooner 
 or later the idea seized the public mind. It was taken more 
 and more into consideration, and, totally irrespective of external 
 circumstances, the nation arrived at the conclusion that this 
 country was not in that state of defence that is necessary and 
 desirable. They arrived at the conviction that it was of primary 
 importance that the shores of this country should be protected, 
 and that its defences should be complete. If I were asked, 
 on the part of Her Majesty's Government — in no other way 
 would I presume to give an opinion — what I thought was the 
 tendency of the present age, and what the general course which 
 present circumstances indicated, I should say, without reserve, 
 speaking from the bottom of my heart, and in all sincerity, 
 that I believe the predominant feeling of the present day was 
 peace. But I believe the measures Her Majesty's Government 
 intend to recommend to Parliament will tend to the preserva- 
 tion of peace. 
 
 On considering the question after the general election, we 
 feel it to be our duty to lose no time in recommending the 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 379 
 
 necessary measures. If it be a fact — and I assume that it is a 
 fact — that this country is not properly defended, and that it 
 wants to be properly defended, let due preparations, we say, be 
 made for its defence. On considering the question, we thought 
 the best thing was to do it completely. We thought the best 
 thing to do would be to put the navy of this country in the 
 position in which we believe all Englishmen wish to see it ; and 
 the plans we have matm-ed, and which, if the House will support 
 our proposition, will be carried into complete effect, will be 
 plans which will settle this question of our national defences for 
 ever : that is to say, you will have all your arsenals and strong 
 points in the kingdom defended, and you will have a real 
 Channel fleet, which can assemble from its different rendezvous 
 at the moment necessary, and which is the proper garrison and 
 protection of the country. It would have been more convenient 
 for Her Majesty's Government to defer the question, as they 
 would have done if they had not felt it to be their paramount 
 duty to bring it at once before the House of Commons. They 
 were busied with measures the tendency of which, they believe, 
 will be in due time to reduce the expenditure and establish- 
 ments of the country. But they felt that it was totally impos- 
 sible to mix up a question of this importance, and, from its 
 nature, of this urgency, with questions of administrative reform. 
 They felt that, if the country was not properly defended, and if 
 the people wished it to be properly defended, the question was 
 one which ought at once to be completely and definitely settled. 
 Sir, we have taken those steps which we believe will ensure the 
 complete defence of this country. It will be necessary for me to 
 ask for a supplementary estimate, so far as this year is concerned. 
 I hope there wUl not be any difficulty raised on the part of the 
 House. The state of the finances of the country, as I shall 
 show in a few minutes, will perfectly authorise me in asking a 
 supplementary grant for the present year, to be supplied from 
 the ways and means ; and next year we shall ask your approval 
 of an estimate which will increase our general estimate about 
 600,000^. 
 
 Well, Sir, having told the Committee that it will be my 
 duty to ask its assent to a supplementary estimate for the ex- 
 
380 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFrELD. 
 
 penditure of this year which has occurred since the Appropria- 
 tion Act was passed, I think it will be convenient if I give some 
 account of the state of the finances, so that the Committee may 
 form an opinion as' to what our surplus may probably be at the 
 end of the present financial year, from which the supply must 
 be afforded for the supplementary estimates for the expenditure 
 of the year since the appropriation. The Committee will 
 recollect that in the early part of the year, when I offered to 
 estimate what would be the surplus, I said the surplus would 
 be about 460,000L ; but in making that statement I mentioned 
 my intention of asking a vote of 200,000?. additional for the 
 Kafir War. The Committee will perhaps recollect that on a 
 subsequent occasion I came down and announced that it was not 
 necessary to ask for that vote ; therefore the estimated surplus, 
 according to my statement, was virtually a surplus of 660,000?. 
 There has been a reduction made in the interest of the floating 
 debt amounting to about 40,000?., and that, in fact, would make 
 the estimated surplus on the data which I had before me early 
 in the year 700,000?. I shall show the Committee how our 
 finances are working since the commencement of the financial 
 year on April 5 last. The state of our revenue is extremely 
 favourable. I calculated at the beginning of the year that there 
 would be a diminution of something more than 100,000?. upon 
 the customs, I took into consideration the stimulus of the 
 Exhibition given last year to consumption, and also the further 
 reduction which has taken place in the sugar duties. I thought^ 
 therefore, we ought not to press too much on the customs, as 
 they had done their duty very well, and that we should not be 
 alarmed this year if there was some slight diminution. The 
 two causes to which I have referred — the great stimulus given 
 last year to consumption by the Exhibition, and the further 
 reduction of the duty on sugar — would, in my opinion, occasion 
 some diminution, which I estimated at something about 
 100,000?. I think there will be that diminution of about 
 100,000?. in the customs. From the commencement of the 
 financial year to the present time, the decrease has fluctuated 
 from one month to another ; it has not always been such 
 as would give a result of 100,000?. j at the present time it 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 381 
 
 would give a little more ; but I think my estimate will be 
 exactly fulfilled. I estimated an increase of about 50,000L in 
 the excise. There is at present a much greater increase in 
 the excise ; but I am not prepared to say at the end of the 
 year the estimate will be exceeded : it may, perhaps, but I 
 think we ought not to take account of that. I estimated that 
 the stamps would be about the same as last year. They have 
 increased every week since the beginning of the year. Their 
 increase has never for a moment fluctuated, and the total in- 
 crease on stamps from April 5 to November 27 has been nearly 
 300,000f. I estimated a considerable reduction in the property- 
 tax. I said it was necessary to calculate that we might lose 
 150,000?. on the property-tax. The property -tax, like the 
 stamps,, has been increasing every week progressively ; and at 
 present, instead of a loss of 150,000L, there is an increase of 
 187,000f. It would be neither convenient nor possible to give 
 anything like a positive statement on the subject at present ; 
 but I thought it would be agreeable to have these facts brought 
 before the Committee in an authentic manner. I will now 
 state my estimated surplus as virtually a surplus of 700,000Z. 
 It will be safe on the part of the Committee to add 500,000Z. 
 to that from the inland revenue. There will be some other 
 increase of which they will have to take account ; but certainly 
 I think that our surplus for the present year, taking the most 
 prudent and coldest calculation, will on April 5, instead of being 
 460,000?., as I estimated when I made my financial statement, 
 be something approaching to 1 ,000,000?. more than that. I 
 think the sum will be 1,300,000?. or 1,400,000?. I think, 
 under these circumstances, I may ask for a vote for the 
 increased expenditure incurred this year. 
 
 Sir, I mentioned that it was the hope and intention of Her 
 Majesty's Grovemment, if they were permitted to follow the 
 course they had chalked out for themselves, ultimately, but not 
 precipitately, to effect no inconsiderable reduction in the expendi- 
 dure of the country. This, I think, is a subject which has 
 hardly yet been fairly dealt with. Hitherto we have considered 
 that retrenchment, and not efficiency, was the parent of economy. 
 A Government has reduced estimates from the necessity of the 
 
382 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 moment, and there has been an apparent reduction in expendi- 
 ture ; but it has always been followed by a collapse, and 
 generally the unfortunate office of supplying the deficiency of 
 one administration has fallen to their successors. One adminis- 
 tration cuts down, another is obliged to increase ; and, so long 
 as it is made a mere question of pounds, shillings, and pence, I 
 am certain that no permanent and substantial reduction in the 
 expenditure of the country can be obtained. I think it the 
 duty of an administration to look to the efficiency of the 
 establishments of the country, and not to the rate at which 
 they may be maintained. If you only make your establishments 
 eflScient, you will find almost as a natural consequence that you 
 will save money ; and therefore I take it to be efficiency, and 
 not retrenchment, which is the true parent of economy. To 
 effect retrenchments in the establishments of this country is 
 about the most ungracious task in which an administration can 
 embark. There is nothing easier in Opposition than to call for 
 retrenchment ; there is nothing more difficult in administration 
 than to comply with that (Remand : so long as you leave your 
 existing establishments founded on the same principles, and 
 carried on in the same spirit, you will arrive at the result. I 
 do not mean to make any observation which shall seem at all 
 to cast censure on those by whom the permanent civil service 
 of this country is carried on, and to whom those engaged in the 
 administration of affairs have been so much indebted — on the 
 contrary, the other night I had occasion to offer my tribute to 
 their invaluable services. What they do, they do in the best 
 manner ; but they are not responsible for the establishments 
 of the country. It is our opinion that the system of 
 administration is not as advanced as other g^eat operations are 
 in this country. Whether we look to our commerce — whether 
 we look to the other occupations of man — these have under- 
 gone more change with reference to the circumstances of the 
 age than the establishments by which the administration of the 
 country is conducted. 
 
 How are we to deal with these immense difficulties ? If 
 you attempt to reform, you have to meet the two most formid- 
 able obstacles in the world, prejudice and skill. The person 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 383 
 
 who presides over a' great department does not like your inter- 
 fering, and he has more knowledge than you have. What can 
 be more difficult than to effect a reform under such circum- 
 stances ? I have a great respect for the House of Commons, to 
 which I owe everything, and there is no one who more highly 
 esteems the labours of the committees of the House than I do. If 
 I wanted a committee on the state of India, for example, I do 
 not know that I could find anywhere a body of men who could 
 conduct such an investigation in a manner so satisfactory. 
 You bring a large body of men round the table — skilled states- 
 men, eminently qualified for investigating political and financial 
 subjects. You bring to bear on public questions the knowledge 
 and experience of those best qualified to arrive at just con- 
 clusions, and of men of the world. But if the House of 
 Commons, by means of a committee, were to examine into a 
 great public department, you would not arrive at a similar 
 satisfactory conclusion as if the same men were investigating 
 the affairs of India, or the operations of the Factory Act, or any 
 subject of general interest in which the information, intelh- 
 gence, and temper of men of the world may be brought to 
 bear. You have too many men ; you have men of different 
 political opinions; and the results have always been that the 
 inquiry has been fruitless. You have had committees of 
 inquiry with respect to the Army, Navy, and Ordnance. What 
 have you done ? Nothing. But I say this : if you want admin- 
 istrative reform, why not apply to your great offices the same 
 principles as those which you apply to your revenue depart- 
 ments ? Issue commissions, and make the Grovernment re- 
 sponsible for the information they acquire, and make them act 
 upon it. I assume the House are sincere in their attempts to 
 effect administrative reform. There is a question of great 
 importance, with reference to these reforms, which has long been 
 recommended to the attention of the House of Commons : that 
 is, the bringing of the whole revenue of the country under 
 control of Parliament. Well, we are prepared to recommend 
 such a course, and when these financial measures are passed, I 
 will take an opportunity of bringing the subject of administra- 
 tive reform before the House, and I shall then explain in more 
 
384 SPEECHES or THE EAKL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 detail what is possible for me now only to touch upon — indeed, 
 it is barely possible for me thus ctu-sorily to advert to so impor- 
 tant a subject — but I shall then explain the measures which 
 Her Majesty's Grovernment are prepared to propose. If they 
 are supported in these measures, I believe that the efifect would 
 be most beneficial ; and I believe that you will secure a reduc- 
 tion in the public expenditure. 
 
 There is a point on which I wish to ask the consent of the 
 Committee. There is an establishment called the Public Works 
 Loan Fund Commission. It is my intention to ask the House 
 to terminate the operation of that commission. The nature of 
 this establishment is as follows : — It was founded on principles 
 exactly opposite to those which at present prevail, and organised 
 under circumstances exactly opposite to those that now exist. 
 In 1817 there was a surplus of labour and a deficiency of 
 capital ; 200,000 soldiers and sailors had been dismissed from 
 the army and navy. It was thought necessary to give them 
 factitious employment, and a certain body of men was appoin- 
 ted, who acted gratuitously, and with the greatest zeal, in- 
 tegrity and ability, throughout the whole time as Commis- 
 sioners, and Exchequer bills were issued in order to give 
 employment to the people. This system went on tQI about 
 ten years ago, when the issue of Exchequer bills was arrested, 
 and a certain annual sum was allotted from the Consolidated 
 Fund. That system had gone on till, as I said, the circum- 
 stances are exactly the reverse of those in which that Com- 
 mission was originally appointed. Instead of a surplus of 
 labour there is a deficiency ; instead of a want of capital there 
 is a plethora. In consequence, the commissioners have a large 
 balance at their command, and the system is of itself an 
 extremely injudicious system. We propose — and I will state 
 on the proper occasion the reasons why we think so — that this 
 commission should terminate, and that the repayment of the 
 advances shall be brought into the revenue, as part of the ways 
 and means — ^like ' Old Stores.' 
 
 Sir, my task is nearly terminated ; and if I have somewhat 
 abused the patience of the Committee, I can only say, mth 
 great humility, that I hardly think any person had ever in the 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 385 
 
 same time to compress so many topics into so small a corn- 
 
 It now, Sir, becomes me to explain to the House the ways and 
 means by which I propose that we shall accomplish the policy 
 which Her Majesty's Grovernment contemplate. I will now offer 
 to the Committee an estimate with reference to the year 1853-54, 
 so far as reduction of or increase in expenditm'e is concerned on 
 the one hand, and so far as ways and means are concerned, on 
 the other. I do not, of course, pretend to offer a formal esti- 
 mate of what the various services will require in 1853-54. It 
 would be perfectly absurd to offer such an estimate, and the 
 House will not be so unreasonable as to ask it. If we remain 
 in office, it will be my duty, at the proper time, to go into 
 those necessary details. But I wish to take the year 1853-54 
 and to show what, in our opinion, will be the effect on the ex- 
 penditure occasioned by the reductions we propose and the in- 
 creased estimates, and what we must supply by extraordinary 
 ways and means. I take the reduction of the malt-tax — 
 making an allowance for putting an end to the Scotch draw- 
 back, and for the difference of duty levied on malt from barley, 
 and from here and bigg, to amount to about 2,500,000L 
 That reduction will not come into operation until October 10, 
 1853; but on that day it will be necessary for me to be pre- 
 pared to pay the drawback on the stock-in-hand on which the 
 reduced duty will then be levied. I take for that drawback the 
 sum of 1,000,000L The reduction of the duty on tea to Is. lOd 
 a pound, calculated on a consumption of 54,000,000 lbs., but 
 subject to an increased consumption of 6,000,000 lbs., will 
 cause a loss to the revenue in the year 1853-54 of 400,000i. on 
 the present amount of revenue of 6,000,000Z. The extra 
 
 estimates 
 
 Mr. Hume : What will be the loss on hops ? 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer : The duty on hops will 
 not be affected in the financial year 1853-54; it is all payable 
 now for that year, and the proposed reduction of duty will not 
 come into operation till the year 1854—55. The extra estimates 
 for the ensuing year I take at 600,000L ; and perhaps I may 
 be permitted to say — as honourable gentlemen may be alarmed 
 VOL. I. c c 
 
386 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 at the idea of increased estimates — that I have received, not 
 the army estimates for the year 1853-54, but a private memo- 
 randum as to their results. I don't want to boast of the fact, 
 but by that document there is a diminution on those estimates. 
 But I put the extra estimates at 600,000L I put the light 
 dues at 100,000i. ; therefore there will be an extra demand 
 upon our resources to the amount of 2,100,000?. (An honour- 
 able member : 3,000,000L) In order that there shall be no 
 mistake on the subject, I will just read the items again. The 
 loss upon malt for the year 1853-54 willamount to 1,000,000L; 
 the loss on tea to 400,000L ; the extra estimates will be 
 600,000i. ; and the light dues, 100,000?. — thus making 
 2,100,000L Well, now for the ways and means. First, as to 
 the surplus revenue for the year 1853—54. I have shown to 
 the House that we may take our surplus for this year at 
 1,325,000?. or probably at 1,350,000?, I hope I shall never 
 have to move another vote for the Kafir war. That came into 
 our budget last year to the amount of 460,000?. I think, how- 
 ever, it would be imprudent to take credit for the whole of that 
 460,000?. in our future calculations, although our recent ac- 
 counts from that quarter are of an extremely favourable cha- 
 racter, and although, so far as the financial question is con- 
 cerned, which comes more immediately imder my notice as 
 connected with the commissariat, I am very sanguine on the 
 subject. Still, it is not at all impossible that we may have to 
 propose a financial vote for extras on account of the Kafir war ; 
 I should therefore say we ought to take off 200,000?. on 
 account of that charge. I take, therefore, the surplus for the 
 year 1853-54 at 1,600,000?. I take the repayments, if the 
 House accedes to my proposition with regard to the Public 
 Works Fund being paid to the public treasury, at 400,000?. ; 
 that altogether will make 2,000,000?. 
 
 It now becomes my duty to propose to the House the means 
 by which we shall be able to increase the revenue of the 
 country. That, it will be admitted, is the most difficult thing 
 in the world. But if I had the best case possible, I am not 
 sure that I should be able to obtain the attention of the House 
 to any extended remarks of a general nature, having already 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 387 
 
 ■wearied the House so long, and being myself, I may unaffectedly 
 say, quite exhausted. If, however, the measures which Her 
 Majesty's Grovemment have to propose are to be carried out — 
 and they are measures which, in my opinion, will conduce 
 greatly to the benefit of this country — it is absolutely necessary 
 we should put our finances in a sound position ; and this is 
 what I am most anxious to do. I want to put those finances in 
 such a position and on such principles as shall be most advan- 
 tageous to the community at large, and not to a class. I beg 
 to observe that I have not even adverted to ariy particular class. 
 I beg the Committee to recollect the general features of our 
 plan. I have on the part of Her Majesty's Government con- 
 sidered the claims of all those classes which, it is now universally 
 admitted, have been injured by 'recent legislation.' ('No!') 
 Has not the shipping interest been injured by 'recent legisla- 
 tion ' — (' No I ') — and are we not going to afford that interest 
 relief ? (' No, no ! ') I beg to remind the House that I have, 
 on the part of the Grovemment, considered all these claims, and, 
 I hope, in a sound and a kind — I am sure, not in a partial — spirit. 
 I have endeavoured, so far as I possibly could, to make pro- 
 positions which should terminate those claims of classes, of 
 which, I confess, for one, I am wearied. I have endeavoured to 
 encourage in the House a spirit of legislation which, by creating 
 a general feeling to unite in what may pertain to the public 
 good, and by studying the interest of the community at large, . 
 shall show all classes, whether manufacturing, commercial, 
 shipping or agricultural, that in supporting a legislation that 
 seeks the good of the community, they are, in fact, obtaining 
 the stimulus to their own peculiar occupations which they all 
 naturally desire. 
 
 Sir, I think on the part of my friends these propositions 
 have been met in a kind and generous spirit. There has been 
 no attempt on their part to parade the unequal incidence of 
 local taxation, which no man can deny they are subject to. No 
 man can deny that there has been a willingness on their part 
 to accept such an inequality in regard to those local charges to 
 which they are subject, in order to arrive at a complete and 
 final settlement of this vexatious question. It is more than 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 SPEECHES OF THE EAKL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 probable, however, that in such measures as may be brought 
 forward more immediately connected with their own interest 
 they wiir find that advantage and that relief which otherwise 
 they might churlishly have sought to obtain by measures 
 having solely reference to those peculiar burdens to which they 
 have been so long subjected. I think I have witnessed this 
 spirit, and that the tone in which my friends representing 
 more particularly the agricultural interest have met these pro- 
 positions is one that has shown them to be superior to all petty 
 considerations, and that they are anxious to merge them in a 
 gtrong national feeling. 
 
 Well, Sir, I now feel it my duty to propose some addition 
 to the resources of the country. I will not propose any ad- 
 ditional duty on the customs. If we are to embark on a new 
 system, let us do it fairly and completely. I have had proposed 
 to me, and I dare say many persons have had proposed to them, 
 schemes showing how the revenue may be raised by imposing a 
 customs' duty upon articles on which the duty was perhaps pre- 
 cipitately and needlessly repealed. But the repeal of those 
 duties is ^ part of the system which you have finally adopted, 
 and I will not meddle with such arrangements. So far as any 
 measures which we bring before the House are concerned, we 
 will bring them forward in complete harmony with that great 
 principle of unrestricted competition which the House has 
 adopted, nor will we offer any plan for increasing the revenue 
 which we do not think founded upon the best principles of 
 finance. Neither, Sir, are we going to propose to increase the 
 revenue by means of indirect taxation. I wiU. not now enter 
 into the merits of the customs and the excise as portions of a 
 system of finance ; but this I will say, that, although we are 
 compelled to raise a great portion of our revenue by means of 
 indirect taxation, it is absolutely necessary, if you will retain 
 the principle of unrestricted competition, that all indirect taxes 
 should be moderate in amount. Well, Sir, I am not going to 
 propose a new tax. That, at least, is a point in advance ; that 
 makes less the difficulties I have to contend with. I am not 
 going to propose a new tax. I am going to ask you to consider 
 an existing tax. I am going to ask you to apply to that cour 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBEE 1852. 389 
 
 sideration the principles you have always supported ; and I am 
 going to test you whether you are sincere in the great effort to 
 relieve the industry of this country from that yoke of excessive: 
 indirect taxation from which it has suffered so long. I am 
 going to ask the Committee to consider the present arrangement 
 of the house-tax. 
 
 Now, Sir, I trust the House will listen to me with kind 
 patience. I know the clamour that has existed in this country 
 about the house-tax. I am not imposing a house-tax. It exists. 
 All I ask you is to consider the principle upon which that tax 
 is constructed. I don't know any portion of the country that 
 has ever made a greater opposition to the house-tax than that 
 portion of it which ought to be the most enligVitened and 
 public-spirited portion of the people of this country — that is, 
 the inhabitants of the metropolis. I remember the moment 
 the inhabitants of the metropolis had gained political power they 
 agitated against what they called 'the iniquitous house-tax. But 
 sound principles of.finance were not too prevalent in those days. 
 The inhabitants of the metropolis at that time were subjected 
 to a very heavy taxation, and I don't know that their general 
 complaint against the weight of their taxation was unreason- 
 able. Being suddenly invested with political power, they rose 
 against the immediate object which excited their attention. 
 Eemember, the inhabitants of the metropolis were subjected 
 then to an enormous system of direct and indirect taxation. 
 They were subject to direct taxation connected with their houses 
 double in weight to the amount of the house-tax — namely, the 
 window-tax ; and, in addition to all this, they were subject to 
 that which they have subsequently told us was infinitely more 
 grievous, infinitely more V^exatious, and infinitely more injurious 
 than all taxes — namely, the Corn Laws. Now, just let me remind 
 the House of the real state of affairs as regards the house-tax. 
 Since that time — namely, in 1834 — the duty on houses was 
 repealed. It amounted as a revenue to 1,198,000^. Since that 
 time the duty on windows has been repealed, amounting to 
 1,950,000^., making altogether the sum of 3,148,000? ; since 
 that time the duty on glass has been repealed, amounting to 
 800,000Z., and 400,000L of which, by the official return I have^ 
 
390 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 was paid by houses for windows of crown glass. Since then the 
 duty on bricks, amounting to 465,000L, and the duty on timber, 
 to the amount of more than 1,500,000L, have been taken off; 
 and certainly I may say that one-fourth of the duty on timber 
 was contributed by houses. Besides all this, nearly 15,000,000^. 
 of indirect taxation have been repealed ; and besides all this 
 too, the Corn Laws have been repealed, which so many believed 
 to have been a more grievous kind of taxation than all the 
 other indirect taxation from which they had been relieved. 
 
 Well, Sir, I need not say anything, at least to-night, with 
 respect to the justice of the house-tax. The greatest writers 
 have agreed that no ta,x is more free from objection than the 
 house-tax. I need not say to-night to my predecessor, who, I 
 see, is exhausted as well as myself — I need not say anything to 
 him to prove the excellence and the justice of a house-tax, for 
 he has introduced one himself. But what I would venture to 
 say is, that I cannot believe that when I make a proposition 
 which is only to reconstruct on juster principles — principles 
 which have always been eulogised in this House — an imperfect 
 law, as it at present exists ; that when I ask to be permitted to 
 do that in order to carry measures which will relieve to a great 
 extent the industry of the country, and animate in the most 
 conspicuous manner all the great branches of our trade : I can- 
 not think that I shall hear in the year 1852 those objections to 
 a house-tax which were heard in 1834. I believe, indeed, that 
 the persons who were clamorous against the house- tax in 1834 
 are now men of more enlightened minds — men who have made 
 too much progress in this great age of improvement in which 
 it is our fortune to live, to come forward and say they prefer 
 the old system of finance, which threw the chief burden of tax- 
 ation on the industry of the country, rather than bear their 
 quota in this great effort for terminating as far as possible the 
 vexed question of taxation. I will recall the attention of the 
 House to the principles on which the present house-tax is esta-- 
 blished. It is direct taxation — and it is remarkable for all 
 those imperfections which we say direct taxation ought not to 
 be distinguished by. You say with regard to the income-tax 
 that a system of exemptions is intolerable, and you have en- 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 391 
 
 couraged me this evening in my limited efforts to the adoption 
 of a plan by which exemptions shall be considerably decreased. 
 What, then, can you say to a house-tax which limits its opera- 
 tions to houses of 201, value. I want to know who can possibly 
 defend a law of this kind. 
 
 If my honourable friend the member for Montrose (Mr. 
 Hume), who advocates with respect to the income-tax such 
 legitimate conclusions, be sincere, he cpunot be in favour of a 
 house-tax limiting its operation and exempting so large a pro- 
 portion of the subject-matter of it. (Mr. Hume : I divided the 
 House against it.) That is the very thing I want. Three 
 times have I tried to get the honourable gentleman to say 
 that, but 1 could not. I wanted to hear that from his own lips, 
 because I was afraid some of his new companions might have 
 fallen into the error of supposing that my honourable friend 
 was not in favour of those principles which I am now advocating. 
 But I know my honourable friend is in favoiu: of those prin- 
 ciples, and I hope that he will assist me in the temperate and 
 moderate proposition I am making. I think we ought to ex- 
 tend to the house-tax that principle we are attempting to extend 
 to the income-tax. Exemptions are a suspicious feature in all 
 financial systems ; and nothing can be more ridiculous than to 
 say that a house which is not rated at 201. a year should be 
 exempted, while a house at 20L a year should pay the tax. 
 Therefore, I think we ought to extend the house-tax ; and, in 
 the same spirit in which I would propose any of those measures 
 I have named to-night — not wishing to push the principle to 
 an extreme, but trying to form the public mind by degrees to 
 a system which I am convinced will contribute to their welfare 
 and prosperity — ;! should say it is not an unreasonable proposi- 
 tion to extend the house-tax to houses of lOl. a year. Well, 
 Sir, at present private houses pay 9d. in the pound, and 
 shops pay 6d. in the pound. The exemption commences at 
 below 201. It is impossible that a house-tax could be proposed 
 with scantier limits. I felt at the time that the tax was pro- 
 posed, that, both as to the basis upon which it was formed and 
 at the rate at which it was assessed, we were sanctioning (with 
 great respect to my right honourable predecessor I say it) a 
 
392 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 very injudicious measure. I remember in the middle of the 
 session I made a feeble effort to arrest its progress, and received 
 the sanction of the right honourable gentleman the member for 
 the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) ; but it was useless at 
 that time to oppose the measure, though I felt we were 
 sanctioning one we should all some day regret. I think we 
 ought to increase the basis of the tax, and that it would be a 
 moderate proposition if I suggested that its present basis should 
 be extended to houses of lOl. a year. I don't mean that we 
 should for ever stop at 101. I do not lay that down as a final 
 proposition ; but it is an advance in the right direction, and it 
 is all I can venture at this moment to recommend. 
 
 Then, again, I think we ought to increase the rate. We 
 must remember that, if the measures with which this proposi- 
 tion is accompanied are passed, a very great difference will be 
 made in the position of the inhabitant householders ; that those 
 who are in trade will have for the first time recognised a dif- 
 ference between realised and precarious incomes in the contri- 
 bution to the property and income tax — a recognition gratifying 
 to their feelings, as well as advantageous to their interests ; 
 that a very great reduction will be effected for them in the 
 price of two of the principal articles of domestic expenditure, 
 by their having cheap beer and cheap tea; and that the changes 
 we propose, if agreed to, will give great impulse to their indus- 
 try in largely promoting the trade and commerce of the country. 
 Since the public first objected to the house-duty, they have got 
 rid of that duty — they have got rid of the glass-duty, of the brick- 
 duty, and much of the timber-duty; they have been relieved from 
 that immense mass of indirect taxation to which I have referred 
 — from the operation of the Corn Laws, to which many of them 
 objected as the worst taxation of all ; and from the window-tax. 
 And now I want to recall to the recollection of the Committee — 
 as important to the equitable adjustment of the question — the 
 circumstances under which the tax on windows was taken off in 
 1851. That repeal was not asked for by the inhabitants of 
 houses as a relief from the burden of taxation, or because it 
 was a grievous or vexatious tax in a financial point of view. 
 Of course not: as conscientious, honest, honourable men, they 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 393 
 
 could not put the matter in that light, after they had been 
 relieved from the house-tax, from the brick-tax, timber-tax, 
 glass-tax — from the general mass of indirect taxation I have 
 spoken of — and when, above all, they were revelling in their 
 relief from the Corn Laws. Oh, no ! nothing of the sort ; they 
 all said that the country was never more prosperous, themselves 
 never more happy, never more contented, and they sought the 
 repeal of the window-tax upon no financial grounds at all. 
 What they urged upon the House, in connection with the sub- 
 ject, was simply and solely the sanitary condition of the people, 
 and they objected to the window-tax, because, they said, it 
 affected the sanitary condition of the people. The allegation 
 was admitted by the House, and the tax was put an end to. 
 Now, if, without affecting the sanitary condition of the people, 
 we could supply the Exchequer by a reconstruction of that 
 house-tax ^which they did not seem on principle to object to — 
 by the amount pf the contribution which the inhabitants of 
 houses formerly paid in the shape of a window-duty, which they 
 only objected to on sanitary grounds — this cannot, I apprehend, 
 be looked upon as an immoderate proposition. But I do not 
 ■propose, in the first instance^ to go so far even ; I do not pro- 
 pose a scheme that shall levy so great a tax on the inhabitants 
 of taxable houses as they paid in the form of window-tax. My 
 proposal is to levy the tax upon an enlarged area, so that what- 
 ever may be its amount, its incidence may be lighter. I shall 
 make a moderate proposition, and yet one that will enable us 
 to place the finances of the country on a sound basis. I pro- 
 pose to extend the tax, as I before said, to lOl. houses, aiid that 
 private houses (rated in the whole at 15,854,126Z.) shall be as- 
 sessed at Is. 6d., and shops (rated at 10,698,452?.) shall be 
 assessed at Is-, in the pound, the whole produce being 1,723,000L 
 — ^that is, about one million sterling more than the present pro- 
 duce of the house-tax, and 225,000L, if I recollect aright, less 
 than the amount of that tax upon windows which was objected 
 to solely on account of its effect on the sanitary condition of 
 the people. 
 
 Now, Sir, having made that proposition, I may complete 
 my estimate for the year 1853-54; it having been necessary. 
 
394 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 for me to enter into these details in the middle of this estimate. 
 I have shown that the extraordinary demand made upon us in 
 1853 will be 2,100,000^., the extra ways and means 2,500,000^. 
 We shall, in this year, have only half the increase of the house- 
 tax, if the House assents to it^so that upon the whole there 
 will be 2,500,OOOL of extraordinary ays and means to meet 
 an extraordinary expenditure of 2,100,000Z. As to the year 
 1854-55, the estimates show a loss on the malt duty of 
 1,700,000 ; there will be a loss on tea by the further reduction 
 of 2d. — allowing for the increased consumption, which I esti- 
 mate at 4,000,000 lbs. — there will be a total loss on tea of 
 567,000^. ; on hops of 120,000L ; by light dues 100,000i. ; and 
 on the whole, with the increased estimates of which I have 
 spoken, a total sum of 3,087,000i. to meet. Now for the ways 
 and means. There will be, I estimate, in 1854-55 a surplus of 
 1,800,OOOL, for I cannot conceive there will be any claim then 
 on account of the Kaffir war ; repayments will amount to 
 400,000L ; half of the Three-and-a-Quarter Per Cents. wiUcome 
 in (for which benefit we are indebted to the most successful of 
 modern Chancellors of the Exchequer, who had twice the 
 honour of reducing the public debt), 310,000L; and we shall 
 further have the whole of the new house-tax l,000,000i., making 
 in all a sum of 3,510,000^., or something less than 500,000Z. 
 more than the deficiency to be supplied ; and this, I think, re- 
 presents a not unfavourable condition of finance. 
 
 I haVe now. Sir, endeavoured to place before the Committee 
 those measures of financial and administrative reform which 
 Her Majesty's Grovernment are prepared at once to bring for- 
 ward. The honourable member for Montrose seemed to be sur- 
 prised that no provision was announced with regard to the 
 stamps on marine insurance and charter-parties. I would 
 point out to my honourable friend that this is one of those 
 financial matters which could not be considered as coming 
 within the scope of this preliminary statement. The Grovern- 
 ment has contented itself on this occasion with propounding 
 those measures which it is prepared, with the sanction of the 
 House, to bring into immediate operation. "We have studiously 
 aj)stained from offering any opinion on any branch of the systemi 
 
BUDGET, DECEMBER 1852. 39'^. 
 
 of taxation on which we are not prepared immediately to act. 
 The measures which we have thus announced are essentially 
 practical measures. If the House sanctions them, they will, in 
 our opinion, lay down sound principles of finance which will 
 lead to results highly beneficial to the people of this country, 
 and be the foundation of further measures, which we believe 
 will prove still more beneficial. It does not become us, accord- 
 ing to our sense of duty, to offer anything to the House of 
 other than a practical nature, or to make any proposition which 
 we are not prepared, with the sanction of the House, to carry 
 immediately into effect. At the same time, we have not 
 neglected carefully to examine the question of the stamp duties 
 and the probate duties ; and we think it not impossible to bring 
 forward, on the right occasion, a duty on successions that will 
 reconcile contending interests, and terminate the system now 
 so much complained of. At' present, however, we are not pre- 
 pared with a measure of that kind, and we consider it, as I 
 have said, altogether injudicious to propound any project to the 
 House which we are not ready at once to act upon. 
 
 We think we have proposed enough to-night ; and we think 
 that what we have proposed is of a character that, if acted 
 upon, we can judiciously advance a step further. I admit that 
 what I have now proposed is ^only a first step, but I trust the 
 Committee will admit it to be a step in the right direction ; we 
 have met the great question in a large and comprehensive 
 spirit, fully prepared, if the House will support us, to carry out 
 the policy which I have to-night — most inadequately, I am, 
 aware — indicated to the Cbnimittee : a, policy which we believe 
 will be for the welfare of the country, because it is a policy 
 founded on sound principles of finance, and because it has been 
 framed with no other object than to govern the country in a 
 manner that shall mast conc^uce to the greatest happiness of 
 the greatest number. 
 
S96 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 P.EPLY, December 16, l852.» 
 
 [This speech attracted considerable atteniion at the time, and the 
 assertion at the close of it, that ' England does not love coalitions,' 
 has passed into a household word. It was thought that Government, 
 in spite of the circumstances already mentioned, might hare had a 
 majority, but for the speech of Mr. Gladstone which followed — one of 
 the few instances, if the supposition be correct) of a speech determining 
 the division.] 
 
 f^PHE Chancellor of the Exchequer t Sir, after four nights of 
 J- criticism, conducted by some of the most considerable 
 reputations in this House, on the financial propositions that I 
 have laid on the table of the Committee, I now rise to vindi- 
 cate those propositions. If in the observations, which I will 
 endeavour to condense as much as I can, I omit noticing any 
 of the objections which have been urged against those pro- 
 positions, I hope the Committee will ascribe that negligence 
 to inadvertence and not to design* Having listened with the 
 respect and attention naturally dtie to such vrords from such 
 lips, I can conscientiously say that I have heard nothing that 
 in my opinion has successfully impugned the policy which, as 
 the organ of the Grovernment, I have recommended ; and I am 
 prepared to meet the objections which have been urged, and to 
 show to the Committee that they are unfounded and illusory. 
 When, with the great indulgence of the House on Friday 
 week, I attempted to make a general exposition of the financial 
 policy of the Grovernment ; when, exiiausting, I am conscious, 
 the patience of the House, as well as myself, I endeavoured in 
 the fulfilment of my duty to give— I will not call them esti- 
 mates — but to give such informatioh as was necessary as to the 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansarf's i>eba,tes by permission o£ Mx. 
 Hansard, 
 
EEPLY, DECEMBER 1852. 397 
 
 effect of the alterations that we proposed on the revenue of the 
 next year and the year immediately following— I did not then 
 attempt to substantiate that statement by details. I felt that 
 at that moment the House was too exhausted to listen to those 
 details ; I felt that the general statement would undergo the 
 scrutiny of persons competent to invalidate its accuracy if 
 inaccuracy could be proved to exist ; and I felt I should have 
 the opportunity, with permission of the House, of answering 
 such criticisms in due time. I will now, therefore, in the first 
 place, address myself to the statement which I made generally 
 as to the effect of these alterations on the revenue of the two 
 years under discussion ; and I will apply myself, in the first 
 instance, to the two important arraignments of the policy 
 which we recommend, made principally by the right honourable 
 gentleman the member for Halifax (Sir Charles Wood). And, 
 first, I will address myself to that sum of 400,000L, which, 
 under the name of repayments, I recommend to the Committee 
 to adopt and to sanction as part of the ways and means of 
 the impending year. That proposed course was at once de- 
 nounced by the member for the University of Oxford, and 
 afterwards assailed in language and a tone somewhat unusual — 
 certainly not very Parliamentary — by the right honoiu-able 
 member for Halifax ; for, instead of addressing his observations 
 to you, Sir, he addressed, throughout his speech, his observa- 
 tions to myself. On a subsequent occasion another right 
 honourable gentleman — a great authority in this House (Sir 
 James Graham)— entered amply, and with the advantage which 
 days of meditation on the subject gave him, into the same 
 topic, enlarging upon it with a minuteness which was not ob- 
 served in the attack of the member for the University of 
 Oxford, and which was scorned by the member for Halifax. 
 
 These three great authorities have combined to influence 
 the opinion of the Committee on the subject. I am not sure 
 whether a third ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer ' has touched 
 on it, for, unfortunately, I was absent from the House during 
 part of the time he was addressing the Committee — probably, 
 however, he did not spare me any more than his right honour- 
 
 ' Mr. Goulburn, Chancellor of the Exchequer under Sir Robert Peel. 
 
398 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 able friends have done. It is for me now to show — if the 
 Committee will, as I have no doubt, after these attacks, it will, 
 give me its kind and patient attention — that the propositions I 
 made bear a very different character and complexion from those 
 which these authorities have so strenuously sought to induce 
 the Committee to believe. There are two points in this subject 
 before the Committee : first, was I justified in recommending 
 that the establishment in question should be abolished ? 
 Secondlj', if I was justified in that recommendation, was I 
 justified in also recommending that the repayments should 
 take their place in the ways and means. These are the two 
 issues in this matter before the Committee ; I trust I have 
 stated them fairly. I must advert briefly to the origin of this 
 department of the Public Works Loan Commission, to which on 
 the former occasion I alluded cursorily. I observed then that 
 this department had its origin in circumstances exactly the 
 reverse of those under which it now exists, and that it was 
 occasioned by causes which now no longer operate. At the 
 peace, there being surplus population and deficient capital, the 
 labour market throughout the country being suddenly dis- 
 turbed, and unexpected hands let loose on society, the amount 
 of unemployed labour being increased and aggravated by a 
 body of 200,000 seamen and soldiers all at once disbanded, the 
 Government of that day felt it necessary' to take some arti- 
 ficial means of employing that surplus labour in a state of 
 society where capital was deficient. 
 
 It is not necessary for us to enter into any discussion as to 
 the policy or impolicy of such a proceeding. Probably mere 
 political economists might not approve of it — probably states- 
 men under circumstances so urgent, though they might not 
 have abstractedly approved of it, might have been forced to 
 have recourse to such a measure. However this may be, a de- 
 partment was established which, by the credit of Exchequer 
 bills issued by the State, raised money, and employed that 
 money in what is called ' public works.' That system went 
 on for, I think, nearly fifteen years. Nearly 3,000,000L of 
 Exchequer bills had been issued, and those which had been so 
 issued for that purpose were not of so favourite a character in 
 
REPLY, DECEMBER 1852. 399 
 
 ■the market as the usual Supply Exchequer Bills, and it was 
 found necessary or convenient to terminate the issue. In the 
 year 1842, the point from which we depart, the account 
 was taken of that fund. It appeared at that time that in 
 round numbers the sum of 3,000,000?. had been raised by 
 Excheqiier bills thus issued ; that of that sum 2,000,OOOL had 
 been paid off, and that 1,046,000L remained at that time un- 
 settled, if I may use the expression, and to close the transaction 
 they were funded. From that period, by Act of Parliament it 
 was arranged that, instead of loans raised on Exchequer bills, 
 the same Commissioners for the same purpose should receive a 
 sum of money to the amount of 360,000L a year from the Con- 
 solidated Fund. The sum which we have actually to deal with is 
 300,000?. per annum, for by a subsequent arrangement 60,000?., 
 a portion of that sum, was transferred to the use of Ireland only 
 for public works, and with that we do not propose to deal. 
 
 Well now, Sir, the member for Carlisle ' has dilated in almost 
 . moving terms upon the benefit of the loan ftmd, especially to 
 the country gentlemen. He has eulogised its good administra- 
 tion by the unpaid commissioners, whose respectable and re- 
 spected names he read to the Committee ; nor should he have 
 forgotten — though he omitted it, I am sure, only from inad- 
 vertence — to have recorded, also, the names of the respected 
 officers connected with that fund, whose performance of their 
 duties should not, I think, be overlooked at this moment, 
 whatever our opinion may be upon other subjects. I am 
 willing to admit that so far as those unpaid commissioners and 
 those sedulous officials are concerned, there are few blots in the 
 administration of that fund, during a long period, by them. 
 On the contrary, I think I may say that they have conducted 
 themselves with unimpeachable assiduity and care. Sir, the 
 right honourable gentleman passing on, has dilated upon the 
 importance of this fund, especially to the country gentlemen. 
 With this fund, according to him, bridges have been erected, 
 union workhouses built, lunatic asylums and public gaols have 
 risen. (Sir J. Grraham : I said ' workhouses enlarged,' not 
 ' built.') Well, enlarged ; the right honourable gentleman may 
 ' Sir James Graham. 
 
400 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 have the benefit of the correction. Certainly he talked of this 
 fund circulating to the constant advantage of the landed in- 
 terest, and he asked, ' If that assistance is withdrawn, what are 
 they to do ? ' ' Why has he touched it ? ' said the right honour- 
 able gentleman with indignation ; ' not a single shilling has 
 been lost ; why has he touched it ? ' 
 
 Now, Sir, of funds of this nature there is one general obser- 
 vation to make, which before we enter into the consideration to 
 its particular management should not be omitted. This fund 
 proposed to lend money at a higher rate of interest than the 
 rate prevailing in what is called ' the money market.' Accord- 
 ing to the member for Halifax, that was in order that the 
 money market should not be disturbed. The rules of the Loan 
 Fund were these : that for all undertakings in which profit was 
 concerned, 5 per cent, was to be charged ; and for all under- 
 takings in which profit was not concerned, 4 per cent, only was 
 to be charged. The first and natural consequence of any de- 
 partment lending money at a higher rate of interest than the 
 natural rate of the money market is, that first-rate securities 
 will not apply to them ; for first-rate securities will not pay 
 5 per cent., or 4 per cent, if they can get their money at 3^ per 
 cent. ; and if your funds are employed, the chance is that your 
 security is second-rate. Well, Sir, I have here ample information 
 as to the manner in which those funds were employed as regards 
 the country gentlemen, but I have no wish to enter into any 
 details to show that in many instances those advances need not 
 or ought not to have been made. At this moment the country 
 gentlemen are not applying for any great amount of that fund, 
 for the reason which my right honourable friend the Secretary 
 of State for the Home Department adverted to the other 
 evening — namely, that they cannot afibrd to pay so high a rate 
 of interest for the loan which is afforded them. But, Sir, the 
 objection to this department has nothing to do with the circum- 
 stances on the surface, to which the member for Carlisle has 
 adverted, and to which he has c'onfined himself. The question 
 is one of a much deeper character ; and now perhaps the Com- 
 mittee will permit me to inform them under what circumstances 
 and by what reason my attention was drawn to this Loan Fund, 
 
EEPLY, DECEMBER 1852. 401 
 
 Sir, I found in revising the public accounts of the country 
 a department, and a department of no great mark, with a very 
 large balance of the public money unemployed, amounting, 
 when it first attracted my attention — and, I believe, at this 
 moment — to upwards of 380,000?., lying perfectly idle. It is no 
 doubt a rule, which I should think no gentleman opposite will 
 impugn, that large balances of the public money lying idle is a 
 circumstance which ought not to be encouraged, and which 
 ought to be inquired into. But I found that with that large 
 amount of balance there was a law in existence that perempto- 
 rily every quarter of a year increased it by the_ sum of 90,000L 
 less the amount paid to Ireland, and it became, therefore, my 
 duty to inquire why so large a balance remained unproductive, 
 what was the object of that balance, what had been effected by 
 that fund, and what might be the consequences of its remaining 
 in its present state ? The right honourable baronet said, in a 
 manner which he did not in any way qualify — which, in fact, 
 was almost the basis of his appeal, if not his argument — that not 
 a single shilling had been lost ; that under the innocent man- 
 agement of those respected names which he appealed to, and 
 those worthy officials whose services I have presumed to notice, 
 the simple country gentlemen have been benefited ; that that 
 recruiting fund had raised our gaols, and enlarged our unions, 
 and, after thirty or forty years' experience, not a single shilling, 
 mind you, has been lost. ' Why does he touch it ? ' Now, I 
 must inform the Committee that the right honourable gentle- 
 man, in the minute statement which he gave with respect 
 to this department, omitted all the most important facts. 
 
 I doubt not. Sir, that if a fund had been entrusted only to 
 respectable unpaid commissioners of such habits of life as were 
 referred to by the right honourable gentleman, devoted only to 
 the worthy and laudable purposes which the right honourable 
 gentleman described as the sole object of its investment — I 
 doubt not that, though there might have been an occasional job 
 unconsciously perpetrated, and an occasional bad security inad- 
 vertently taken, yet that no very serious consequences would 
 have accrued. But, Sir, with so convenient a fund at their 
 disposal, there was another party to interfere beside the 
 
 VOL. I. D D 
 
402 SPEECHES OE THE EAKL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 respectable commissioners, and the fund has been employed for 
 purposes very different from those of my honourable friends 
 near me, the country gentlemen of England. With these large 
 balances and funds another influence has interfered, very briefly 
 alluded to by one of those right honourable gentlemen who 
 have spoken on the subject. ' We all know how convenient it 
 may be to the minister,' said the right honourable gentleman 
 (Sir C. Wood), 'to have at a particular moment such a fund 
 at his command ; ' and I will show the Committee how con- 
 venient it has been to the minister to have such a fund at his 
 command, and^ I will show to the Committee what flagrant 
 misappropriation there has been of the public funds of this 
 country, and how vast an amount has been squandered away, 
 virtually without the cognisance and consent of Parliament, and 
 entirely by the machinery of this Public Works Loan Fund. 
 Now, Sir, ' it is excessively convenient,' says the right honour- 
 able gentleman. There are moments when even I, with my 
 brief experience of office, which seems so much envied — when, 
 he says, even I may have experienced the conveniences of such 
 a fund. Well, I don't know what I may come to ; but certainly, 
 during the short period I have had the honour of presiding 
 over the Exchequer, I had not the slightest idea that I was to 
 avail myself of such an opportunity. This, now, is the way my 
 predecessors have availed themselves of such opportunities. I 
 shall then put the question simply to the Committee, whether 
 they think that such a department ought to be maintained for 
 the reasons iirged by the right honourable member for Carlisle, 
 or whether I have taken a judicious com-se in attempting to 
 terminate its existence. That is what I shall leave to the 
 decision of the Committee. 
 
 Now, Sir, let me explain how the minister of the day— I 
 make no charge on any minister of any period : my observations 
 are general — how the minister of the day has availed himself 
 of the public funds, virtually, as I shall show you, without the 
 cognisance of Parliament, and how vast sums have been squan- 
 dered without even the honourable member for Montrose, I 
 believe, being aware of it. Now, I take one among many illus- 
 trative instances. I take the instance of the Thames Tunnel. 
 
EEPLY, DECEMBER 1852. 403 
 
 There was a body of ingenious men who resolved to make a 
 tvinnel under the Thames. Well, it was a great triumph of 
 scientific enterprise, and much to the honour of the English 
 character that such an" undertaking should have been entered 
 into without, of course, the slightest chance of ever getting the 
 smallest interest for their money. It is only in England that 
 such things are undertaken and such enterprises encouraged. 
 However, there are moments when even the most enthusiastic 
 in such enterprises begin to think that public assistance is 
 required. Appeals are made to the minister. Those appeals 
 are strengthened and supported by powerful Parliamentary in- 
 fluence. A Bill is brought into Parliament on a subject which 
 interests nobody, and it allows the undertakers of that public 
 enterprise, the members of a public company, to raise money. 
 Who of the 650 members has his eye on a Bill of that kind ? 
 Probably not five men in the House, unless they are the 
 directors of the company, are aware of it. That Bill contains a 
 clause permitting the Lords of the Treasury to advance from 
 the Public Works Loan Fund a sum by way of loan to carry 
 out the projects of that company. The Bill is passed. Being 
 passed^ the promoters go to the Treasury — I am now speaking 
 of the Thames Tunnel Company — they go to the Treasury. By 
 virtue of that clause the Lords of the Treasury advance, by way 
 of loan, through the machinery of the Public Works Loan 
 Fund, no less a sum than 250,000i. to the Thames Tunnel 
 Company, not a shilling of which has ever been repaid, or can 
 ever be repaid, and on which, I believe, only i per cent, interest, 
 received probably as an admission fee into the tunnel, has ever 
 been paid. 
 
 Now, what I say with regard to the system is this. It is 
 perfectly open to the House of Commons to do that which all 
 assemblies and individuals have a right to .do — to commit a 
 a great folly. If a minister comes forward and asks the House 
 of Commons to vote 250,000L to make a tunnel under the 
 Thames, if we assent to his proposal, we have at least the glory 
 of voting 250,O0OL for that object, and though some may think 
 that 250,000L might be employed for a more useful or elevating 
 purpose, at least an opportunity is given of appealing to the 
 
 J) s Z 
 
404 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 reason of the House and dissenting from the measure. But 
 under this system no one is in the least aware that 250,000^. is 
 advanced. It is lent. Yes, but how lent ? It is a grant in 
 the shape of a loan. Now, this is one of the cases by which 
 250,000L and its accumulated interest have been lost to the 
 country. I will give one more instance of the operation of this 
 Loan Fund, and it is one of recent interest. I am ashamed to 
 say that I have been a member of Parliament during the time in 
 which this instance occurred, and I dare say a majority now in 
 the House were. Its date is from 1847 to 1850, and it makes 
 me blush even at this moment. Now, this case is well deserving 
 the attention of the Committee, because there is no reason 
 why almost this very night, or the next night, the same opera- 
 tion may not be going on ; there is not the least reason why 
 under this machinery we may not every week be voting 
 100,000?. of the public money without a single member being 
 cognisant of it. The case which I will now call your attention 
 to is that of Battersea Park. Now, Sir, I am far from saying 
 that it may not be the duty of the Grovemment to estabhsh 
 parks for the health and enjoyment of the community. I do 
 not want to enter into that question now, though perhaps I 
 may observe, in respect to the establishment of a park, that it 
 may fairly be considered whether the inhabitants of the district 
 should not at least contribute their quota, and in that case 
 whether it may not be perfectly legitimate in a great metropolis 
 like this, that the central authority should aid in a purpose 
 which contributes to the ornament of the capital, and the health 
 of the general population. It is perfectly legitimate for the 
 minister to come forward and propose a vote of 150,000L or 
 more if necessary, to make a park at Battersea, or anywhere 
 else. The House, in such an event, has the question fairly 
 before it, and may consider it in all its details, and if it sandtion 
 it, although the speculation may be improvident, and the object 
 not worth the investment, yet no one can complain of the 
 result. 
 
 Let me inform the Committee what occurred in the case of 
 Battersea Park. A Bill was brought into Parliament, as usual, 
 empowering certain individuals to buy land at Battersea and to 
 
REPLY, DECEMBER 18S2. 405 
 
 make a park. A clause was put into the Bill — not compulsory, 
 mind you, but permissive — to enable the Lords of the Treasury 
 if they thought fit, to advance from the PubHc Works Loan 
 Fund such a sum as they might think proper for the advance- 
 menLof the object in question. The proprietors of Battersea 
 Park, with that Bill which nobody had ever seen, and that 
 clause — (Sir C. Wood : ' It was a public Bill ')— yes, a public 
 Bill, of course, but it does not follow that five persons in the 
 House knew of its existence — they go to the Treasury, and 
 what occurs ? They obtain an advance from the Treasury of 
 150,000L I don't ask who was the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer who sanctioned that allowance, notwithstanding the 
 recent interruption. Of all the speculations that man engaged 
 in, no speculation was so absurd as Battersea Park. The 
 persons who undertook the enterprise were ignorant of all the 
 circumstances with which they had to deal. They pm-chased 
 a great deal of land, and made arrangements by which twenty 
 years must elapse, even if they were successful, before they 
 receive any rents ; and the margin reserved for the Grovern- 
 ment is so slight that, instead of repaying the principal, it will 
 probably never defray the sum that is already due for accumu- 
 lated interest ; for, mind you, they are in theory paying 5 per 
 cent, to the Public Works Loan Fund all this time. The in- 
 terest is debited every half year, and the arrears now amount, I 
 think, to 12,000?. Now, Sir, I will not go into any other in- 
 stances. I have done my duty in bringing these before the 
 Committee. 
 
 I have here in my hand, from the year 1824 till 1840, a 
 catalogue of parallel instances, and the whole amount is very 
 Uttle short of 700,000L, every shilling of which has been lost 
 to the country. ' Not a single shilling has been lost,' said the 
 right honourable gentleman (Sir J. Graham). ' Why has he 
 touched it ? ' Well, I've given him now the ' reason why,' ' and I 
 think the Committee will agree, whatever they may think of the 
 
 ' This is a reference to a speech of Sir J. Graham's on the advantages 
 which various classes of the population had derived from the recent measures 
 of commercial legislation. The refrain of several sentences was, ' And they 
 know the reason why.' 
 
406 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 further merits of the question, that in stopping a system so 
 iniquitous, I was only doing my duty as a guardian of the public 
 purse. Yet this is the system which, according to the right 
 honourable gentleman, is so beneficially administered by Lord 
 Overstone, by which loans are advanced to country gentlemen for 
 building lunatic asylums at 4 per cent. In fact, irrespective of 
 the flagrant circumstances which I have brought before the 
 Committee, time had virtually done that for the Public Works 
 Loan Fund which an indignant Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 ought to have done long ago. A loan fund at 4 and 5 per cent, 
 founded upon the assumption that there was surplus labour 
 and deficient capital, in an age when there was a deficiency of 
 labour and a plethora of capital, really had come to its 
 natiiral end ; and that is the cause of those large balances 
 which must necessarily be swollen each quarter by the incre- 
 ment from the Exchequer. They have, in fact, with the 
 rapidly accumulating funds been led almost to force their 
 loans upon Irish railways ; but here the unpaid commissioners 
 come into play, and take care that the security shall be of the. 
 best description. And, therefore, that has happened within a 
 very recent period which will perhaps astonish the House ; but 
 such is the effect of the present, and I believe the permanent, 
 state of the money market, that an Irish railway company that 
 had asked for the assistance of a very large sum have just 
 announced they will not accept the money granted by the Loan 
 Fund, because they find, having a good security, they can 
 obtain assistance in the ordinary way at a more reasonable 
 rate. 
 
 Under these circumstances I felt it my duty to bring before 
 the attention of my colleagues the state of this department;; 
 and I called to their notice that not only was there this waste 
 of public money, but there was no security that the waste 
 would not indefinitely continue. That waste, too, has taken 
 place during a period of years when you have not been able to 
 screw up your courage to vote 150,000L for a National Gallery; 
 and we came to the conclusion that it would be a good thing 
 to relieve the Consolidated Fund of this annual charge, and 
 stop the machinery by which such ruinous waste of the public 
 
BEPLY, DECEMBER 1852. 407 
 
 money took place. Then the question arose, What were we to 
 do with the repayments to this Fund which would every year 
 come in when the issue was stopped, and which repayments I 
 placed in my estimate at 400,000^. ? The right honourable gen- 
 tleman the member for the University of Cambridge seemed to 
 correct me as to the repayments being 360,000L ; but he con- 
 founded the amount of issue from the Consolidated Fund with 
 the repayments in a way that, with his experience as Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, somewhat surprised me. The fact is that the 
 annual amount issued from the Consolidated Fund is no mea- 
 sure of the amount of repayments. But the question arose, 
 What were we to do with these repayments ? Were we to pay 
 this 400,000L into the balances of the Exchequer ? That was the 
 first question. It is, no doubt, of the utmost importance that 
 the balances in the Exchequer should be high. That is a very 
 great principle. But, after all, the balances in the Exchequer 
 are nothing more than the balances of the nation with its 
 bankers ; and the same rule must apply to a nation with its 
 banker as to a private individual with his banker. Whether 
 you bank with Messrs. Drummond or with the Bank of Eng- 
 land, neither would allow you any interest on your balances. 
 It is necessary, therefore, for the nation, as for a private indi- 
 vidual, to have a good, ample, and sufficient balance ; but it is 
 inexpedient, it is unwise, to have an excessive balance, and the 
 consequence has been that the highest authorities, those most 
 favourable to retaining a sufficient balance in the Exchequer 
 have laid down what may be considered rules for the amount of 
 such balance. There is a certain point which it is considered 
 inexpedient that the balance in the Exchequer should surmount. 
 The state of your balances in the Exchequer is this : they 
 have long ago arrived at that point ; at present they exceed it, 
 and have done so for some time. Ever since 1842, with the 
 exception of one year of startling and unexpected vicissitudes, 
 the balances in the Exchequer have been very high, and higher 
 than recommended by the best authorities. The proof is that, 
 with the exception of 1848, never, from the period I have 
 mentioned, has there been any occasion to borrow money, to 
 receive any accommodation from the Bank of England for the 
 
408 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 current expenses of the State — that is to say, at the end of 
 every quarter, when the dividends were about to be paid, there 
 has always been in the Bank a balance sufficient to discharge 
 the claims of the public creditor, and leave a sum ample enough 
 for all the contingencies of the national expenditure. Since 
 1 849 — with one exception, when I think a sum of 400L or 500L 
 was paid for deficiency bills, and that only from a technical mis- 
 take — the Government has never, in fact, been under the 
 necessity of appealing to the Bank for advances. The Com- 
 mittee, then, will understand that if the 400,000^ in question 
 had been paid in to the balances of the Exchequer, it would in 
 the present state of affairs have been just the same as locking 
 up that sum in an iron chest ; it would have been immovable 
 and unprofitable. 
 
 I must ask the indulgence of the Committee while I enter 
 into these details. Treasury finance is a subject with which 
 the House is not very coriversant, but I hope the House will 
 not think me presumptuous in attempting to instruct them 
 upon it. My own knowledge on the subject is of course recent. 
 I was not born and bred a Chancellor of the Exchequer — I am 
 one of the Parliamentary rabble ; but I trust, after all the 
 observations that have been made, I may be permitted to 
 show that I have not neglected to render myself acquainted 
 with these afifairs. One thing, I think, is quite clear. It is 
 quite clear that the right honourable gentleman the member for 
 Halifax is not in favour of this 400,000L being paid in to the 
 balances of the Exchequer, because I have shown you that 
 when brought into the Exchequer it is unprofitable ; but the 
 right honourable gentleman says, ' The proper thing to do with 
 it is this — it ought to go to reduce the debt.' And the right 
 honourable gentleman the member for the University of Cam- 
 bridge echoes that — and I am glad to hear that admission, 
 because the Government think the same. 1,000,000L debt 
 was created by funding Loan Exchequer Bills in 1842, and 
 therefore, say the right honourable baronet and the right hon- 
 ourable gentleman, you ought to reduce the debt, both there- 
 fore being against this sum being paid in to the balances of the 
 Exchequer. 
 
KEPLY, DECEMBER 1852. 409 
 
 Now, let us examine this question of the reduction of the 
 debt. Upon this subject there is some misapprehension pre- 
 valent in this House, I have been asked myself, ' What do 
 you leave for the reduction of the debt ? In your financial state- 
 ment you have left nothing.' Sir, the mode, method and 
 means by which the Sinking Fund acts, and the public debt of 
 the country is liquidated, do not depend on the will of the 
 minister, or even upon a vote of the House of Commons ; they 
 are provided for by legislation. The law has prescribed the 
 method by which you reduce the public debt of this country. 
 There is, in fact, only one way of acting by the Sinking Fund, 
 and the law has prescribed this — I beg the attention of the 
 House, because this is a vital point of my argument — the law, 
 I say, prescribes that every quarter of the financial year, an 
 account shall be taken of our income and expenditure at the 
 Treasury, and in case a surplus shall be ascertained to exist, 
 one-fourth of that surplus shall be instantly devoted to the 
 hquidation of the public debt by the agency of the Sinking 
 Fund. It is not left to the discretion of the minister, or of a 
 single House of Parliament ; the law is inexorable and impera- 
 tive. It is impossible to reduce the debt, unless you bring 
 your resources into the ways and means. It is only by such a 
 process that they can enter into the balance struck of income 
 and expenditure, and that the surplus can be ascertained, and 
 one-fourth of that surplus appropriated to the reduction of the 
 debt. And now I will show you how we propose to act on the 
 debt in the way in which we have recommended Parliament to 
 deal with this 400,000^. of repayments. 
 
 The House will assume, for the sake of argument, that the 
 surplus for the coming year is an accurate estimate. Well 
 then, the account of income and expenditure is taken at the 
 Treasury at the end of the first quarter of the financial year ; 
 and the surplus being 400,000Z., one fourth of that is imme- 
 diately devoted to the reduction of the debt by the action of 
 the law. The same process takes place every three months — 
 the same action takes place on the same surplus of 400,000L 
 and thus at the end of the year the whole of the 400,000L is 
 devoted to the reduction of this debt. And, therefore, in three 
 
410 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 years' time, all things remaining the same, and the repayments 
 entering into the Treasury, the whole of that sum of funded 
 Exchequer bills of 1,046,000L and the accumulated interest, 
 will be liquidated, and the public debt reduced by that amount. 
 There is no other way of acting on the public debt or reducing 
 it ; the course we propose to take is the only one that can be 
 taken in the case ; there is no alternative — ^the law has so 
 decided it. By the course, then, we have recommended, we 
 have in the first place put an end to a disastrous waste of 
 publie money. In the second place, we have relieved the 
 Consolidated Fund from an annual payment of 300,000i. ; and 
 in the third place, we have laid the foundation of a reduction 
 of the public debt at least to the amount of 1,000,000?. funded, 
 and all its accumulations. The question, I apprehend, assumes 
 a very different character after this explanation. But this is 
 only a narrative of the conduct of the Government. Let us see 
 what great authorities have said on this subject. Hitherto, as 
 I have put the case, the House may be of opinion that we have 
 acted discreetly but unprecedentedly. After the criticisms I 
 have been subjected to, let me inform the House what was the 
 opinion on the subject of the highest authorities. In 1822 a 
 Select Committee was appointed to inquire into the public 
 accounts, and to recommend the means by which the keeping 
 of those accounts might be improved ; and to that committee 
 we are indebted, with scarcely any exception, for all the forms 
 of public accounts that now prevail. What was the recommen- 
 dation of the committee of 1822 with regard to these advances 
 and repayments ? That committee, formed of the most dis- 
 tinguished men, concentrating their attention upon this sole 
 subject, specifically recommended that aU advances and repay- 
 ments should enter into the account of income and expenditure ; 
 and for six years the advances and repayments so figure in the 
 public accounts. It may be said that there was another Select 
 Committee on Public Accounts in 1828, and that they took a 
 different view. That would not invalidate the high authority 
 of the committee of 1822 ; it would not deprive us of thfe 
 authority that the course we have taken is not unprecedented, 
 because I have proved it was practised for six years. But let 
 
EEPLY, DECEMBEE 1852. 411 
 
 US inquire what was the opinion of the committee of 1828. 
 They certainly did recommend that it would be more con- 
 venient that advances and repayments should be kept in 
 separate accounts from thoge of the income and expenditure. 
 But I am informed by a distinguished member of the com- 
 mittee, that that recommendation did not arise from any 
 adoption of the opinions now maintained on this subject by 
 right honourable gentlemen opposite ; and they added this to 
 their recommendation, that, whenever an issue was stopped and 
 the account closed, then the general account was to be taken, 
 and the repayments were to revert to their old position in the 
 public accounts. So even the committee of 1828 sanctioned 
 the principle recommended by the committee of 1822, so far 
 as payments and receipts were concerned. But in 1829, a law 
 was passed which deprived ministers of any discretion on this 
 head ; and the only way the Act of 10 Greorge IV. c. 12, operates 
 on the reduction of the debt — the only way a minister can act 
 in the reduction of the debt — is by bringing in, according to 
 the recommendation of the Select Committee of 1822, the re- 
 payments under accounts closed to ways and means. It is 
 painful to have to refer to these comparatively small matters, 
 when matters of so much greater importance are before the 
 Committee ; but I hope that every member will admit that, 
 after the speeches we have heard, it is due to the Grovernment, 
 to the party I have the honour to represent, and to the House, 
 that I should go into these details, and state clearly the cir- 
 cumstances before us, and vindicate, as I hope I have done, the 
 course which we recommend. 
 
 Well, Sir, I now approach the second grand arraignment of 
 my financial statement, by the right honourable gentleman the 
 member for Halifax (Sir Charles Wood)— that is, the alleged 
 mistake made in the estimates for the year after next, as to the 
 loss which will accrue to the revenue from the proposed semi- 
 repeal of the malt-duty. The House will recollect that I 
 estimated the loss which would accrue in the year 1854-55 
 from the alteration in the malt-duty at 1,700,000?. Assuming 
 that the amount of duty remitted would be about 2,500,000L, 
 and taking of course the most depreciatory view of the result 
 
412 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OP BEACONSPIELD. 
 
 of the reduction of duty, the member for Halifax placed the 
 amount derived from increased consumption as low as 200,000L 
 and he added, ' With 200,000^ obtained by the repeal of your 
 Scotch drawback, the total loss will be 2,100,000L ' (Sir Charles 
 Wood : I gave you credit for 400,OOOL) That is what I have 
 just stated. He said I took the increased consumption at 
 800,000Z., which he described as preposterous — and altogether 
 fictitious. Let us, however. Sir, examine the facts ; let us see 
 what they are. When I brought under the consideration of the 
 Committee the subject of the repeal of the malt-tax, I said that 
 the Grovernment had followed in their treatment of that tax the 
 recommendation of the Eoyal Commission of Excise Inquiry, 
 presided over by Sir H. Parnell, in 1832. The recommendation 
 of that committee was, that in case there was ever free trade 
 in barley, one-half the malt-tax should be repealed, and that 
 the Scotch and Irish drawbacks should be terminated. In the 
 interval since that commission sat, the Irish have voluntarily 
 renounced their drawback. The commissioners further recom- 
 mended that, when free trade in barley was established, and 
 the malt-tax was reduced to one-half, an end should be 
 put to the enormous system of credit given to maltsters. I 
 said that, although we wished to follow the recommendation of 
 those eminent men the members of the Excise Commission as 
 nearly as possible, we thought it important, in regard to the 
 recommendation as to the reduction of the credit given to the 
 maltsters, that the trade should not be disturbed, although we 
 felt that the whole system was vicious in principle and perni- 
 nious in practice, and that it was necessary to make some con- 
 siderable change. That subject has been under our considera- 
 tion. Our object has been to put an end to, or to modify, a 
 system which grew out of circumstances totally different from 
 those of the age in which we live, and, while we placed the 
 conduct of the trade upon a more healthy and satisfactory basis, 
 not to disturb the trade. But the effect of the new arrange- 
 ment we propose as to this credit, though in our opinion it will 
 not in any way disturb the trade, will have an immediate 
 influence upon the revenue. In the year 1854-55 there will 
 be a sum of 600,000L paid to the revenue, which, if this 
 
REPLY, DECEMBER 1862. 413 
 
 system of credit were not reformed, would not be obtained. 
 Now, what did I do under these circumstances ? Assuming 
 that the numerical loss from the semi-repeal of the malt-tax 
 would be 2,500,000L, I deducted from that amount the sum 
 just stated, as regards the year 1854-55. That reduced the 
 numerical loss to 1,900,000L Then the sum of 200,000L 
 obtained by the repeal of the Scotch drawback would further 
 reduce it to 1,700,000L As I was not making a formal estimate 
 to the House, and dealing with a time so remote, I would not 
 make any allowance for that increased consumption which was 
 admitted by the right honourable gentleman. If I had made 
 an allowance for the increased consumption, according to his 
 estimate, the loss for the year 1854-55, instead of 1,700,000?., 
 would have been only 1,500,000L ; but if I had made an allow- 
 ance according to the estimate which was given me by the 
 highest authorities in the trade it would have reached a much 
 lower sum. But as I have never offered any estimate, since I 
 have had the honour of addressing this House, which has not, I 
 hope, been prudent and moderate, I refrained altogether from 
 taking the influence of increased consumption into calculation ; 
 otherwise I might have fairly described the estimated surplus 
 of 1854-55 at 800,000L instead of 400,000L 
 
 The member for the University of Cambridge next advanced, 
 and he disputed the accuracy of my estimate of the amount of 
 drawback payable in October to the maltsters. He wanted to 
 know on what data that estimate was framed. "Well, Sir, I 
 will tell him. After all, there is only one way of carrying on 
 the public business. When a question of this kind arises, we 
 must obtain the best information that we can get from the 
 most authentic quarters, and must exercise our own judgment 
 upon the facts which are placed before us. Well, Sir, the 
 highest authorities — men whose information upon this subject 
 is unequalled, and whose intelligence and integrity of character 
 are indisputable — these, the highest authorities, united in re- 
 commending me to take one-third of the stock as the amount 
 upon which I should have to pay drawback on October 10 ; that 
 is, one-sixth of the duty — and the sum I was recommended to 
 take, as a very safe estimate of the amount of drawback 
 
414 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 calculated by those who are perfectly acquainted with the trade, 
 was 880,000^ Well, according to my habit, I estimated the 
 amount of drawback at 1,000,000L and these are the numerals 
 which have excited the indignant rhetoric of the member for 
 the University. 
 
 'But why fix the 10th of October?' said the honourable and 
 learned member for Kidderminster (Mr. Lowe). ' Here is a 
 plot,' said the honourable gentleman ; ' if we can only find out 
 why the Government fix upon the 10th of October, we shall be 
 able at once to penetrate these financial mystifications.' That 
 honourable gentleman is an accession to our debates — he has 
 shown, on the rare occasions on which he has addressed the 
 House, considerable information ; but there is, certainly, one 
 subject on which his knowledge has been most conspicuous, and 
 that is— brewing. I am surprised that an honourable gentle- 
 man who seemed so complete a master of that art, and who 
 made so eloquent a defence of the system of credit to maltsters, 
 should, of all men, be the person to ask why we fixed upon the 
 10th of October for bringing into operation the half-repeal of 
 the malt-tax. Now, I had calculated that if I should be as suc- 
 cessful with regard to my resolutions as I could possibly expect' 
 to be, it was not probable that the resolution upon the malt-tax 
 would pass before March ; but the policy which I announced 
 and recommended in December would, if I had not proposed a 
 drawback, have completely paralysed the trade. Every maltster 
 in the country would have stopped his operations. It was 
 necessary I should announce that the Government would allow 
 a drawback on stock-in-hand, and the consequence is that the 
 trade goes on just as usual. The honourable gentleman who 
 possessed such remarkable information on the subject of brew- 
 ing and malting ought to know that by far the greater amount 
 of duty which is charged, and upon which the usual credit is 
 given for 1853-54, is charged between the-months of October and 
 April. Malting virtually ceases at the end of May. From May 
 to October malting does not go on, but there is something, that 
 does go on, and that is brewing. The brewer acts upon the 
 stock of the maltster ; and therefore when you have to pay the 
 drawback, you pay it under the most advantageous circumstances 
 
REPLY, DECEMBEE 1852. 415 
 
 in paying it at the period when the' stock-in-hand is most re- 
 duced, and when the malting season again commences. In fix- 
 ing the 10th of October, then, I fixed a date recommended by 
 those best acquainted with the subject with which I was dealing. 
 That is my answer to the inquiry of the honourable gentle- 
 man. 
 
 Sir, I do not like to revert to a subject to which I have 
 already referred ; but I have just remembered that the honour- 
 able member for Kidderminster said that he should look to me 
 in my reply to notice the instance of the mortgage which he 
 adduced as a parallel illustrative of the fallacy of my proposi- 
 tion respecting the 400,000L repayments. Now, in deference 
 to his challenge, I beg to offer him a parallel more apposite than 
 his own. I will suppose the case of a careful father of a family, 
 who every three months takes account of his expenditure and 
 income, and devotes one-fourth of his surplus to the payment 
 of his debts, a portion of those debts being incurred by advances 
 to his son ; but the son, when he makes the repayments for 
 these advances, makes them into the hands of a banker, by 
 whom no interest is given, so the father, instead of allowing the 
 money to lie idly there, takes it into his general account, and 
 when he strikes his quarterly balance applies- the repayments as 
 part of his surplus to the reduction of his debts. That is my 
 answer to the case of the honourable gentleman, and I humbly 
 deem my instance an exacter parallel than his own. Then there 
 is another subject upon which the honourable and learned 
 member for Kidderminster is a great authority, and that not 
 only here, but I suspect elsewhere. According to the honour- 
 able gentleman, the Kaffir war has broken out again. Now, I 
 made a statement to the House a fortnight ago respecting the 
 prospects of extraordinary expenditure with regard to the 
 Kaffir war. I formed my opinion on the Kaffir war— with 
 great deference to the despatches which are received by my 
 right honourable friend the Secretary of State— from the de- 
 spatches which are forwarded to my own department from a 
 branch of the service under my immediate supervision — I mean 
 the commissariat department, a branch of the service which 
 deals entirely with the extraordinary expenditure under the 
 
416 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 control of the Treasury. Whatever the result may be, it is my 
 duty to express my belief that the public funds were never 
 more ably administered than by those who have regulated the 
 extraordinary expenditure of the KafBr war in the commissariat 
 department. That department communicates directly with the 
 Treasury, and although these despatches naturally coniine 
 themselves mainly to the question of expenditure, there is a 
 great deal of valuable information conveyed in them to the 
 Grovernment in a less formal manner than in the despatches 
 received in other quarters. Well, upon the information which 
 I have thus received, which has never yet deceived me, which 
 has justified me, at the commencement of the year, in not call- 
 ing upon the House to confirm their vote of 200,000L, I made 
 the statement the other night, that I believed the Kaffir war 
 was terminated. We have had more recent information ; and 
 I can truly say that all the information that has reached me 
 has entirely substantiated the statement I made upon the pre- 
 vious authority. I have no hesitation in saying, the Kaffir war 
 is terminated. The best evidence I have is, that the commis- 
 sariat department who are dealing with the extraordinary ex- 
 penditure, the only one that figures in our estimate, are wind- 
 ing up their extraordinary accounts ; and they have announced 
 to me that, except for some casualties which are always liable 
 to occur in any account, they will not trouble me for any further 
 advances. They also give incidental details of the state of the 
 country, which convince me that the war is finished. 
 
 In a war with a savage country you cannot have peace sud- 
 denly and precisely ascertained, as you may with a nation with 
 which you can enter into a treaty, or where you can take the 
 capital, or where some incident occurs which convinces all the 
 inhabitants that the struggle is over. A sort of flickering ember 
 there may be, and to the last an officer may be shot, or some 
 straggling assassination may occur ; but that the Kaffirs can 
 now bring any force into the field, I believe the Committee may 
 be satisfied is impossible. It is not that several chiefs have 
 surrendered — these things have happened before ; it is not that 
 the Waterkloof is cleared — though that is important ; but it is 
 that in the bush, in the Amatolas, skeletons of the Kaffirs are 
 
REPLY, DECEMBER 1852. 417" 
 
 found ; it is clear that they have no means of subsistence : they 
 are lingering in the bush and dying. The same ship that 
 brought me the information on which I formed my opinion, of 
 course brought despatches to the Secretary of State, and here 
 is a despatch of General Cathcart. I will read a paragraph from 
 it, if the Committee wish : it is strictly in keeping with the 
 subject ; we are vindicating the estimates, and I rather think I 
 ought to do so. It is dated from Graham's Town, October 12, 
 1852:— 
 
 ' By this report, and other events which are detailed in my 
 despatch respecting British Kafifraria, you will perceive that the 
 war or rebellion, may now be considered at an end ; and as it 
 has been attained, not by any compromise or treaty, but by force 
 of arms, and a severe moral lesson, by the dispersion and ex- 
 pulsion of the most powerful tribe from the natural strongholds 
 which they long believed to be impregnable, cannot fail to im- 
 press upon those who are conscious of their inferiority in respect 
 to these natural advantages, the ultimate ruin and destruction 
 that must be the result of rebellious opposition to Her Majesty's 
 authority ; and there is reason to hope, provided that authority 
 be duly suppori^ed by an adequate permanent military establish- 
 ment (Sir W. MoleHworth : Hear, hear ! ), that any similar pro- 
 tracted and expensive Kaffrarian war may be long averted.' 
 
 I read that because it is a definite announcement. With 
 regard to the ' adequate military establishment,' the honourable 
 baronet need not be alarmed ; it will be very moderate ; we 
 shall depend upon the mounted police, which is a colonial force, 
 paid for of course by the colony— a colony with a free constitu- 
 tion. Colonies with constitutions will, I apprehend, always be 
 ready to defray the expense of self-defence. The head-quarters 
 of General Cathcart are now at Graham's Town. He has with- 
 drawn two regiments from the seat of war, and I trust we shall 
 soon be able to withdraw others. 
 
 Sir, there is another point in the estimate which I ought to 
 notice, which has been urged by the right honourable gentle- 
 man the member for Cambridge University (Mr. Goulburn). 
 He said I had made no allowance for the loss to the revenue 
 from the proposed permission for refining sugar in bond. It is 
 
 VOL. I. E B 
 
418 SPEECHES OF THE EAEI OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 very inconvenient for me, at this moment, to refer in any detail 
 to the , subject of refining in bond. The refining in bond will 
 depend upon certain conditions. I have pledged myself that 
 those conditions shall be shortly placed before those most in- 
 terested, and I think it improper that they shall be previously 
 bruited about. I can only say, therefore, at present, that I do 
 not make any allowance for a loss on refining in bond, because 
 I believe not the slightest loss to the revenue will occur. I 
 hope the right honourable gentleman will at present be satisfied 
 with my giving my opinion, and not press me to go into any 
 detail upon this point. 
 
 Sir, I approach more serious subjects. It has been said that 
 the house-tax has been proposed by the Government in order. to 
 enable them to carry the semi-repeal of the malt-tax. Well, 
 I admit that this is a very plausible charge ; it is a good party 
 charge. It is very possible that, were I in their situation, I 
 should have made the charge myself. Nevertheless, though it be 
 a plausible charge, a good party charge, it is not a just charge. 
 
 These measures have no connection whatever in the policy 
 we have thought it our duty to recommend. Sir, the right 
 honourable gentleman opposite informed the House on Tuesday 
 night that I promised the country a new system of taxation ; 
 but he did not produce any authority for that statement, and 
 when statements of such magnitude are made, authorities 
 should be furnished. I will sit down now, if the right honour- 
 able gentleman will rise and give me the authority. It is very 
 true that the lively member for Middlesex (Mr. Osborne) quoted 
 a passage from an address to my constituents, which certainly was 
 not merely made to my constituents in Buckinghamshire, but to 
 those in other places whom my feeble authority might influence ; 
 but if an opponent could have wished to assist the man whose 
 adversary he was, he could not have done me more justice or 
 given me a better turn than the member for Middlesex has 
 done in quoting the passage in question. I listened to his 
 speech with all that pleasure which I am sure the House shared. 
 I think it was one of his best speeches : but the passage that 
 most gratified me was that which he quoted from my own address, 
 for I had not seen that address for a long time, and really, after 
 
REPLY. DECEMBER 1852. 419 
 
 some of these charges which have been lately made, I had ar- 
 rived at almost a nervous state as to its contents. What did I 
 say there? I, who am charged with misleading the farmers at 
 the election, and throwing them over afterwards — I said that 
 the genius of the age was in favour of free exchange, and that 
 it was in vain to struggle against it ; that they must find the 
 means of meeting it by reducing the cost of production, and 
 that one of the means of reducing the cost of production was a 
 revision of taxation. I think more sensible advice, expressed 
 in more moderate language, could not have been given ; yet 1- 
 am described as having deceived the farmers before the election, 
 and thrown them over afterwards. 
 
 Sir, the right honourable gentleman says we are assembled 
 here to receive the new system of taxation which I promised. 
 Where is his authority ? Her Majesty's Government have ful- 
 filled all that they promised ; they did not promise a new 
 system of taxation, but they did promise a revision of the tax- 
 ation of the country. The Committee will, I hope, excuse my 
 dwelling on this point. We did think it necessary to revise our 
 system of taxation. We gave to the subject a long, an anxious, 
 and an impartial consideration. In reviewing that which I 
 may truly call a colossal subject, the question naturally divided 
 itself into several groups — if I may use a word now familiar to 
 us. We had to consider those articles that enter into the 
 general consumption of the people, that are necessary for their 
 healthy sustenance, and that are exposed to enormous imposts, 
 such as tea and malt. That was one subject on which we felt 
 that it was necessary something should be done to meet the 
 principles of unrestricted competition, now permanently estab- 
 lished as the principle of our commercial code. We wished in 
 this respect more nearly to assimilate our financial with our 
 commercial system. We had to consider the whole question of 
 the stamp-duties with reference to those real burdens upon 
 land — upon the transfer of land — which must sooner or later be 
 dealt with ; and a question of the utmost difficulty which must 
 also not long be neglected — the question of the legacy and 
 probate duties. We had to consider whether it was possible 
 to propose to Parliament a duty on succession which, in connec- 
 
 £ E 2 
 
■120 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 tion with the total reform of the burdens on the transfer of 
 Iknd, would be an equitable and just settlement of the question, 
 and one which was for the welfare of all classes. That is what 
 I may call the second group. We had, in the third place, to 
 consider those Excise Laws which exercise a pernicious influ- 
 ence upon the employment of capital, and upon the employ- 
 ment of labour, like the soap and paper duties. 
 
 The question of the assessed taxes, with the necessary 
 reforms which they require, alone form a fourth group. We 
 were obliged to consider the whole of our tariff with regard to 
 our CO mm ercial relations with other countries because there was 
 an inclination in some countries to increase these commercial 
 relations, and we wished to encourage them. These were five 
 great subjects, all of them demanding our attention, with all of 
 which sooner or later a Government must deal ; and we had to 
 choose how we would commence this arduous enterprise. But 
 there was a very important question also to consider when we 
 took a general survey of our financial system ; a very important 
 question to settle before we could decide even as to the first 
 step we should take ; and that was, how far we could prevail 
 upon the country to consent to that amount of direct taxation 
 which was necessary for any ministry that should attempt to 
 enter into a career of financial reform. Sir, I have been accused 
 by the member for Halifax (Sir C. Wood) of making a proposi- 
 tion which recklessly increases the direct taxation of the 
 country. I have been accused by the member for Carlisle (Sir 
 James Graham), prompt in accusation at all times, of pushing 
 direct taxation to a rash extreme. In the first place, the pro- 
 position I made on the part of the Government, instead of 
 recklessly increasing the amount of direct taxation, would not, 
 if it passed, occasion so great an amount of direct taxation as 
 prevailed under the superintendence of the finances by the 
 right hoaourable gentleman the member for Halifax himself, 
 when he enjoyed, not only the income and property tax, but the 
 window-tax, which in the last year of its existence brought him 
 nearly 2,000,000?. sterling. The right honourable gentleman, 
 who says that you must not recklessly increase the amount of 
 direct taxation, and charges me with doing so, when in 1850 
 
EEPLY, DECEMBEE 1852. 421 
 
 he commuted the window- tax for a house-tax, first proposed, 
 though fruitlessly, a commutation which would have established 
 a higher house-tax than that which we now recommend coupled 
 by us with great remissions of indirect imposts. 
 
 But is this all ? Is this all that -has been done by the right 
 honourable gentleman who charges me with proposing reck- 
 lessly to increase the direct taxation of the country ? Why, he 
 seems to forget that he is the minister who with the property 
 and income tax you have now producing its full amount, with 
 a window-tax that brought nearly 2,000,000L, came down to 
 the House of Commons one day and proposed to a startled 
 assembly to double nearly that property and income tax. 
 Eecklessness ! Why, Sir, if recklessness be carelessness of 
 consequences ; if it be the conduct of a man who has not well 
 weighed the enterprise in which he is embarked, what are we 
 to esteem this behaviour of the right honourable gentleman ? 
 We hear much of the duplication of the house-tax — an immense 
 amount ; but if the right honourable gentleman had carried the 
 duplication of the property and income tax, I think he mio-ht 
 fairly have been charged with recklessly increasing the direct 
 taxation of the country. The most curious thing, however, is 
 that the minister who came forward to make a proposition 
 which nothing but the most grave conjuncture of circumstances 
 might have justified, at the first menace of opposition withdrew 
 his proposition. Talk of recklessness ! Why, what in the his- 
 tory of finance is equal to the recklessness of the right honour- 
 able gentleman ? And what was the ground on which he 
 withdrew this enormous proposition — a proposition which only 
 the safety of the State would have justified him in making ? 
 When he was beaten, baffled, humiliated, he came down to the 
 House of Commons and said that he had sufficient revenue 
 without resorting to that proposition ! The future historian 
 will not be believed when he states that a minister came down 
 with a proposition nearly to double the income-tax, and when 
 that proposition was rejected, the next day announced that the 
 ways and means were ample without it. But then the right 
 honourable gentleman tells me — in not very polished, and 
 scarcely in Parliamentary language — that I do not know my 
 
422 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 business. He rriay have learned his business. The House of 
 Commons is the best judge of that ; I care not to be his critic. 
 Yet if he have learned his business, he has still to learn that 
 petulance is not sarcasm, and that insolence is not invective. 
 
 The Committee will permit me to remind them that in 
 dealing with those five great groups of taxation to which I have 
 called their attention, and all of which I may say equally de- 
 manded the consideration of a minister, we had to deal with the 
 great subject of direct taxation. There was, indeed, the income 
 and property tax in existence for a brief space. It was perhaps 
 possible that the ministry might have come forward in the 
 House of Commons and obtained a temporary continuance of 
 that impost. That was not, however, by any means certain. 
 But there were. Sir, peculiar circumstances connected with the 
 position of the ministers with respect to the property and 
 income tax. Her Majesty's Grovernment were of opinion that 
 the time could no longer be delayed when the Grovernment of 
 this country must recog^aise a difiference between the incomes 
 which accrued from precarious and incomes which accrued from 
 realised property. It was evident that such an acknowledg- 
 ment acted upon must diminish the produce from that tax at a 
 moment when certainly we did not wish our resources from 
 direct taxation to be diminished. It is difficult to answer every 
 observation that has been made in the course of this debate ; 
 but another right honourable gentleman who recently spoke 
 has been criticising — I think, before the appropriate time — what 
 he calls my Bill with respect to the property and income tax. 
 In the first place, my Bill is not before the House. When he 
 sees it he may criticise it. Nobody who has had to prepare a 
 property and income tax can be ignorant that there are some 
 anomalies in Schedule D. The anomalies, however, are not 
 confined merely to that schedule. To frame a complete 
 measure on this subject would bafHe the happiest genius in 
 finance. There are no doubt alterations which may be made 
 in the arrangement of the schedules ; it will be open to any 
 member to propose such. But if they be made they will 
 not affect, at least not materially, the financial result which 
 I placed before the Committee. In laying the resolutions on 
 
EEPLX, DECEMBER 1852. ■ - 423 
 
 the property and income tax on the table, we did not propose 
 to proceed with them before Christmas. We placed them on 
 the table that the principle of the whole of our financial 
 measures should be before members. 
 
 The resolutions express the principle we wish to assert. 
 That is all we attempted at this moment. There may be, there 
 unquestionably are, minor modifications of the schedules pos- 
 sible ; but between the general statement of our policy and 
 laying the resolutions on the table there was no time to con- 
 sider these less important points, nor, had there been time, 
 would it have been opportune to do so. We reserved their 
 consideration until the occasion of calling the attention of the 
 House to the general question of the renewal of the tax. We 
 had, then, to consider the great question of direct taxation. It 
 was totally impossible — with whatever group we commenced — 
 that we could embark on a career of financial reform really 
 efficient, unless we had a certain amount of direct taxation, 
 still including the income-tax, to which we could trust. What 
 is the rule we laid down ? Instead of being reckless, or, in the 
 language of the right honourable gentleman the member for 
 Carlisle, ready to push direct taxation to a rash extreme, we 
 resolved that the sum of direct taxation on which we should 
 rest should be in amount of revenue inferior to that which had 
 recently prevailed in this country, and which since the repeal 
 of the Corn Laws has been cheerfully assented to by the people. 
 Well, we had then to lay down two principles in deahng with 
 direct taxation. We had to assert as regarded the property 
 and income tax, a difference between incomes of a precarious 
 and incomes of a fixed character. We had next to vindicate a 
 principle which we believed and do believe is a just one, and 
 which if not now, must ultimately be recognised and adopted — 
 namely, that the basis of direct taxation should be enlarged. 
 Having these two principles to guide us in devising means by 
 which we were to obtain the amount of direct taxation neces- 
 sary for our purpose, we believe that we have applied them 
 moderately, temperately, scientifically and wisely, in the mea- 
 sures before the House. We believe that the difference which 
 we recognise between realised and precarious incomes is one 
 
424 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 which certainly does not err on the side of excess ; but that the 
 recognition of that difference is also one which will justly 
 gratify the working millions of this country, and that in asking 
 them to contribute to the revenue of the country by extending 
 and increasing the house-tax, we are taking a course which in its 
 operation and ultimate results will be greatly for their interests. 
 The question of the suffrage has been introduced into this 
 debate. The policy of mixing up the franchise with taxation is, 
 in my opinion, very questionable ; but I say to those gentlemen 
 on the other side of the House who have sought to introduce 
 this question of the suffrage, that, if it is to be a permanent 
 feature of our social system that there shall be a particular class 
 invested with political power, which shall exercise that power to 
 throw an undue weight of direct taxation upon the wealthier 
 portion of the community, and an undue weight of indirect 
 taxation on the working classes, I cannot imagine a circum- 
 stance more fatal to this country, or one more pregnant of dis- 
 astrous consequences. But of this I feel convinced, that those 
 who will first experience the disastrous consequences will be the 
 privileged class itself. There was one other observation by the 
 member for Carlisle which I feel I ought to notice. That right 
 honourable gentleman — whom I will not say I greatly respect,^ 
 but rather whom I greatly regard — particularly dilated on the 
 hard case of that class whose incomes amount to between lOOl. 
 and I50l. a year ; those whom he considered to form the most 
 straitened class perhaps in the country, and who bore most of 
 the brunt of indirect taxation. That argument, or that asser- 
 tion rather, has been followed up this evening by the honourable 
 and learned gentleman the member for Southampton (Sir A. 
 Cockburn). Now, that subject has been investigated by men 
 who have devoted their lives to the study of these questions, 
 and whose opinions are superior to all party contentions. It 
 has recently been investigated by a gentleman who is what is 
 called a Liberal, and who if he were a member of this House, 
 would sit opposite to me — I mean Mr. Greg, one of the most 
 
 ' These words were very severely handled by Mr. Gladstone in the speech 
 which followed ; but Mr. Disraeli's meaning evidently was that he should not 
 respect Sir J. Graham as a high authority in finance. 
 
EEPLY, DECEMBER 1852. 425 
 
 able inqmrers into these subjects of the present day ; and it is 
 his opinion — and I believe that if any position has been more 
 completely established than another as regards the incidence of 
 taxation, it is this — that there is no class upon whom that 
 incidence falls more lightly than upon those who possess incomes 
 from lOOl. to 1501. a year. It is that class who possess property 
 of 300L or AOOl. a year who bear the brunt of indirect taxation. 
 Tha,t can be shown in the most complete and satisfactory manner. 
 But we had on Tuesday night a doleful and piteous appeal 
 made to the House upon the hardship of taxing ' poor clerks ' 
 with incomes of between lOOl. and 150L a year. The right 
 honourable gentleman stated that 1501. a year was exactly that 
 point in the scale where manual labour ends and professional 
 skill begins. You can recall the effective manner in which the 
 right honourable gentleman stated this. He showed himself 
 an unrivalled artist when he told us that this was the point 
 where the fustian jacket ceased and broadcloth began. 
 
 Few can comprehend the labour of research and thought 
 necessary to determine the just incidence of taxation. I am 
 sure that there has been nothing ever written on the subject of 
 which I have not attempted to avail myself. My researches 
 have not been meagre. I hope I am superior to quoting 
 Hansard ' and all that ' — but I may state that among the docu- 
 ments, public and official — the records of the great ministers 
 who have preceded my humble effort — which I read to guide 
 me, I found one which greatly influenced me. I found the 
 Superannuation Bill of 1834, which was drawn up and intro- 
 duced by the right honourable gentleman the member for 
 Carlisle, being one of those laudable efforts which the right 
 honourable gentleman has made to improve the administration 
 of the country. Well, this was its principle : I found in that 
 Bill that the line was drawn at lOOl. per annum ; that the 
 ' poor clerk ' under that sum only pays 2^ per cent., while the 
 'poor clerk' above that sum, though he may only have llOl. a 
 year, pays 5 per cent. That was one of the reckless legislative 
 labours of the right honourable gentleman the member for 
 Carlisle. I know my deficiencies as well as any man in this 
 House— probably better. But after all, what, I ask, is to guide 
 
426 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 us ? I am perfectly willing not to lay too much stress on the 
 ejpea, pteroenta — uttered in the heat of debate, but when I 
 refer to public records, and when I look at a statute of the 
 realm, then I have a right to suppose that I encounter the 
 calm, solid and solemn conclusions of a statesman. Though I' 
 would not quote a passage of a speech as absolute authority 
 for legislation, yet if I find a principle embalmed in a statute, 
 I feel that, although time may have elapsed, and though 
 opinions may have changed upon other matters, this is the 
 better mind of the man, and being the better mind of a most 
 able man, I confess the reading of that statute did influence 
 me in that arrangement I have proposed, with regard to the 
 income-tax, respecting the ' poor clerks ' which the right 
 honourable gentleman has so severely criticised. And remem- 
 ber what has happened to the 'poor clerks 'since 1834 when 
 this statute was drawn ; remember all the reductions of taxa- 
 tion which have been effected since that time, and of which 
 the poor clerk has had the benefit. Eemember the repeal of 
 the Corn Laws. Look at the position of the ' poor clerk ' with 
 llOL a year, and who had a double superannuation- tax placed 
 upon him by the right honourable gentleman ; and look at his 
 position now. I say, without hesitation, that I do not believe 
 that the condition of any class has since that time been so 
 much improved as that of the clerks whose salaries range be- 
 tween lOOl. and 150Z. a year. 
 
 Well, having decided that it was necessary, before we under- 
 took the great labour which we felt it our duty to embark in, 
 that we should have a certain amount of direct taxation to 
 rest upon ; having determined that we should make this dif- 
 ference in the assessment in the schedules between realised and 
 precarious incomes, which must inevitably reduce the amount 
 of direct taxation from that source which our predecessors en- 
 joyed ; having believed that we had attempted to supply the 
 necessary amount by our proposition with respect to the house- 
 tax in a manner which was reasonable ; which was just ; which 
 was on the whole most beneficial to the community ; which in 
 its operation would ultimately tend to confer advantages on 
 those on whom the tax was to be imposed ; having by this 
 
EEPLY, DECEMBEE 1852. 427 
 
 measure, if successful, succeeded in obtaining the amount of 
 direct taxation which was necessary, but which was still inferior 
 in amount to that which only a few years ago had been enjoyed 
 by our predecessors, we had to decide upon which of the five 
 groups of taxation we should operate. Eecognising — I am 
 obliged to repeat it— recognising the great and permanent 
 revolution which has occurred in the commercial system of this 
 country ; recognising, as we have done, umestricted competition 
 as the principle on which otu commercial policy is henceforth 
 to be based ; and wishing to assimilate our financial to our 
 commercial system, and assuming that we had obtained this 
 amount of direct taxation to rest upon, we ultimately decided 
 that it would be the wisest course to commence by acting upon 
 those articles which entered most into the consumption of the 
 people, and that it would be for their salutary advantage if we 
 selected those articles which were subjected to the largest impost. 
 Now, that is the real history of the connection between the 
 imposition of direct, and the remission of indirect taxes, as they 
 appear in the propositions before us. Under these circumstances 
 we were induced to recommend to the House the proposition 
 which we have made with respect to the tea and malt duties. 
 
 Sir, at this late hour 1 will endeavour to be as succinct as pos- 
 sible, and will not, therefore, go into the question of the reduction 
 of the tea-duties. I think the House and the country have recog- 
 nised the wisdom of the course we have recommended. Neither 
 at this late hour will I enter into any elaborate argument on 
 the subject of the effect which will be produced by the modifi- 
 cation of the malt-tax. I am told that if you reduce the tax on 
 the consumer, and only as a tax on the consumer — and to that 
 point I shall advert presently, as being in perfect harmony 
 with the principles laid down in our revision of the taxation — 
 on one article, to the extent of 2,500,000^ sterling, that we 
 shall not in any way affect price, and that all the reductions 
 will go to the brewer. Sir, I remember when we used to discuss 
 the effect of taxation on another article, that similar observa- 
 tions were made. I do not care now to remember from what 
 quarter they emanated, but the effect and object of these 
 observations were exactly thy same. Then it was, ' Oh, those 
 
428 SPEECHES .OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 villains, the bakers ! ' just as now it is to be, ' Oh, those villains, 
 the brewers ! ' You might reduce the price of corn ; you might 
 injure the agricultural interest ; you might ruin the farmers and 
 the country gentlemen, but you could not reduce the price of the 
 loaf to the consumer. No ; the bakers took it all. Yes, and there 
 were the millers too. The millers were the worst of all ; they 
 carried off all the reduction. Well, those arguments had a con- 
 siderable effect, and there was such a prejudice raised against 
 the bakers throughout the country that I should not have been 
 surprised if they had been all hanged in one day, as the bakers 
 had once been in Constantinople. At that time it used to be 
 shown that a fall of 10s. a quarter on wheat would not affect 
 the price of bread, and we were told that the bakers then, like 
 the brewers now, were a great monopoly — if not great capitalists 
 — they were a kind of Freemasons, and, do what you would, it 
 would be totally impossible in any way ever to get a cheap loaf. 
 And now — such are the vicissitudes of public life — npw we 
 hear the same argument from those gentlemen who used to 
 dilate so eloquently on the necessity of buying in the cheapest 
 and selling in the dearest market. The great friends of the 
 consumer ; the enemies of colossal monopolies ; here we find 
 them all arrayed in favour of high taxation for the producer, and 
 here we find them, with taunts to us, teaching all the fallacies 
 which we at least have had the courage to give up. Tell me 
 protection is dead ! Tell me there is no protectionist party in the 
 country ! Why, 'tis rampant, and 'tis there ! They have taken 
 up our principles with our benches, and I believe they wiU be 
 quite as unsuccessful. 
 
 I must here make one observation. I say it is in the interest 
 of the consumer, in cpmplete accordance with the principles we 
 laid down in revising the taxation of the country, that we have 
 proposed this measure ; but I do not say it will not be for the 
 interest of the cultivator of the soil, any more than I think 
 that by remitting the duty on tea we have not done that which 
 will greatly promote the welfare of our Indian commerce and 
 our China trade. But we do not bring forward these proposi- 
 tions in that sense, for the advantage of the mercantile interest 
 of India, or for the benefit of our trade with China. Let the 
 
EEPLY, DECEMBER 1852. 429 
 
 farmers — or even those odious beings the owners of the soil 
 
 have the benefits of this legislation just the same as you admit 
 the manufacturer of Manchester or the merchant of Liverpool 
 to find in his transactions the advantage of reducing the price 
 of bread or the price of tea. What we say is this : Deal with 
 the interest of the consumer, and incidentally you will find 
 that you are producing the greatest advantage to the great 
 productive interests of the country. But, Sir, I am told 
 that in repealing a portion of the malt-tax — notwithstanding 
 that I showed you in my statement how modestly I have put 
 the resources of the country — I have shaken to its foundation 
 the credit of England. The credit of England depends on 
 a farthing a pot on the poor man's beer ! Never shall I forget 
 how that ' weird Sibyl,' the member for Cambridge University, 
 gave forth that solemn oracle — ' The public credit of England is 
 in danger.' 
 
 I doubt whether such mere personal imputations and wide 
 assertions are quite justifiable. He says the public credit is in 
 danger. Well, I don't think it is. I think public credit never 
 was in a better position ; I never remember any period in the 
 history of this country when her resources were, I may say, daily 
 so visibly increasing. I will not now. Sir, enter into any dis- 
 cussion as to the cause of that prosperity — whether it be due to 
 the influx of gold, the repeal of the Com Laws, to emigration, or 
 to anything else : though Sir, as to emigration, there was one 
 point in the speech of the honourable member for Kiddermin- 
 ster to which I ought to make, perhaps, some reference. I 
 hold the opinion of the honourable member for Kidderminster 
 to be quite as heretical on emigration as it is upon brewing and 
 upon malt. I repeat that I am very glad to find him here 
 among us; but all the opinions I have heard from him yet 
 appear to be anything but sound. I continue in that opinion. 
 In the first place the honourable gentleman confounded Ireland 
 and England ; though I, at considerable pains, and perhaps not 
 necessarily, showed the distinction between them the other 
 night. As to England, it will be interesting to honourable 
 members to be made acquainted with a passage from a letter 
 written by an eminent actuary and perhaps our ablest statis- 
 
430 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 tical inquirer. His name is well known to the honourable 
 member for Montrose, for he gave important evidence before 
 the Committee on the Income Tax. ' The rate,' he says, ' of 
 births and marriages has greatly increased in this country, and 
 I think emigration may facilitate the rate rather than impede 
 it. The reserve of producing power which we have in this 
 country ' — that is a point I wish to bring to the attention of the 
 honourable member for Kidderminster. He has lived abroad 
 in a country with a sparse population, and he has no idea of the 
 reserve of producing power we have here. But he goes on : 
 ' The reserve of producing power which we have in this country 
 you may infer from the fact that in the south-eastern counties 
 to 100 married women of ages between 20 and 45 there are 70 
 women of the same age — that is from 20 to 45 — unmarried, of 
 whom only about 7 bear children, notwithstanding.' 
 
 Now, I have confidence in the reserve of producing power, 
 which I think the honourable member, with his colonial ex- 
 perience, had not given sufficient credit to us for. Now, Sir, 
 our opinion is, that under the arrangements which we have 
 recommended, the surplus revenue of the country will be very 
 considerable at the end of the year 1854-55. But, Sir, I look 
 to other resources for that year than to increasing profits or to 
 the increased population of this country, and I will mention 
 what they are. I look to a great retrenchment in the public 
 expenditure of this country ; and I will, if the Committee allow 
 me, advert for one moment to this topic. I believe that any great 
 retrenchment can only be secured by consulting the efficiency 
 of our establishments, and trusting to the economy which is 
 the natural consequence of that efficiency. I do not think it 
 possible that the result can be reaped till 1854-55. I hope the 
 House will permit me very shortly to show to them, by a re- 
 markable illustration, what is the result of administrative 
 reforms conducted on the principle of efficiency without any 
 regard to what is called mere economy. I, in my estimate of 
 the effects of administrative reform, should have spoken of 
 millions ; but I am now going to deal with an instance in which 
 only thousands of pounds are concerned ; but the case I am 
 about to lay before you is a real case which, however slight in 
 
REPLY, DECEMBER 1852. 431 
 
 instance, will serve to show the principle. It is due to my 
 noble friend the member for Buckingham (the Marquis of 
 Chandos) to say that I am entirely indebted to him for the 
 case in question ; and I may most sincerely say of him that 
 since he has been in the service of Her Majesty, there never 
 was a public man who devoted his life so completely to the 
 public service. In preparing the measures of administrative 
 reform which I wish to bring before the House, and in making 
 a catalogue of the establishments to be attended to, I found in 
 the Report of the Select Committee of 1848 upon Miscellaneous 
 Expenditure, of which I believe an honourable member opposite 
 was the chairman, this memorandum — ' Whether a reform might 
 not be effected by uniting the Chief Secretary's Office in Ireland 
 with the Privy Council Office.' That suggestion was made in 
 1848. I called the attention of my noble friend the member 
 for Buckingham to this passage, and I said, ' Will you go to 
 Ireland, and will you take somebody with you to aid you in 
 your labours, and examine into this question of the Chief 
 Secretary's Office ? But, mind you, mere retrenchment is not 
 our object ; our object is efficiency. • If more money is necessary 
 to make the department efficient, you shall have it ; but go to 
 Ireland, examine into the whole question, and report to me by 
 what means you can render the office more efficient.' 
 
 Well, Sir, he went to Ireland, accompanied by the Secretary 
 of the Audit Board, one of the most intelligent and assiduous 
 of our public officers. They made their inquiries into the 
 Chief Secretary's Office at Dublin. Eemember that by the 
 Eeport of the committee of 1848 it was suggested whether the 
 consolidation of the Chief Secretary's Office and the Privy 
 Council Office would not be practicable. My noble friend, 
 however, effected a consolidation, not only of the Chief Secre- 
 tary's Office and the Privy Council Office, but of the Fines and 
 Penalties Office. He had to deal with departments maintained 
 at an annual cost of 21,738i. He put the whole office into the 
 most efficient state that a public office can be in, and the con- 
 sequence of its being put into a most efficient state is, that the 
 cost of 21,738L has been reduced by the sum of 5,1781. Thus 
 the saving effected by an inquiry conducted without any oth-er 
 
432 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACON'SFIELD. 
 
 consideration but that of efficiency, produced a saving of 25 per 
 cent, upon the original cost ; and yet I am told that nothing 
 can be done in administrative reforms. I must in justice to my 
 noble friend notice another instance. 
 
 My noble friend is of a too retiring nature : there are very 
 few men more capable of imparting information to the House, 
 especially upon matters of finance ; but he takes refuge instead 
 in that indomitable power of application for which he is dis- 
 tinguished. There was an application made, and apparently a 
 very fair one, by the office of the Secretary at War, when the 
 Militia Bill was passed, for an increase of staff. There was of 
 course a very considerable increase of duty in the office conse- 
 quent upon the new measure, and it was just one of those 
 demands which might have been conceded heedlessly, and 
 which anyone, upon a superficial view of the case, might have 
 readily accorded. But I, having great confidence in the princi- 
 ple of administrative reform and equal confidence in the 
 abilities of my noble friend, before we agreed to any increase 
 of expenditure, requested him to appoint a committee of 
 inquiry, which he did with the Assistant Secretary of the 
 Treasury, the Secretary of the Audit Board, and a gentleman 
 not now a member of this house, for whom I have a great 
 respect, the present Deputy Secretary of War (Mr. B. Hawes). 
 The committee examined the subject, and put the office into a 
 most efficient state, and the whole of the additional business is 
 carried on without one farthing of additional expense. In the 
 case of the Irish office, the persons employed were reduced 
 from 57 to 40. But allow me to remind the House that re- 
 trenchment was not the object, although economy was the 
 result. Efficiency was the object, and it was effected at a 
 saving of expense. These are, some may think, minute in- 
 stances, but they are instances well worthy of attention. The 
 Government have been dealing, however, with much larger 
 instances. They have been attempting to deal with the great 
 departments of public expenditure ; and, as the results of that 
 attempt, I, as the organ of the Government, express our opinion 
 that there may be a very considerable retrenchment made in 
 the public expenditure, and that this retrenchment may be 
 
EEPLY, DECEMBEE 1852. 433 
 
 brought to hear in the year 1854-55. But, Sir, one thing is 
 quite clear — that you cannot embark in an undertaking of this 
 kind unless you have the fair support of the House of Com- 
 mons. 
 
 Now, my own opinion is this — that it is not wise to grapple 
 with these great departments of public expenditure by com- 
 mittees of the House of Commons. I am of opinion that you 
 must deal with them by commissions — the same commissions 
 that have been brought to bear upon the revenue departments ; 
 but, although we may have commisions and the royal sanction, 
 it is necessary that the questions should be fairly brought before 
 the House of Commons in the way of exposition, so that you 
 should also have the moral sanction and support of the House. 
 It is perhaps the most difficult undertaking which a minister 
 can embark in ; and unless he has, I may say, both the Crown 
 and Parliament to back him, failure is certain, though with that 
 support I think success is equally sure. Well then, when I 
 am told that I have no good ground for my surplus of 1854—55, 
 my answer is that I believe we shall have much more than the 
 surplus which I cursorily ventured upon in my general state- 
 ment. I tell you that we have other resources upon which we 
 depend, and that I believe it will be the fault of the House of 
 Commons if in the year 1854-55 they do not find their public 
 service more efficient than it is, and less costly. I think I have 
 now noticed every objection of importance which has been 
 brought against the Grovernment propositions. I have avoided 
 entering into the question as to the unconstitutionality of 
 our conduct with respect to the income-tax. Legitimate 
 opportunities will hereafter arise for commenting upon all 
 that may be said upon this head, and the House will, I doubt 
 not, come to a fair decision upon it. 
 
 Although many minute objections have been made to points 
 of detail, I have not stopped to notice these ; I have not stopped 
 to vindicate that part of the income-tax relating to the farmers' 
 schedule. I shall be prepared to lay before the Committee the 
 facts and reasons which have induced us to take that course ; 
 but I may state now that our only object was to make as close 
 an approximation to justice as possible, and I will not vote 
 
 VOL. I. F F 
 
434 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 for that schedule if it is not the prevailing feeling of the House 
 that it is a just arrangement. I will not enter now into the 
 question of the hop-duty and things of that kind. After so 
 protracted a debate, and following so many speakers who com- 
 mented upon so many points in the financial scheme of the 
 Government, I hope the Committee wUl feel that if I have 
 avoided some of those points, it has been from deference to the 
 time of the House, and not from any wish of my own to avoid 
 the discussion. But some advice has been offered to me which 
 I ought perhaps to notice. I have been told to withdraw my 
 Budget. I was told that Mr. Pitt withdrew his Budget, and I 
 know that more recently other persons have done so too. Sir, 
 I do not aspire to the fame of Mr. Pitt, but I will not submit 
 to the degradation of others. No, Sir ; I have seen the con- 
 sequences of a Grovernment not being able to pass their measures 
 — consequences not honourable to the Government, not advan- 
 tageous to the country, and not in my opinion, conducive to the 
 reputation of this House, which is most dear to me. 
 
 I remember a Budget which was withdrawn, and re-with- 
 drawn, and withdrawn again in the year 1848. What was the 
 consequence of that Government thus existing upon sufferance ? 
 What was the consequence to the finances of the country ? Why, 
 that injurious, unjust and ignoble transaction respecting the com- 
 mutation of the window-tax and house-duty, which now I am 
 obliged to attempt to remedy. The grievance is deeper than 
 mere questions of party consideration. When parties are 
 balanced — when a Government cannot pass its measures — the 
 highest principles of public life, the most important of the 
 dogmas of politics, degenerate into party questions. Look at 
 this question of direct taxation — the most important question 
 of the day. It is a question which must sooner or later force 
 itself upon everybody's attention ; and I see before me many 
 who I know sympathise, so far as that important principle is 
 concerned, with the policy of the Government. Well direct 
 taxation, although applied with wisdom, temperance and pru- 
 dence, has become a party question. Talk of administrative 
 reform ! Talk of issuing commissions to inquire into our dock- 
 yards ! Why, if I were, which is not impossible, by intense 
 
BEPLY, DECEMBER 1852. 435 
 
 labour to bring forward a scheme which might save a million 
 annually to the country, administrative reform would become 
 a party question to-morrow. Yes ! I know what I have to face. 
 I have to face a coalition. The combination may be successful. 
 But coalitions, although successful, have always found this, that 
 their triumph has been short. This too I know, that England 
 does not love coaUtions. I appeal from the coalition to that 
 public opinion which governs this country — to that public 
 opinion whose mild and irresistible influence can control even 
 the decrees of Parliaments, and without whose support the 
 most august and ancient institutions are but 'the baseless 
 fabric of a vision.' 
 
 F F 2 
 
436 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 SPEECH ON ME. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET, May 2, 1853.' 
 
 [In his Budget of 1853, Mr. Gladstone had followed Mr. Disraeh's 
 example by extending the income-tax to incomes of 1001. a year, and 
 by also extending it to Ireland. But he accompanied these proposals 
 by a scheme for the total extinction of the tax within seven years. 
 Sir Bulwer Lytton moved an amendment to the effect that the exten- 
 sion of the income-tax to classes hitherto exempt from it, and its 
 prolongation for seven years, was unjust and impolitic. On the fourth 
 and last night of the debate, Mr. Disraeli spoke at great length in 
 support of the amendment, which was negatived by a majority of 
 71. He however, specially devoted himself to the injustice of Mr. 
 Gladstone's change in the legacy-duties, which were now to be ex- 
 tended to all successions whatever.] 
 
 WHAT is the condition of the proprietor of the soil who has 
 been told to devote his capital to the improvement of 
 his estate ? You are going to propose a tax which you call ex- 
 tending the legacy-duties to land, which will act as a direct tax 
 of a very considerable amount upon all real property, and, of 
 course, if upon all real property, in a very great degree, if not 
 mainly, upon the land. Now, there seems, as far as I could 
 collect the opinion of the Committee as the debate has proceeded, 
 some little misapprehension on this subject. An honourable 
 friend of mine, the member for Wakefield (Mr. Sandars), who 
 has given in his adhesion to the project of the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, said that he did so because the right honour- 
 able gentleman was going to fulfil that which Mr. Pitt failed in 
 doing ; and another honourable gentleman opposite eulogised 
 the right honourable gentleman on the same score, and said 
 that Mr. Pitt had only failed by one vote in accomplishing that 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
SPEECH ON MR. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET, MAY 1853. 437 
 
 which the right honourable gentleman now proposed, and which 
 he hoped he would succeed in accomplishing. Now, there is a 
 very great error in this. Mr. Pitt never proposed anything of 
 the kind. Mr. Pitt never proposed any tax upon settled pro- 
 perty of any kind. I have read the Act which Mr. Pitt brought 
 in, and if the honourable gentleman who laughs means to 
 express any incredulity on the subject I must refer him to that 
 Act. Mr. Pitt introduced two Bills, one of which is the origin 
 of our present legacy-duties with reference to personalty, and 
 the other was a Bill which would have extended the same 
 system of legacy-duty to landed property which was not settled. 
 It has been alleged that it was the selfishness of the landlords 
 then in Parliament which threw out that Bill. It was nothing 
 of the kind. Nine-tenths of the landlords in Parliament were 
 possessors, as gentlemen in this House are at present possessors, 
 of settled estates, and the proposition of Mr. Pitt never touched 
 them. It was thrown out on different grounds, and it was 
 mainly thrown out by the influence of Mr. Fox. It was Mr. 
 Fox whose influence threw out that Bill ; and it was he who 
 opposed it on grounds to which I will hereafter advert — 
 grounds which were considered sound and scientific, without 
 doubt. The Bill, therefore, was not thrown out by the selfish- 
 ness of the landlords, and the only persons whose interests were 
 affected by it — and for whom the battle was fought — were the 
 small proprietors of England, who were not members of Parlia- 
 ments, and whose estates were not settled. Now, this is a 
 subject of very grave importance. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman the President of the Board 
 of Control said, the other night, that the late Government were 
 going to propose a tax on successions. Now, I am sure either 
 the memory of the right honom-able gentleman must have been 
 imperfect, or he must have spoken from inadvertence when he 
 said this. It was the duty of the late Government, when they 
 revised the taxation of the country, not to omit so important a 
 subject as the duty on successions,, or the legacy-duty, and cer- 
 tainly it was our opinion that it was most imprudent to delay 
 dealing with that question, and that it was a subject which, for 
 a permanent settlement, ought, without unnecessary loss of 
 
438 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 time, to be brought before the House. What I did say on the- 
 occasion referred to is within the recollection of right honour- 
 able friends near me — and certainly I could have intended to 
 say nothing more. It was, that we did not think it impossible 
 to make a proposal upon that subject which would terminate for 
 ever the controversy in a manner which would be recognised as 
 perfectly satisfactory by all parties. And that was not a vague 
 phrase ; that proposition was a matured proposition ; and pro- 
 bably in the course of this discussion — though I will not trouble 
 the Committee with it now — I may be able on some future oc- 
 casion to submit it to the consideration of the House. But, 
 Sir, in considering the question of a tax upon successions, there 
 are many points to be considered before we come to a vote upon 
 it. We must ask ourselves in the first place, is it a just tax ? 
 Is it abstractedly a just tax ? Is it a politic, a just tax, a tax 
 that can be vindicated on principle ? We must ask ourselves 
 in the second place, whether, if it be a tax sound in principle, 
 it is a tax adapted to the country in which it is proposed to be 
 introduced. Thirdly, we must ask ourselves what are the data 
 which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has before him upon 
 which he founds his estimate of its produce, and, above all, what 
 is the machinery by which he means this tax to be raised ? 
 These are three important points which would well deserve con- 
 sideration. For my own part. Sir, although I think that if the 
 Eill of Mr. Pitt had passed it would have been unwise (unless 
 the state of our finances justified us in doing so) to distiub 
 that arrangement ; for my own part, I believe that all taxes on 
 successions, whatever shape they may take, are unsound in 
 principle. They are taxes on capital. They are unsound in 
 principle as regards personal property, but they are much more 
 unsound in principle as regards landed property, because they 
 lead to partition, which in my opinion is a very great evil, and 
 much to be deprecated. 
 
 But I am not going to enter into that important subject 
 now. All that I can say is that you cannot deny that, by pro- 
 posing this tax on successions with reference to landed property, 
 you are proposing a new tax upon the land. I have shown 
 you that in dealing with your indirect taxation you have 
 
SPEECH ON ME. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET, MAY 1853. 439 
 
 commenced a system and you have laid down a principle wMch 
 must immensely aggravate the national taxation upon the 
 British producer. I have shown you, in the second place, that 
 while you are about to pursue that unjust and injurious policy 
 — a policy the propriety of which no man can vindicate — while 
 you are aggravating the pressure of indirect taxation upon 
 the British producer, you are inflicting upon the cultivator 
 of the soil a direct tax in the shape of an income-tax, and 
 upon the possessor of the soil a direct tax in the shape of a 
 tax upon successions. Now, Sir, I say that the whole scope of 
 the Budget of the right honourable gentleman is conceived in 
 a spirit of injustice to the land. I will not touch upon the 
 past. I will not ask yon, was it politic, was it wise, or was it 
 generous to attack the land, both indirectly and directly, after 
 such an immense revolution had taken place in those laws which 
 regulated the importation of foreign produce. I will make no 
 appeal ad misericordiam. What you have done, you have 
 done ; we have given our assent to it. I wiU not refer to the 
 past, and upon that ground I refrain from appealing to you. 
 But I will remind you that the minister who has conceived this 
 Budget — who has conceived it, as I maintain I have proved, in 
 a spirit of injustice to the land — who is aggravating the burden 
 of indirect taxation to the land, and is proposing new direct 
 taxes on the cultivator and the proprietor of the soil, is the 
 very minister — the first minister — who has come forward and 
 in his place in Parliament talked of the vast load of local tax- 
 ation to which real property is exposed. The vast load of local 
 taxation which real property endures ! Well then, this is an age 
 of compensation : what is to be our compensation for that ? 
 
 I remember when I made an appeal to the sense of justice 
 of the House of Commons on that head I was met by two kinds 
 of opponents. One school denied point blank that there were 
 any burdens upon real property which were peculiar to it, or 
 which it was not bound to bear. But there was another class of 
 opponents, who took a different ground. They said : ' It is very 
 true that there is an undue burden of taxation upon real pro- 
 perty, and upon land as the most important portion of real pro- 
 perty, but you forget you have not to pay the legacy-duty.' 
 
440 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Why, Sir, I have shown over and over again that exemption 
 from the legacy-duty was no compensation for the weight, the 
 great weight, of local taxation which your minister has admitted. 
 But let me remind you now, that we are not only to have this 
 great weight of local taxation acknowledged by the Grovemment, 
 but it is not to be remedied by the Government ; nay, more, it 
 is not only not to be remedied by the Government, but it is to 
 be accompanied by the very tax an exemption from which they 
 used to say was one compensation for those burdens. Sir, we 
 have lived to see strange things. I remember when Sir Robert 
 Peel proposed his first income-tax, and I remember the noble 
 lord, the leader of the House, sitting on these (Opposition) 
 benches rising and, with the traditionary spirit of Mr. Fox, 
 denouncing the impost, as Mr. Fox denounced the legacy-duties, 
 because the noble lord, as well as Mr. Fox, had some feehng for 
 the land of his forefathers, and for the burdens which it had so 
 long borne. I remember how the noble lord admonished Sir 
 Eobert Peel. The noble lord could not deny there was a defi- 
 cieincy in the Exchequer, for he had just left, office, and knew 
 pretty well the state of his treasury. The noble lord said there 
 were other means of supplying the deficiency — anything but 
 this odious, this unjust, this inequitable, this inquisitorial in- 
 come-tax. The epithets are the noble lord's, and not my own. 
 Do anything but this, the noble lord said ; if you have a 
 deficiency, why don't you supply it by applying the legacy- 
 duty to the land ? Well, Sir, he has applied the legacy-duty to 
 the land, but he has given us the income-tax too. That is the 
 fate of England. 
 
 And now, what is the fate of Ireland ? Sir Robert Peel did 
 not propose an income-tax for Ireland, though he proposed one 
 for England. Sir Eobert Peel thought that there were consti- 
 tutional and local grounds which should forbid him, even if he 
 wished it, to apply the income-tax to Ireland ; but he said, ' I 
 must have some substitute, and that substitute shall be a duty 
 upon spirits.' The Irish shall have a duty on spirits instead of 
 the income-tax, just as the English were to have, if the policy 
 of the noble lord had prevailed, a legacy-duty instead of an in- 
 come-tax ; but now England has got the legacy-duty as well as 
 
SPEECH ON MB. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET, MAY 1853. 441 
 
 the income-tax, and Ireland is to have the spirit duty and the 
 income-tax too. Strange fate that both countries from the 
 ministry of ' All the Talents ' should receive such accumulated 
 blessings ! 
 
 But when these great scandals take place, and when the 
 owners of the soil and the cultivators of the soil complain that 
 in the projects of the Finance Minister they are not justly 
 treated, and claim from him nothing but justice — when, not 
 only injured by his project, but irritated by those unwise con- 
 cessions, they come to him by their representatives, how are 
 they met ? By taunts and by jeers. What said the right hon- 
 ourable President of the Board of Control the other night to 
 some one who had made comments on the scheme of the 
 Government ? He said : ' You had better take my advice : you 
 had better take this measure, or you will get worse.' Now, said 
 the President of the Board of Control, ' remember the eight 
 shilling fixed duty. You did not take that ; you see what not 
 taking the measure we brought forward led to.' Well, that is 
 a very favourite topic on the other side. (Sir C. Wood : Hear, 
 hear ! ) The cheer of the right honourable gentleman will 
 allow me to dwell on it a little longer. It is not merely the 
 President of the Board of Control that takes that course. The 
 President of the Board of Control is rather of an active and 
 vigorous than of an original mind. The President of the Board 
 of Control has followed the example of more eminent persons. 
 The noble lord (Lord John Eussell) is very fond of giving us 
 his advice on this subject. At the beginning of the year I 
 brought forward a motion respecting our relations with France, 
 and it fell to the noble lord to answer the observations I made. 
 The noble lord, on that occasion — the subject being our rela- 
 tions with France — delivered himself of an oration in favour of 
 free trade : not a very uncommon habit with the noble lord. 
 And he said that if I had followed his advice I might have been 
 one of Her Majesty's ministers at that time. So far as that 
 was concerned, I believe it did not depend upon my following 
 his advice ; all that was necessary for me to have done would 
 have been to follow his example. I dare say if we had sub- 
 
442 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 mitted to what I have seen ministers submit to, that probably we 
 might have been sitting on those (the ministerial) benches at 
 this very time. But that, however, is not the point to which I 
 wish to call the attention of the noble lord. 
 
 The noble lord has said — and he has now been followed by 
 the President of the Board of Control — ' You never take our 
 advice. I advised you to take an eight shillings duty on corn, 
 but you would not take it.' Now, the noble lord has reminded 
 us of that several times. I should not, however, have now 
 noticed it if the President of the Board of Control had not 
 revived it. If the taunt had come from the right honourable 
 baronet the member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring), who was 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, I might have allowed 
 it to pass, because he might have been justified in making it ; 
 but the taunt has been so often repeated and stereotyped that I 
 think it is time it should cease. I have, therefore, thus noticed 
 it, in order, if possible, to prevent its repetition. I think it 
 would only have been decent of the noble lord to have remem- 
 bered under whose advice, and at whose urgent instance, we did 
 refuse an eight shillings duty on corn. Far be it from me to 
 deprecate the colossal powers of the mind which could conceive 
 so vast an idea as an eight shillings duty on com. I give the 
 noble lord all the credit that is due to him in that respect. But 
 at the same time when the noble lord recollects who was the 
 statesman under whose advice and at whose instance that pro- 
 posal was refused, and when he remembers who those are by 
 whom he is now surrounded — when the noble lord remembers 
 he has thrown aside the Whig party, and that he has accepted 
 a subordinate office under a subordinate officer of Sir Kobert 
 Peel, I think he might have felt that the time has come when 
 scoffs and sneers should cease. 
 
 I have already said that there is no longer any difference of 
 material interests between the people of the great towns and 
 the people of the country. But I am told that there are social 
 and political differences. I am very loth to believe it. I can- 
 not but believe that it will be remembered that these great 
 towns are situate in a country of no considerable extent, with 
 
SPEECH ON MR. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET, MAY 1853. 443 
 
 no excessive population, with a commerce which, however 
 great, has been equalled, and with manufactures which, however 
 successful, have been surpassed. What, then, makes this 
 country great ? The national character of the country, created 
 by its institutions and by the traditionary influences impressed 
 upon those institutions. Those institutions are deeply and 
 broadly planted in the soil, and that soil is not the possession 
 of any exclusive class. The merchant or the manufacturer may 
 deposit within it his accumulated capital, and he may enjoy 
 those privileges to which its possession entitles him, on condition 
 that he discharges those duties which its possession also im- 
 poses. Then, why this hostility to the land ? Every man is 
 deeply interested in maintaining its influence. I therefore 
 adjure those gentlemen who are the representatives of large 
 towns to condescend to ponder over these observations, and not 
 to be led away by prejudices ; remembering that we are all 
 aHke interested in maintaining the greatness of our country, 
 and that that greatness depends upon its institutions as well as 
 its material prosperity. Should, however — as I trust not — the 
 representatives of towns take another course, then of this I feel 
 convinced, that if they are still alienated from us — if they still 
 proceed in their illusory progress, they may perhaps arrive at 
 the goal which they contemplate, they may perhaps achieve the 
 object they have set before them, but I believe they will be 
 greatly disappointed in the result, and they will find they have 
 only changed a first-rate kingdom for a second-rate republic. 
 
444 SPEECHES OP THE EARL OF BEACONSPIELD. 
 
 WAYS AND MEANS. BUDGET, AprQ 19, 1858.1 
 
 [On April 19, 1858, Mr. Disraeli, now a second time Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, brought forward his third Budget. Circumstances 
 had greatly changed since the introduction of the Budget of 1857. 
 The China war and the Indian Mutiny had intervened, as the Russian 
 war had done four years before, to upset our financial expectations. 
 The Army and Navy estimates had greatly increased : and Mr. Dis- 
 raeli found that he had to provide for an expenditure of more than 
 67,000,000^. while the revenue on which he could reckon, allowing 
 the income tax to sink to 5d. agreeably to the existing understanding, 
 was 63,120,000Z. Of the expenditure required, however, 3,500,000^. 
 was for the repayment of debt incurred by temporary borrowing ; 
 and the question arose whether the payment of the debt should be 
 postponed or the income-tax again raised. Mr. Disraeli determined 
 on the former alternative ; and ' in the discussion on the Budget which 
 followed a very general approval of its principal features was ex- 
 pressed by nearly all the prominent members of the House ' (Twenty 
 Years of Financial Policy, by Sir Stafibrd Northcote). ' It may be 
 observed in passing,' adds the same authority, 'that, although Mr. 
 Disraeli's estimates were much cavilled at, and regarded as exces- 
 sively sanguine, they were fully justified by the result. He reckoned 
 upon receiving from the four sources of income just mentioned (i.e. 
 customs, excise, the stamp-duties and the Post Office) 53,050,000?. : 
 he actually received from them 53,225,712Z.'] 
 
 THE Chancellor of the Exchequer: Sir, since the right 
 honourable gentleman the member for Radnor (Sir Greorge 
 Lewis) explained in Committee the ways and means he in- 
 tended to provide for the service of the year just terminated, a 
 very great change has taken place in the condition of the 
 country, and I am sorry to say in the wellbeing of the people. 
 At the commencement of the year 1857, and, indeed, during 
 
 ' This speech is- reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS. BUDOET, APRIL 1858. 445 
 
 all the preceding year, our exports had continually and con- 
 siderably increased ; the returns of our imports were favourable 
 — I might say, highly favourable — and, although a high rate of 
 discount prevailed generally throughout that period, it did not 
 appear to offer any obstacle to the commercial enterprise of the 
 country. But towards the end of the year 1857, this prospect 
 of continued prosperity was clouded and disturbed- The 
 American panic acted very distressingly upon the commercial 
 condition of our own country, and at that time there arose a 
 monetary crisis, which, whether we look at the number of the 
 houses which failed, or the amount for which they failed, has 
 not in severity been exceeded even in our mercantile history. 
 The TniniTnum rate of discount in the month of November was 
 10 percent. That rate prevailed almost throughout December. 
 At the very close of the year the rate was 8 per cent. ; at the 
 end of January 4 per cent. When I acceded to office the rate 
 was that which now prevails — 3 per cent. The effect of this 
 commercial disturbance and distress was very great upon the 
 revenue. It is a very significant circumstance, that at the 
 end of the first three quarters of the financial year — namely, 
 December 31 last — the judicious and temperate estimate of 
 my right honourable predecessor was not even equalled ; but, 
 strange to say, during the last quarter of the financial year — 
 from December 31 to the end of March — in the great items 
 of customs, excise, and stamps, it was not only fulfilled, but 
 exceeded by (speaking in round numbers) 1,500,000Z. 
 
 I am extremely unwilling, on occasions of this kind, to 
 trouble the Committee unnecessarily with statistical details ; 
 but I have here a slight memorandum of the effect of the 
 monetary crisis upon the income of the country, which they 
 will perhaps permit me to read. The quarter ending December 
 31, 1857, compared with the similar quarter of the preceding 
 year, shows a total decrease in customs, excise, and stamps of 
 766,OOOL ; but the quarter ending March 31, 1858, shows a 
 very different result, compared with the corresponding quarter 
 of the preceding year — namely, an increase of 1,400,000Z. in 
 those items. As I am upon this topic of the condition of our 
 trade and of the effects of the monetary crisis generally upon 
 
446 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 our commerce, the Committee will, perhaps, think this the best 
 opportunity for me to lay before them the effect of that state 
 of things upon our export trade. The exports in almost all 
 articles fell off, in the last quarter of 1857, the quarter of ex- 
 treme trial, to the following extent. In the nine months end- 
 ing September 30, 1857, the increase in the declared value of 
 our exports, compared with the corresponding period of the 
 preceding year, was 12-^ per cent. ; in the ten months ending 
 October 31, that increase was only 1 1 ^ per cent. In the eleven 
 months ending November 30, when the crisis was at its height, 
 our exports had increased only 8 per cent. ; and in the twelve 
 months ending Decemiber 31, this increase, compared with 
 the preceding year, had sunk to 5^ per cent.^ — that is to say, 
 that was the amount of the increase as compared with the same 
 period of the preceding year. 
 
 Sir, although, as I have already observed, upon these occa- 
 sions it is not advisable to load financial statements with too 
 much statistical detail, the Committee will, I think, expect 
 and deem it convenient that I should place before them the 
 general result of our exports and imports on trade and naviga- 
 tion. I will, in doing so, avail myself of a brief but important 
 statement which has been drawn up, and which will clearly 
 show the result. It is, I believe, the only document of the 
 kind with which I shall have occasion to trouble the Committee. 
 It is a statement of the exports and imports of the United 
 Kingdom, and of the tonnage of British and foreign vessels in 
 different years. I will take the year 1853 — the year before 
 the war — and the years 1855, 1856, and 1857. The total de- 
 clared value of the exports and manufactures of the United 
 Kingdom in the year 1853 was, in round numbers, 99,000,000L 
 In 1855 the declared value had sunk to 95,500,000Z. ; in 1856 
 it had risen to 116,000,000L; and in 1857 it had still further 
 risen to 122,000,000Z, In 1853 the exports of textile fabrics 
 amounted to 52,000,000^. ; in 1855 to 51,000,000?. ; in 1856 
 to 59,000,000Z. ; and in 1857 to 61,000,000?. The exportation 
 of metal fabrics in 1853, the year before the war, amounted in 
 value to 19,500,000?.; in 1855 it sank to about 18,000,000?.; 
 in 1856 it rose to 23,500,000?.; and in 1857 it reached 
 
■WAYS AND MEANS. BUDGET, APRIL 1858. 447 
 
 26,000,000?. The real value of the total imports into the 
 United Kingdom in 1855 was 143,000,000L; in 1856 
 172,000,000L; and in 1857 187,000,000L The imports of 
 raw cotton for consumption amounted in the year before the 
 war, 1853, to 746,000,000 lbs. ; in 1855 to 767,000,000 lbs. ; 
 in 1856 to 877,000,000 lbs. ; and in 1857 to 837,000,000 lbs. 
 In 1853 British tonnage amounted to 9,000,000 tons; and 
 foreign to 6,000,000 tons. In 1855 British tonnage was still 
 9,000,000 tons, and foreign remained about 6,000,000. In 
 1856 British tonnage reached 11,000,000 tons, and foreign 
 about 7,000,000. In 1857 British tonnage had risen to 
 11,600,000 tons, and foreign to 7,400,000. The total amount 
 of tonnage before the war was 15,380,000 tons, and in the last 
 year 19,072,000. 
 
 Sir, having placed before the Committee this general view 
 of the condition of the trade and navigation of the country, I 
 will, with their permission, proceed with what is the real busi- 
 ness before us to-night — namely, to consider our financial 
 position, and to ascertain clearly the charges upon the revenue 
 of the country, and the means at our command to meet them. 
 Since the commercial crisis raged with a fury which alarmed 
 the whole kingdom, I need scarcely remind the Committee that 
 there has been considerable restoration of confidence ; and there 
 are at this moment many circumstances which must conduce to 
 the increased prosperity of the country. The rate of interest 
 is very low ; capital is abundant, money is cheap, and the price 
 of the principal necessaries of life and of the chief articles of 
 consumpton is much lower than it was dmring last year or the 
 preceding year. I should not, however, be doing my duty to 
 the Committee, if I concealed from them my own conviction, 
 founded upon information which has been at my command, 
 that, although the general condition of the country is at this 
 moment sound, and although there has been a restoration of 
 confidence and there are numerous indications of improvement, 
 we are not justified in indulging a belief that there will 
 be a rapid recurrence of that spirit of speculative enterprise 
 which has prevailed of late years, and which has undoubtedly 
 furnished very beneficial contributions to the Exchequer. 
 
448 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 I will HOW proceed to state the estimated expenditure for 
 the year 1858-59. The charge for the funded and unfunded 
 debts I place at 28,400,000L The Committee will observe that 
 there is a decrease upon that charge to the extent of 150,000L 
 This has been occasioned by the liquidation of the 2,000,000L 
 of Exchequer bonds last year, by some diminution of the rate 
 of interest upon Exchequer bills, and by some operation of the 
 Sinking Fund upon the public debt. The next item of expen- 
 diture is that for the permanent charge on the Consolidated 
 Fund. That is an item which, I am sony to say, I felt it my 
 duty to increase. Last year the charge was, I think, 1,770,000?. ; 
 but I have not felt justified this year in placing the amount at 
 less than 1,900,000L I have felt it my duty to make an increase 
 in this item in consequence of the compensation which the 
 House awarded — I think, in a moment of almost reckless Kbera- 
 lity — to proctors and other ofificials who deemed themselves 
 injured by the passing of a measxu-e of reform of the Ecclesias- 
 tical Courts. The charge for the army, including the disem- 
 bodied militia, and reduced by the amount stated the other 
 night by my right honourable friend the Secretary for War, 
 will be 11,750,000?. The charge for the navy, including the 
 packet service, which has been reduced by my right honourable 
 friend the First Lord of the Admiralty by some 300,000?., will 
 be 9,860,000?. The Civil Service estimates, which last year 
 amounted to 7,400,000?., are not at this moment entirely 
 settled. There has been considerable difficulty in getting in 
 these estimates, and in examining and revising them ; but I 
 have no hesitation in saying that I do not estimate this item 
 at more than 7,000,000?. for the present year ; and there will 
 therefore be a reduction under this head, as compared with the 
 charge last year, of 400,000?. 
 
 The Committee will allow me to make a few remarks upon 
 these estimates. There is at all times a very great desire to 
 reduce the amount of the Civil Service estimates — what used to 
 be called in old days the Miscellaneous estimates. We very 
 often find that honourable gentlemen who are perfectly ready 
 to support a considerable expenditure for what are called the 
 great services, loudly demand that economy should be practised 
 
■WAYS AND MEANS. BUDGET, APRIL 1858. 449 
 
 in the Miscellaneous estimates. If in the vindication of their 
 estimates the Grovernment appeal to the State necessity, 
 which requires the maintenance of a large establishment, they 
 are always told, ' There are the Miscellaneous estimates ; that 
 is the item upon which you ought to economise. If an army 
 must be maintained upon a great scale, and if the navy — the 
 national and favourite service — must be kept up, at all events 
 the Miscellaneous estimates contain some extravagant items, 
 which require excision by the financial knife, and that is the 
 means by which economy must be practised.' Now, although 
 the Civil Service estimates are not yet upon the table, I wish 
 the House to consider the nature of those estimates. No. 3 
 is the estimate for Law and Justice, and the amount has in- 
 creased considerably every year. No. 4 relates to the subject 
 of Education, a question which always excites the deepest in- 
 terest in this House. That item has advanced in amount year 
 by year, with a giant's pace. I do not mean on an occasion 
 like the present, to express an opinion one way or the other, as 
 to the policy of this expenditure — my business to-night is to 
 give the Committee clear and complete information as to the 
 iinancial position of the country ; but it is necessary for me, in 
 illustrating the system of our expenditure, to call attention to 
 the nature of these Civil Service estimates. I will take this 
 item for Education. I believe that when the first vote for that 
 object was passed by the House about twenty years ago, its 
 amount was not more than 30,000i. In ten years the vote had 
 reached the sum of 248,000L Ten years more have passed, 
 and the expenditure under this head, for England and Ireland, 
 including the schools of art, will for the present year be not 
 less than l,000,000i. sterling. 
 
 Now, I do not say we have not been perfectly right in pursu- 
 ing the course which the House has hitherto taken in this 
 respect. All I wish is, that the Committee should clearly 
 understand what they are doing. And do not let it be sup- 
 posed that the Civil Service estimates, which have been thus 
 constantly increasing, can be reduced in an oflfhand manner. 
 Under this particular head, for instance, there has been a vast 
 system gradually developing itself, which, in a very short time, 
 
 VOL. I. ^ ® 
 
450 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 will amount to the outlay of a great department. When I saw 
 the amount which this year would be incurred under the head 
 of Education ; when I remembered that regularly, every year, 
 there had been a large augmentation in the votes for that object; 
 I felt it my duty to form some opinion of what would be the 
 future of this growing branch of our outgoings, and of what 
 means we have of controlling this expenditure, or of ascertain- 
 ing generally the relation in which that department was placed to 
 the Exchequer of this country. Now, Sir, after having examined 
 the subject — and giving no opinion, I beg the Committee to 
 observe, upon the policy or the impolicy of this establishment, 
 but only anxious that honourable gentlemen should clearly 
 understand the responsible position they occupy in reference to 
 this matter — it is my deliberate conviction that a system is 
 now rapidly developing itself in this department of our expen- 
 diture, which in a very few years, will arrive at the amount of 
 at least 3,000,000L or 4,000,000L sterling. And I think the 
 time has come when the House should calmly review the course 
 they are pursuing in this respect, and, at all events, comprehend 
 the liability they are incurring. Sir, the item for the revenue 
 collection is 4,700,000L The total expenditure for the various 
 departments is 63,610,000L There is a liability for the War 
 Sinking Fund of 1,500,000?., besides 2,000,000L of Exchequer 
 bonds, which must be liquidated in the early part of next month. 
 Thus, the total charge for the year 1858-9 is 67,110,000L I 
 now proceed. Sir, to estimate the resources from which we are 
 to meet those h'abilities. I will therefore give our estimate of 
 the revenue for the year 1858-59. The estimate of my right 
 honourable predecessor for the customs was 22,350,000?., and 
 the actual sum paid into the Exchequer was 23,109,000?. 
 Now, in forming an estimate of the probable amount to be 
 received from the customs for this year, we must in the first 
 place observe that, although the amount paid under this head 
 into the Exchequer was 23,109,000?., the net receipt of this 
 department for the year was 23,289,000?., or, not to perplex 
 the Committee with odd numbers, 23,300,000?. That differ- 
 ence between the net receipt of the customs and the sum paid 
 into the Exchequer was occasioned by certain advances made 
 
"WAYS AND JIEANS. BUDGET, APRIL 1858. 451 
 
 to the departments of tlie customs, whicli were mainly owing 
 to the changes rendered necessary in consequence of the great 
 resolution decided upon by this House of paying the gross 
 revenue into the Exchequer. Therefore, in calculating what 
 the customs may produce this year, we must really take as our 
 basis the actual net receipts, not the amount paid into the 
 Exchequer, which was lessened in its passage thither by the 
 sum of 200,000L, to which that department will not be liable 
 in another year. 
 
 In considering the probable result of the customs' duties 
 this year, we must also remember that, since the late commer- 
 cial panic and disaster, they have exhibited great buoyancy. 
 We must remember that all the circumstances of the country 
 are now favourable to consumption. Capital is abundant, money 
 cheap, bread between 40 and 50 per cent, lower in price than 
 it was last year, and of sugar, which was very high and scarce 
 last year, we have the prospect of ample supplies, while its 
 cost has fallen considerably — so much, indeed, as 10s. per cwt. — 
 and thereby has become much more accessible to the working 
 classes. In fact, there is a combination of causes at work which, 
 under ordinary circumstances, would all stimulate consumption. 
 We must further remember there is one great influence calcu- 
 lated to be most advantageous to the Exchequer — namely, that 
 the country is now beginning to feel the benefit of that great 
 remission of taxation which the House determined upon last 
 year. No doubt, when the revenue rallied at the end of the 
 last quarter of the past year, that result was to be attributed in 
 some degree to the restoration of confidence which had taken 
 place, and to the gradual, even rapid decline in the value of 
 money. But it is impossible to shut our eyes to the conclusion 
 that what has mainly sustained our revenue— what has sup- 
 ported and even stimulated consumption, at a time when there 
 was great commercial disturbance and depression— has been 
 the action of that 9,000,000L of remitted taxation which was 
 brought into the pockets of the people, but which was brought 
 into their pockets only towards the end of the year. Because 
 the Committee will recollect that, although the Grovemment, 
 influenced by the feelings of the country and the determina- 
 
 G o 2 
 
452 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 tion of the House, remitted the 9,000,000^. produced by the 
 war income-tax at the com.mencement of the year, six months 
 elapsed before the relief could be felt by the public, owing to 
 the manner in which the income-tax is collected. For the 
 first six months the country paid the war 9d. ; and it was only 
 at the latter end of the year, at the period when all this distress 
 existed, and when so much commercial disturbance and depres- 
 sion were experienced, that suddenly the consuming power of 
 the nation was supported by the public having at their com- 
 mand this great remission of taxation. And I think I may 
 say, in passing, that this fact is a sufficient vindication of those 
 who counselled at that time the expediency of reducing the 
 burdens of the country to that amount. Now, we shall reap 
 the great benefit of that measure in our customs' duties this 
 year. I should not be acting fairly to the Committee if I 
 did not state that, though the customs last year produced 
 23,289,000?., that amount was swollen by a large sum paid for 
 tea-daties in April 1857 which properly belonged to the prece- 
 ding year, in consequence of the alteration of those duties. It 
 would not be right to omit from our calculation that 400,000L 
 paid for tea-duties ought really to have been included in the 
 returns for 1856-57. But taking all these circumstances into 
 consideration ; taking the amount last year realised upon cus- 
 toms, notwithstanding the commercial crisis, at 23,300,000i. in 
 round numbers ; allowing in my estimate for the present year 
 a loss, or rather a diminution, in the tea-duties of about 200,000?. 
 for the present year ; calculating the produce of those duties 
 upon the amount which probably will be consumed by the 
 public in the present year ; deducting from that amount 
 3,500,000 lbs. to meet the extraordinary accession to the Exche- 
 quer to which I have referred — and remembering also that, so 
 far as this article is concerned, the prospects of the tea trade 
 are extremely favourable, there having scarcely been any period 
 at which the supplies were more promising — I think I am justi- 
 fied in placing the amount of the customs at 23,400,000?., or 
 100,000?. more than they yielded last year. I now come, Sir, 
 to the next great source of supply to our revenue — the excise. 
 The right honourable gentleman the member for Eadnor esti- 
 
"WAYS AND MEANS. BUDGET, APRIL 1858. 453 
 
 mated thfi amount to be realised from that source at 17,000,000^, 
 and, notwithstanding all the distress of last year, it actually- 
 produced 17,825,000. This item I have ventured, after the 
 greatest consideration and guided by what I believe to be the 
 best information, to put at 18,100,000Z. ; the excise being 
 subject to all those beneficial influences which act upon the 
 customs, and which, like the customs, have, since the great 
 remission of taxation and the reduction of the price of money 
 and all other commodities, exhibited the same elastic and 
 buoyant character. 
 
 The next article is stamps, which were estimated last year at 
 7,450,000L, and realised 7,416,000?. The stamps are a branch of 
 our revenue which is acted upon by all the circumstances which 
 also influence those departments that depend upon the con- 
 sumption of the country. The state of the mercantile world acts 
 very quickly upon the revenue arising from stamps. The stamps 
 suffered much during the commercial crisis and the period imme- 
 diately subsequent to it, and they have since shown the same elas- 
 ticity as the customs and the excise. It is also to be remembered 
 that the succession-duty will, in the year which has now com- 
 menced, contribute much more to the revenue than it has hith erto 
 done, and therefore I have taken the stamps at 7,550,OOOL, which 
 is exactly the amount fixed by my predecessor in his statement 
 of last year, when he favoured the House with a prospective 
 estimate of the year in which we now are. The next item is 
 Land and Assessed Taxes. The estimated revenue from this 
 source was 3,150,000L; the actual produce is 3,152,000?., and, 
 considering the great number of new houses which have been 
 built and are now building, I have put it for the year 1858-59 
 at 3,200,000L We now come to the property and income tax, 
 which falls this year to 5d. in the pound. For the first half of 
 the year it was at 7d., and the second half at 5d, and the pro- 
 duce of the tax I have therefore put at 6,100,000?., which is 
 the rate at which it has always been put. The next item is 
 the Post Office. The estimate for the Post Ofiice was 3,000,000?., 
 but it has only paid into the Exchequer 2,920,000?. That 
 reduced production of the Post Office, however, was occasioned 
 by similar circumstances to those which I have mentioned as 
 
454 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFrELD. 
 
 having an influence upon the customs' revenue. The Post 
 OfiSee had to advance considerable sums to its departments, 
 which advances it will not have to make again ; they are per- 
 manent though fluctuating balances. The revenue of the Post 
 Office, therefore, is not to be measured by its present produce, 
 2,920,000?., but I am assured by the highest authority. that I 
 may safely place it for the present year at 3,200,000?. The next 
 item, the Crown lands, was estimated last year at 265,000L ; 
 they produced 277,000?. I place them for 1858-59 at 270,000?. 
 The last article of estimated revenue is the Miscellaneous. 
 This was estimated last year at 1,200,000?. ; the produce ob- 
 tained was 1,600,000?., and I have placed it at 1,300,000?. I 
 know this is an item which is often viewed with suspicion when 
 the financial statement is made. It would be in my power 
 to explain in detail all the items of which this head of revenue 
 is made up. I only refrain from doing so lest I should weary 
 the Committee. There are twelve sources of supply from 
 whence this item is drawn, and having gone through them all 
 carefully, I think I may, without the slightest apprehension, 
 place them at that sum. 
 
 Sir, I have now shown that the expenditure and liabilities 
 of the year amount to 67,110,000?., and I have estimated our 
 revenue at 63,120,000?. ; there awaits us, therefore, a deficiency 
 to be made up to the amount of 3,990,000?. I have no in- 
 formation as to what may have been the expectation of the 
 Committee on this point, though I know from many quarters 
 and by many means what is the expectation of the country ; but 
 whether the Committee thinks this an overwhelming or only a 
 vast deficit, it is at all events a deficit which should make us 
 pause and steadUy consider the mode in which to encounter it. 
 But I may perhaps be permitted, before entering on this con- 
 sideration, to make a single observation on the deficit ; and it 
 is one which ought to be consolatory to the country. This 
 deficit, however vast it may be, has not been occasioned by 
 any falling off in our resources. I do not know how I could 
 place that more clearly before the Committee than by assuming 
 for a moment that there was not that reduction from our 
 revenue which has been occasioned by the income-tax falling 
 
WAYS AND MEANS. BUDGET, APEIL 1858. 455 
 
 from 7c?. to 5d. The consequence would be that our revenue 
 would be 1,000,000L more in amount. The deficit, then, would 
 be about 3,000,000?. ; and if we deduct from that the amount 
 of our engagements to pay off debt — namely, 3,500,000?. — it 
 follows that if we had no engagements to meet, and if we had 
 no cessation of taxation, instead of a deficit we should have a 
 surplus of 500,000?. Therefore, in dealing -with this very grave 
 and serious subject, it is a source of consolation to us that this 
 is a deficit which, notwithstanding the sharp fortunes experienced 
 by the country during the year, has not been occasioned by any 
 diminution in our resources. 
 
 I propose to consider this deficit under two heads. I will 
 consider, first, the amount of deficit which has been occasioned 
 by our undertaking to pay off debt ; and, in the second place, 
 the amount which has been caused by a cessation of taxation. 
 It appears to me that this will be the simplest and the most 
 intelligible manner of treating the subject. First, then, with 
 regard to that amount of the deficit, 3,500,000?., which is occa- 
 sioned by our engagement to pay off debt. The first item to 
 which I wish to call the attention of the Committee is the War 
 Sinking Fund, the amount of which is 1,500,000?. The Com- 
 mittee is perfectly aware that, irrespective of the War Sinking 
 Fund, there is a Greneral Sinking Fund, which is in operation. 
 Thirty years ago, the system of a Sinking Fund that prevailed in 
 this country was, to allot a certain fixed sum, without any 
 reference to the state of the revenue, to the payment of debt. 
 In the heat of the great war, the House of Commons passed a 
 resolution that every year 5,000,000?., ' without fail ' — those 
 were the words, I believe — should be apportioned to the redemp- 
 tion of debt ; and that system— the amount reserved being more 
 or less in amount, but the principle being the same — prevailed 
 until the year 1829. That system utterly broke down over and 
 over again. It was false in principle and most injurious in 
 practice. In 1829 a committee was appointed to consider the 
 whole question. The committee investigated the subject with 
 great acumen and depth, and it recommended the adoption of 
 the only sound principle on which a Sinking Fund ought to be 
 based — namely, the application of the surplus revenue of the 
 
456 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OP BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 country to the liquidation of its debt. That surplus was to be 
 ascertained by every quarter taking the surplus of the year, 
 and — popularly describing the principle of the Act — devoting 
 the natiual surplus of the revenue to the liquidation of the 
 debt. Well, in the course of the last year, when loans were in- 
 curred, the House thought fit to recur to the old system upon 
 which Sinking Funds were established — namely, allotting a fixed 
 sum, without any reference to the state of the revenue, to the. 
 liquidation of debt ; and, while they thus recurred to the old 
 system, with strange inconsistency, I think, they did not super- 
 sede the new one which in 1829 had been established in its 
 stead, and which was founded upon a totally different principle. 
 When that proposition was made, it did not pass without dis- 
 cussion in this House. Objections were raised to it by persons 
 of great authority. There was a debate of some length, and 
 there was a division. At the moment it appeared to me that 
 the Government were not very much enamoured of their own 
 plan, or confident in the policy which they were recommend- 
 ing ; but the House thought fit — mainly influenced, I think, 
 by one who upon such subjects, if, indeed, not upon all stibjects, 
 addresses the House with authority, my honourable friend the 
 member for Huntingdon (Mr. T. Baring) — to agree to this 
 revival of the old principle of the Sinking Fund. But my 
 honourable friend the member for Huntingdon, when he recom- 
 mended that course, recommended it for special reasons. He 
 said, ' We are now, or soon shall be, in a time of perfect peace ; 
 and it is not until we are at perfect peace that this Sinking 
 Fund is to come into operation. Therefore, on the whole, I 
 think it wisest to secure the liquidation of debt, incurred in 
 war, during a time of profound peace.' . 
 
 I shall not go into the question whether we are now in a 
 time of profound peace, lest I should introduce into this dis- 
 cusion, which should of all discussions be calm and temperate, 
 elements of angry controversy. It is very likely that my noble 
 friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs might, if I 
 applied to him, express himself to be of the same opinion as the 
 noble lord the member for Tiverton, and diplomatically assure 
 me that we are not at war with China. I am not a diplomatist ; 
 
WAYS ASD MEANS. BUDGET, APEIL 1858. 457 
 
 I have only charge of the finances of the country ; but when I 
 want to reduce the estimates, and look to those of the navy, for 
 instance, I cannot help thinking that although we are at peace 
 with China, tha,t peace has a most warlike influence on our 
 expenditure. Therefore, the ground on which my honovirable 
 friend the member for Himtingdon supported the establishment 
 of that Sinking Fund — namely, that we were entirely at peace, or 
 should be so when it came into operation — has not arisen ; and 
 knowing that on these subjects my honourable friend very much 
 agrees with me, taking the plain view of these affairs in 
 China, I am convinced that, even with his view of the case, he 
 never contemplated that the Sinking Fund should be brought 
 into action at a time when, whether we are at peace or war, we 
 are fitting out armaments, and have a great naval force in the 
 Chinese waters. But, Sir, besides the Sinking. Fund of 1829 — 
 that is, the Greneral Sinking Fund — and the War Sinking Fund, 
 which this year comes into complete operation, we have also 
 (to which I shall afterwards refer) the engagement to pay off 
 2,000,000L of Exchequer bonds. 
 
 Now, I ask the Committee calmly to consider in what 
 position we are placing the finances of the country and its com- 
 merce, which is now in a state of some depression, and not able 
 or inclined to bear an increase of taxation — I ask the House to 
 consider in what position we are placing the finances of the 
 country by the principle of paying off the debt which we have 
 sanctioned. Last year you had the General Sinking Fund; 
 you had the Special Sinking P'und ; you had engagements in 
 the shape of Exchequer bonds ; all acting upon your finances. 
 There absolutely was the sum of the National Debt ' redeemed 
 by the operation of the General Sinking Fund. That you will 
 find in the accounts upon the table. It was not a very large 
 amount, but positively there was a. sum of the National Debt 
 redeemed by the action of the General Sinking Fund. Then 
 you had the Special Sinking Fund coming partially into opera- 
 tion, to the extent of 250,000L ; then you had 2,000,000?. of 
 Exchequer bonds. Now, let me show what is the practical 
 result of these artificial attempts to pay debt, when you have 
 ' 269,908Z. Os. 6d. 
 
458 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 not a revenue which affords you a natural surplus of the income 
 of the year for the operation. Here is the account of the public 
 income and expenditure of the year just concluded, from which 
 I wiU read only one item. Our expenditure amounted to 
 70,000,000^., and our income also to a very great amount ; but 
 although we are dealing with these immense sums, you will 
 find that there is an excess of expenditure over income. Our 
 income amounted last year to 68,000,000?., and yet our 
 expenditure exceeded that amount by, in round nutmbers, 
 2,500,000?, ; but when I go to the other side of the balance 
 sheet and look at the expenditure, I find there a sum absorbed 
 by the Sinking Fund, by the redemption of Exchequer bonds, 
 and by the liquidation of public debt, amoimting to 2,250,000?., 
 or only 250,000?. less than the excess of expenditure. Well, 
 what follows ? It follows that you certainly have paid off debt, 
 but you have not paid off debt out of your revenue. You must 
 have paid it out of the balance of the Exchequer. 
 
 The Committee must feel that that is a system which, 
 though upon one occasion it might answer, cannot be con- 
 tinued. The Committee, therefore, must now consider this : 
 what is the consequence of bringing past and present burdens 
 to act simultaneously upon the revenue of the year ? The 
 only consequence can be war-taxation in time of peace ; and 
 can you have this war-taxation in time of peace consistently 
 with that commercial prosperity on which you depend, and of 
 which you so often talk ? I must, therefore, ask the Committee 
 to consider whether the time has not come at which, not merely 
 with reference to this year, but with reference to futm-e years, 
 and with regard to those results as to taxation which we wish 
 and are almost pledged to accomplish, we must consider the 
 policy of maintaining this system of artificial Sinking Funds. In 
 principle I think it highly fallacious and erroneous ; and in its 
 application there has been a greater mistake, because, inde- 
 pendently of the circmnstance that you are maintaining two 
 Sinking Funds at the present moment on contrary principles ; 
 independently of the consideration that the old Sinking Fund is, 
 in my mind, built upon a sure foundation and upon sound prin- 
 ciples ; admitting for a moment that the War Sinking Fund 
 
WAYS AND MEANS. BUDGET, APRIL 1858. 459 
 
 is right in principle, still I think it wrong in its application, 
 because it never ought to have been brought into operation until 
 you had paid off your Exchequer bonds. This triple action upon 
 your revenue to pay off debt can only end either in increased 
 taxation or loans, which for such an object would be absurd ; or 
 in financial embarrassment, which all of us would desire to avoid. 
 
 Now, Sir, I ask the Committee calmly to consider this 
 question. You have a deficit, of which 3,500,000L are occa- 
 sioned by engagements to pay off debt. You have no surplus ; 
 you have no means of meeting these debts in the present year. 
 How, then, will you meet them ? Will you raise a loan ? Will 
 you raise a loan to fulfil engagements to pay off debt, part of 
 which consists of an artificial Sinking Fund ? Could there be a 
 more blundering means of setting your house in order and squaring 
 your accounts than negotiating a loan to meet engagements of 
 that kind ? Is it not the last resource of individuals in distress, 
 to raise money in order to pay debts, and to get deeper in debt 
 in consequence ? I cannot suppose that anyone in this House 
 would seriously sanction the idea that we ought to raise a loan 
 to fulfil engagements to pay off debts. Well, then, is the Com- 
 mittee prepared to meet these engagements by taxation ? It 
 is very difificult to say how you could raise a sum of 3,500,000L 
 by taxes. It is rather a perplexing question. But suppose you 
 were resolved to do it, that would not get you out of the diffi- 
 culty. If you were to raise by taxes a sum of 3,500,000Z. to 
 pay these debts, you would still have a deficit of 500,000L You 
 would have to make provision for that, and also to provide some 
 surplus. Therefore, if you come to taxes, it is a question of 
 raising a siun exceeding 4,000,000^. 
 
 Well, Sir, under these circumstances, and analysing these 
 claims upon us, I think that the time has arrived, not merely 
 with reference to the convenience of the moment, but in order ' 
 to put our finances for future years in a secure position, when 
 we ought to come to some determination respecting this War 
 Sinking Fund. I would humbly recommend the Committee to 
 terminate that arrangement, either by repealing the Act, which 
 is, I think, false in principle and injurious in practice, or, at 
 least, by suspending its operation until the other engagements 
 
460 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OE BEACONSFIELD . 
 
 into which we have entered — namely, these Exchequer bonds — 
 are provided for. I feel certain that it will be utterly impos- 
 sible, with public advantage, to maintain the system which now 
 exists by law, to which the wisest men of all times have ex- 
 pressed an adverse opinion ; which the labours of a learned and 
 distinguished committee of this House, in devising a general 
 Sinking Fund, have really superseded ; and which is not needed 
 to maintain the credit, while if preserved it will impair the 
 finances, of the country. Therefore I shall recommend to the 
 Committee, so far as that 1,500,000^. a year is concerned, a 
 course which, for the present certainly, shall prevent its em- 
 barrassing the finances of the country. We have now to deal 
 with 2,500,000L of deficit, if the Committee sanction the coiuse 
 which I have just proposed, and I must say that I view the 
 engagement which we have entered into with regard to the 
 Exchequer bonds in a very different light and spirit irom that in 
 which I view the War Sinking Fund. I have been told that 
 there is the easiest possible way of meeting that portion of the 
 deficit, and that is, to fund it ; but if I were to take that course, 
 it would be one which, in my mind, would be quite unjustifiable ; 
 unless, indeed, the country were in an emergency in which all 
 the principles of finance must give way to political considerations. 
 But in times like these in which we find ourselves, I think it 
 would be highly undesirable and improper to contemplate such 
 a course, seeing that it would be totally contrary to the condi- 
 tions into which the Parliament and the Government of the 
 country entered when they agreed to issue these terminable 
 securities. It would be to me, I confess, a source of the greatest 
 satisfaction to meet, and to meet to the hour, those engage- 
 ments ; but there is a great deal to be considered before we 
 arrive at that conclusion. With regard to a loan, I imagine 
 • there is but one feeling on both sides of the House — namely, 
 that, whatever may be the deficit, that is the last expedient to 
 which we must have recourse. To these Exchequer bonds, how- 
 ever, applies the same difficulty which applies to the War Sink- 
 ing Fund. If they are to be met by a new tax, it must be an 
 excessive tax to produce upwards of 2,000,000?. ; and when it 
 has produced that amount, where are you ? Still in deficit. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS. BUDGET, APEIL 1858. 461 
 
 But if you cannot meet them immediately, I think, at all 
 events, that the Committee will agree that the spirit of the en- 
 gagements should be fulfilled — that they should be engage- 
 ments which we are resolved to meet out of the revenue of the 
 country, and that we should guard as much as possible against 
 their ever becoming a permanent addition to the public debt. 
 Still, seeing the deficiency that awaits me, even if those engage- 
 ments are provided for, and anxious as I should be at once to 
 provide for them, I feel it my duty, in order to place the finances 
 of the country, not merely for this year, but for future years, in 
 a position which I think will be advantageous to the country, 
 to recommend to the Committee to postpone for some period the 
 payment of the Exchequer bonds ; but to consent to arrange- 
 ments which, so far as I can form an opinion, will secure their 
 being paid out of the revenue of the country, and which will 
 place our general finances in such a position that they will form 
 no obstacle to those arrangements which I think it would be 
 for the interest of the country to adopt. I will postpone describ- 
 ing, however, to a future portion of my remarks — when the 
 time will naturally arrive that I should touch upon this portion 
 of the subject more particularly — the mode in which I propose 
 that the arrangements should be accomplished. Now, Sir, I have 
 considered that part of the deficit which is occasioned by en- 
 gagements to pay debts, and which is no doubt much the most 
 considerable portion of it. There is next a part of the deficit to 
 be considered which, though not so large in proportion, is of a 
 character which must be regarded in a severer hght than the 
 other ; because we cannot reconcile ourselves to arrangements 
 which in any other case may be justifiable or necessary, when 
 the deficit is occasioned — no matter what may have been the 
 original cause — by an absolute falling off in the revenue. An 
 absolute falling off in the revenue must be met by means which 
 will not only supply the deficiency, but will also place the 
 general condition of the revenue in a sound and satisfactory 
 state. This portion of the deficit has been occasioned by the 
 cessation of a tax, and that tax one of a memorable character 
 — one to which we cannot bring our minds free from consider- 
 ations beyond those of a merely fiscal and financial character ; 
 
462 SPEECHES OF THE EAUL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 and it certainly appears to me that upon the decision of the 
 Committee, with respect to that source of deficit, the future 
 satisfactory management of the finances of the country will 
 very much depend. Sir, the property and income tax has long 
 and frequently occupied the consideration of this House. I 
 think I may say that it has never ceased to occupy the thoughts 
 and to interest the feelings of the country. It is a tax the im- 
 portance of which is not to be measured simply by its financial 
 results. Those who pay it do not consider merely the sums 
 which they yield to the Exchequer, but the mode in which, it is 
 assessed, and the manner in which it is levied ; so that from the 
 earliest time that it has occupied the consideration of Parlia- 
 ment to the present, social and political principles have been 
 involved in its character and consideration. 
 
 It is not necessary for me to remind the Committee of the 
 manner in which this tax has habitually and traditionally been 
 described in Parliament. The epithets which were applied to 
 it, and in which the greatest men have been used to charac- 
 terise it, are in the memory, as they have often been on the lips, 
 of gentlemen on both sides of this House ; that it is 'unjust, 
 unequal, and inquisitorial,' all of us have felt, and most of us 
 have acknowledged. There are, I think, two great classes of 
 reasons why the income-tax should not form a permanent feature 
 of our finance. The first class I may call domestic ; the second 
 springs rather from considerations of an external character. 
 The feeling of the community generally of the inequality, of 
 the injustice, and of the odious nature of this tax, has unfor- 
 tunately been sanctioned and concurred in by all those states- 
 men who have felt the necessity of levying it ; and it has been 
 impossible to maintain it for any considerable time, or to adopt 
 it as a permanent feature of our financial system, without great 
 acerbity of feeling and much violent controversy being excited 
 as to its character and its incidence. If you wish to estabUsh 
 it you have an endless crowd of controversies of the most angry 
 character upon these among other points : whether there shall 
 be recognised a difiference between property and income assess- 
 ment ; whether, if that difference be not acknowledged, a dif- 
 ference shall be admitted between precarious and permanent 
 
WAYS AND MEANS. BUDGET, APRIL 1868. 463 
 
 incomes ; whether there shall be a difference between incomes 
 derived from trade and incomes derived from professions ; 
 whether the poor man shall be exempted, and what a poor man 
 really is ; what is income and what are wages ; who shall be 
 exempted; where ought the line of exemption to be drawn; and 
 the convenience of an exemption which shall exclude all but 
 those who are called rich. 
 
 These are some of the subjects which have always been 
 raised in this country when an attempt has been made to 
 establish the income-tax for any lengthened period. These 
 agitations have not of late prevailed. But why, let me ask, has 
 that been the case ? It is because in 1853, after a great deal 
 of agitation throughout the country upon this subject had 
 taken place ; after a committee had sat for two years to investi- 
 gate it ; and after all sorts of plans and expedients devised by 
 every manner of man had been considered in reference to it, an 
 eminent member of this House (Mr. Grladstone) brought forward 
 a great financial scheme in which, acknowledging the impossi- 
 bility of reconstructing this tax upon principles of justice — upon 
 principles which could satisfy the fair demands and expectations 
 of society — he submitted to the notice of the House a proposi- 
 tion, the effect of which would be to secure its diminution and 
 final extinction at the end of a certain term of years. That 
 scheme was brought forward with consummate ability ; and 
 having been supported in the House of Commons by an over- 
 whelming majority, created the conviction in the public mind 
 that in its spirit the arrangement would be carried into effect, 
 and that the financial policy which was in 1853 propounded 
 was one which both Parliament and the country had cordially 
 embraced and sanctioned. I do not wish to overstate the case. 
 To do so would not be to my interest, as it certainly is not my 
 inclination. I shall not say that a solemn compact was entered 
 into at the time to which I allude between Parliament and the 
 country upon this subject, which should be regarded as inde- 
 pendent of all circumstances and events. That is a position 
 which it would be wild and idle to assume, and absurd to 
 attempt to upbold. There were, however, arrangements 
 cordially entered into, and in the same spirit understood, and 
 
464 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 which the country expected would be religiously fulfilled if the 
 interposition of extraordinary circumstances did not render their 
 fulfilment impossible. Well, circumstances of that character 
 did take place. A great national emergency occurred, and 
 what, let me ask, in that hour did that people do who had pre- 
 viously murmured at the injustice of the principle upon which 
 the income-tax was established? When the safety of the 
 country was endangered ; when her honour and her best interests 
 were at stake ; what did they do who, before the arrangement 
 of the right honourable gentleman the member for the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford was brought forward — an arrangement which 
 they had cordially accepted — had complained of the unequal 
 mode in which this tax was levied upon the various classes of 
 the community : what, I repeat, did they do when the scheme 
 the right honourable gentleman devised was not only arrested 
 in its progress, but the tax itself made the increased source from 
 which the power of England flowed forth to support the honour 
 and interests of the country ? Did they murmur ? Not for 
 an instant. On the contrary, everybody did his utmost to prove 
 to England and to the world that there was no burden to which 
 our people would hesitate to contribute at a moment of national 
 emergency ; the income-tax was raised to a very large amount, 
 and during the period to which I refer, when the country clearly 
 understood that it was absolutely necessary this increased in- 
 come-tax should continue to be levied, not a voice was raised 
 against its imposition. It was not until peace had been secured 
 that the nation called for a remission of the war taxation in this 
 particular. When that great object was happily attained, we 
 heard again the expression of its expectation that the arrange- 
 ment of 1853 would be carried into effect. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the breaking out of the war 
 caused a considerable difference in our position as compared 
 with that in which we stood at the period at which the arrange- 
 ment was originally introduced. The permanent charge on om* 
 debt had become in consequence largely increased. We became 
 liable to encumbrances, such, for instance, as these Exchequer 
 bonds, which must be met, and which constitute impediments 
 in the way of adhering to the arrangements of 1853 that 
 
"WAYS AKD MEANS. BUDaET, APRIL 1858. 465 
 
 could not well be foreseen. These, however, are circumstances 
 which a sensible' people would not fail to accept as furnishing 
 good grounds for delay in the diminution or extinction of the 
 income-tax. They do not, however, constitute sufficiently 
 strong reasons why the country should be prepared to regard 
 the arrangement of 1853 as visionary and fantastic. I cannot 
 help feeling, then, that if on these grounds the arrangement 
 was to be wholly abandoned there would be a very natural 
 sentiment of disappointment among the people. Such a dis- 
 appointment would be calculated to irritate them, and, there- 
 fore, looking to those domestic considerations which un- 
 doubtedly prevail — namely, that the very principle of the tax 
 is one which creates public discontent, and is calculated to 
 irritate the public mind — it is highly inexpedient that it should 
 form a permanent feature of our financial system. I may now 
 be permitted to advert to other grounds which, although they 
 may not so generally influence public opinion as those which 
 I have just mentioned, yet are, I think, well deserving of our 
 consideration in dealing with this important question. They 
 embrace considerations arising out of the occurrence of some 
 extraordinary emergency, and are of a political nature. Is 
 it not of the highest importance, I would ask, that the 
 sovereign of this country should, notwithstanding the immense 
 revenue which is annually raised to support the vast establish- 
 ments of this country, be able, with the concurrence of her 
 Parliament, to touch at any moment, as it were by a spring, a 
 source of revenue which in an hour of great emergency would 
 yield 20,000,000^. or 25,000,000^. sterling, a sum equal to those 
 large loans which foreign potentates raise at a ruinous rate of 
 interest, and one of which almost exhausts the resources of 
 their subjects ; that year after year, notwithstanding the large 
 sums raised for the purposes of general revenue, the sovereign 
 of this country should be able to raise during a war an enormous 
 sum, without a murmur on the lips of a single person in the 
 dominions ? That is a reason drawn from political considera- 
 tions — and I know that the right honourable gentleman the 
 member for the University of Oxford has advocated the pro- 
 position in language more unequivocal than any other states- 
 VOL. I. H H 
 
466 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 man in this House — that the income-tax should not be allowed 
 to constitute a permanent feature of our financial system. 
 
 But, Sir, although that may be my opinion, and although I 
 cannot but think it is the opinion of the great majority of the 
 House of Commons ; although there are grounds of the highest 
 political expediency which render it desirable that the arrange- 
 ment of 1853 should be carried out in spirit, if not in the letter, 
 it is still undoubtedly possible that the country, anxious as it 
 may be to witness the realisation of its expectations in that 
 respect, and having the utmost confidence that Parliament is 
 really and in all sincerity disposed to meet its wishes upon the 
 point, still may not be unprepared, knowing that a deficiency 
 in the revenue exists, to submit to the burden of the income-' 
 tax which it bore last year. The people of England may say, 
 ' A very great deficit lies before us. It is not, after all, so great 
 as we thought it would be some time ago. If we submit to an 
 income-tax at the same rate as that of last year, we shall get 
 rid of this deficit, and we must trust to the future.' Now, that 
 is a view of the case which it is my duty to place before the 
 House. We have a deficit in our revenues, not occasioned by 
 our engagements to pay a debt, but by a cessation of taxes, 
 which deficit must be made good by taxation, and which would 
 be converted into a surplus if the Committee should think 
 proper to continue the income-tax for another year at the same 
 rate as last year. The Committee may take that course, and 
 take it, too, with the sincere intention of carrying the scheme 
 of the right honourable gentleman the member for the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford into effect. But there are other considerations 
 which ought to influence our decisions with respect to this 
 question. 
 
 The country has behaved extremely well during the last five 
 years in matters of taxation. At no period of English history 
 has so much public spirit been exhibited upon the part of the 
 community in that particular, and I think that that spirit is 
 worthy of all respect. There is no doubt that this country 
 generally has this question of the income-tax greatly at heart. 
 It has for a long time clung to the belief that, notwithstanding 
 the adverse circumstances which have interposed, there has 
 
WAYS AND MEANS. .BUDGET, APRIL 1858. 467 
 
 existed on the part of Parliament a sincere intention to diminish 
 and eventually extinguish this tax ; and I cannot but feel that 
 if I were to ask you to take a course which would look like 
 breaking your promises with the nation in that respect, and to 
 seek to get out of our difficulty by again passing a law which 
 would prevent the remission, I should be calling upon you to 
 adopt a policy which would be but too well calculated to sonr 
 the public mind. The result of such a policy would be that, 
 when a great emergency again arose, you would not then be in 
 a position to appeal to the country with the same success, or to 
 expect to have your appeal met with the same cordial response 
 which upon a recent occasion awaited the minister who had the 
 direction of the national finances. I feel, therefore, bound to 
 announce it as the deliberate opinion of Her Majesty's minis- 
 ters, that the deficit in the revenue which I have broiight under 
 your notice ought not to be supplied by proposing an increase 
 in the income-tax. But, Sir, if the income-tax is not to be 
 disturbed ; if the income-tax for this year is only to give us 
 the reduced rate of 5d. — and we propose that course — the 
 House must feel that it is absolutely necessary to support the 
 revenue of the country by the imposition of new taxes. 
 
 I know that I may be told by some gentlemen that you can 
 obtain the relief you want by a reduction of expenditure. 
 Allow me to say that reduction of expenditure is not a task that 
 can be undertaken in haste and heat. It requires time — deep, 
 protracted, and minute investigation — and although it might 
 be very easy to effect certain reductions, which might be very 
 popular in the House for the moment, yet unless they are well 
 considered and founded on mature investigation and ample 
 knowledge, they would only lead to a swift and fatal reaction and 
 to increased expenditure. Now, we have made some reductions 
 in expenditure. We have made reductions which could be 
 made with safety, and in amount not contemptible. Allow me 
 to say that in meeting the difficult financial position we have 
 had to encounter a reduction in expenditure of 800,000i., which 
 we have made this year, is an item not to be despised. But 
 let me impress upon the Committee that which I have presumed 
 to say on previous occasions : reduction depends on policy. It 
 
 H H 2 
 
468 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 is quite a wild idea that a body of men, though they may be 
 ministers, can meet in a room and suddenly alter the establish- 
 ments of the country. The establishments of the country are 
 adapted to the policy which the country pursues, and if you 
 sanction a policy which leads to invasion, to armaments, and 
 consequently to expenditure, you cannot expect because there 
 is a change of ministers that you can deal with that expenditure 
 unless you deal with that policy. Really sound reduction is 
 the effect of time and thoughtful management, and is not in a 
 few hasty weeks to be concocted in order to obtain popular 
 applause. I say, therefore, that it was utterly impossible for 
 us to deal with the expenditure of the country during the 
 period in which we have held the responsible position of 
 ministers. We have succeeded to arrangements — difficult 
 arrangements — which we must manage as best we can ; and 
 therefore, now that there is a deficit in the revenue, you must 
 not — unmindful of the not inconsiderable retrenchment safely 
 and honourably effected by us — say that we ought to meet it 
 by reductions. What we have to deal with is the difficulty 
 which is immediately before us. When we have opportunity 
 and time, we can submit the establishments of this country to 
 such severe revision as they may require, and, with favourable 
 circumstances, effect considerable retrenchments in those 
 establishments ; but it would be worse than mockery to pretend 
 that we are able to do so all of a moment. 
 
 In the ungracious office of selecting anew tax, I am at least 
 somewhat upheld by the consolatory conviction that every 
 person who may be called on to pay it, will either directly or 
 indirectly feel the benefit of the considerable remission of taxa- 
 tion which occurs this year by the fall in the rate of the income- 
 tax. When we remember what the country expected, I hope 
 the Committee will not forget, in the consideration which they 
 may give to my proposition, that we start with the fact that, by 
 the operation of the law, the community are already entitled to, 
 and soon will enjoy a considerable diminution of that tax so 
 peculiarly odious to the people ; and that benefit the country 
 will not measure simply by the amount of the remission, but 
 will also accept as an earnest that the policy of 1853 will be 
 
"WAYS AND MEANS. BUDGET, APRIL 1858. 469 
 
 carried out. The mode in which I would attempt mainly to 
 supply the deficiency is, by asking the House to agree to a 
 proposition which appears to me reasonable and wise. I would 
 ask them to agree to equalise the duties on spirits. The 
 Committee will recollect that we have been legislating on this 
 subject now for several years. We have, consequently, great 
 experience to guide us as to the course we should adopt, and 
 the results we may obtain. I think it was in 1853 that the 
 duties on English, Scotch, and Irish spirits were raised. They 
 were raised considerably with great benefit to the Exchequer, 
 with increased consumption, and without the slightest appear- 
 ance of illicit distillation. They were, I believe, in the follow- 
 ing years increased with the same result. In 1855 the right 
 honourable gentleman the member for Radnor (Sir George 
 Lewis) equalised the duties on English and Scotch spirits. 
 Well, that was a step taken with some apprehension ; but what 
 was the consequence? Great advantage to the revenue, 
 increased consumption, no appearance of illicit distillation, and, 
 stranger than all, the greatest benefit was experienced by the 
 Scotch, whose duties were raised. That may appear a paradox ; 
 but it is a dry fact, and is accounted for in a moment, because, 
 by the raising of the duty, they were freed from embarrassing 
 and ruinous restrictions, and had the full enjoyment of the 
 markets of England. 
 
 We have much experience, I say again, to guide us. Since 
 1855, the duties on spirits have been raised, having been 
 equalised between England and Scotland, while a difi'erential 
 duty still remains in favour of Ireland. The duties have again 
 been raised, and the results have been equally satisfactory. I 
 have taken some pains to obtain the best information on the 
 subject, and, from what I hear, there is not the slightest ap- 
 pearance of illicit distillation. Look at the position of Ireland. 
 At this moment the only differential duty that remains between 
 Ireland and Great 'Britain is the differential duty on spirits. I 
 am sure that my Irish friends, who are always demanding 
 justice for Ireland, and who define that justice to consist in an 
 identity of institutions, of rights, of duties, cannot on reflection 
 consider the position in which they are placed by this dif- 
 
470 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD, 
 
 ferential duty on spirits with any other but feelings of indignant 
 humiliation. 
 
 I remember once, when I was at Bristol, a ship came in 
 from Ireland, and, to my great surprise, I saw it boarded in- 
 stantly by Custom House ofiScers, and the crew treated just the 
 same as a parcel of foreigners. All this was to see if there were 
 any Irish spirits in the hold, which, if they had come in unde- 
 tected, would have paid a duty of 6s. 2d., instead of 8s. Was 
 that a position for high-spirited Irishmen to be placed in ? 
 How much better will it be for the Irish to have the command 
 of the English market, and not only of the English, but of the 
 British market ; how much better for them to enter into active 
 competition with English and with Scotch spirits, and, instead 
 of confining themselves to the supply of a mere provincial 
 demand, to be entitled to pour their admirable products — which 
 I am told the French now prefer even to their own brandy — 
 how much better for them to pour their spirits into this country, 
 and tlirough this country into the Continent, and thus give a 
 great stimulus to trade. 
 
 Sir, I cannot help feeling that this is a tax of which the 
 Committee will generally approve ; and I trust that I shall 
 experience no opposition on the part of my Irish friends, and 
 that not a single murmur will be called forth by my proposal. 
 If, however, there is a murmur among any of them, I would ask 
 them to consider, first, the position of the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer ; and, next, to bear in mind with what pride and 
 satisfaction they will return to their native country when 
 they are able to tell their constituents that that income-tax 
 with which they were visited — not by me, I may observe (they 
 will remember that), but which, somehow or other, by means 
 I never could penetrate, was unexpectedly fastened upon their 
 necks — has been shaken to its centre ; that that real badge of 
 their yoke has been nearly got rid of; that they have given a 
 fatal blow to it. In the recollection of that cheerful circum- 
 stance, they will, I hope, find ample compensation for any 
 annoyance which they might otherwise experience from this 
 change in the spirit-duties. The Committee will therefore, I 
 trust, sanction my proposition for the equalisation of spirit- 
 
WAYS ANB MEANS. BUDGET, APRIL 1858. 471 
 
 duties throughout the three kingdoms. That measure will give 
 to the Exchequer the sum of at least 500,000?., which is the 
 amount of the deficit. 
 
 I am much obliged to the Committee for bearing with me 
 while I have submitted to them this somewhat lengthened 
 statement ; but I am sure they will remember my position is 
 not one of ordinary difficulty, because I have been obliged by 
 process of analysis to operate upon a large deficit, and, of 
 course, to touch upon many circumstances. The Committee 
 will now consider that if the course which I humbly recommend 
 be adopted, the deficit has disappeared. We have put an end 
 to the War Sinking Fund, or postponed its operation to the 
 happy day when the Exchequer bonds shall be paid out of our 
 revenue ; we have agreed to an arrangement, to which I shall 
 hereafter revert, with reference to our Exchequer bonds, and 
 prevented them from forming any obstacle in the way of placing 
 our financial system fairly in order ; and, lastly, by the proposal 
 to equaUse the duties on spirits, we have entirely got rid of 
 the deficit. But I deem it advisable, besides, that we should 
 add something to the revenue in the shape of a surplus. I 
 shall not press much upon the resources of the country or the 
 patience of the Committee in this respect, because the state of 
 our balances is very satisfactory, and because a very large and 
 unusual amount will be added to them in the course of this 
 year. Nay, if I had chosen to avail myself of it, a sum of 
 400,000L might fairly be brought into the revenue of the year. 
 I have thought it best, however, not to bolster up the finances, 
 and I have felt that on the whole the Committee would rather 
 see the case under- than over-stated. But the East India Com- 
 pany, who owed to the State 1,500,000L, have already paid 
 1,000,000L of that sum towards the reduction of the war 
 expenditure of this year. This amount was lent out of revenue, 
 and it was agreed that it should be paid in to revenue. There 
 is yet .400,000L, therefore, which, strictly speaking, might 
 fairly take credit for the Budget ; but I thought it best, on 
 the whole, to make an unvarnished statement to the Com- 
 mittee. Nevertheless, that 400,000L will at all events be paid 
 into the Exchequer. Then there is a balance upon repayments 
 
472 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 over advances of this year of probably not less than 600,000L 
 There are also moneys to be paid, both on account of the interest 
 and the sinking fund of the Sardinian loan. There are, too, 
 other items : so that a very large sum will be paid in the course 
 of the year to the account of our balances, ■which, as the Com- 
 mittee will have observed from the balance-sheet, were them- 
 selves at the end of the year in a satisfactory position. This, 
 therefore, seeing the state of the balances of the Exchequer ; 
 remembering (which is really the fact) that in the estimate of 
 revenue which I have placed before the Committee, I have most 
 scrupulously refrained from indulging in any but moderate 
 expectations, feeling, indeed, that if I had adopted the sanguine 
 views which many persons in authority would have sanctioned, 
 I might have ventured on much more cheerful figures ; looking, 
 moreover at the great efforts which .the country has made, I 
 should not have thought it necessary, under all these circum- 
 stances, to trouble the Committee much on the subject of a 
 surplus. But a surplus of some kind ought, I believe, to be 
 provided, even though it be a small one ; and, confident in the 
 resources of the revenue, I think a small one shoidd, under the 
 circumstances, sufiice. Now, so far as I can form an opinion 
 on the subject from conversation with men of business, there is 
 no mode of taxation more popular than the application of stamps 
 to various operations of commerce. No one feels the burden 
 of it ; it is a mode of taxation which, on the whole, occasions 
 less annoyance than any other, and I think, in fact, it is rather 
 popular. 
 
 The penny postage system first brought taxation by means 
 of these slight stamps into fashion. People like to see vast 
 results accomplished by slight means. I therefore propose that 
 whenever we draw a cheque we should place a penny stamp 
 upon it. I am assured by one who upon such a subject must 
 be considered of the highest authority, and who has very com- 
 pletely mastered this question, that I may count on a sum of 
 not less than 300,000?. from this source. Of course there may 
 be objections to the tax, but every man who draws a cheque 
 must remember that he has now to pay an income-tax of only 
 5d. instead of 7c?., and obtaining as he does the remission of the 
 
WAYS AND MEANS. BUDGET, APRIL 1858. 473 
 
 income-tax, and seeing the foundation of its future extinction 
 laid, he must feel that, under the circumstances, some sacrifice 
 must be made. I hope, therefore, the Committee will agree 
 ■with me that this is a mode of taxation, if it can be called such, 
 which they will not refuse to sanction. Considering the posi- 
 tion of the Exchequer at this moment, I am not prepared to 
 ask the Committee to impose any other taxes. I would ask 
 them, however, to permit me for a moment to remind them of 
 what may be the position of this country in the year following 
 the present ; for, although we hear many taunts about ' prospec- 
 tive finance,' I think that any person in the office which I now 
 have the honour to occupy would be greatly wanting in his 
 duty if he brought forward any proposition without having ex- 
 ercised some foresight in regard to it, and weighed in some 
 manner its influence upon our future prospects, Now let us 
 see, if the arrangements which I have proposed are agreed to 
 by the Committee, what will be our prospects in the year 
 following this. You will have again a loss on the income-tax, 
 as compared with your present revenue of 1,000,000L; and 
 assuming that all things remain the same, and that your 
 revenue and expenditure are exactly what they are now, you 
 wiU have a loss in 1859-60 of 1,000,000L in your income-tax, 
 while 2,000,000L of Exchequer bonds will become due. You 
 will have this 3,000,000L, reduced by the amount of surplus 
 which I may obtain this year ; but say that you have to meet 
 3,000,000L of deficit. Now, I put it to the Committee — ^is that a 
 prospect which ought to alarm us ? Can we entertain a doubt 
 but that with a fair amount of commercial prosperity, with a 
 fair revival of trade in this country, the resources of our 
 revenue, aided by well-considered and wise retrenchments, will 
 be sufficient under these circumstances to meet our engage- 
 ment to pay these bonds, and to encounter that diminution of 
 income ? Well, if you do that — and I feel confident that you 
 will be able, should no disaster against which human provision 
 is unavailing overtake the country — in what position shall we 
 stand in that famous 1860 which has been the pivot of modern 
 finance ? There are certainly 1,000,000L of bonds due in that 
 year j but you will have annuities to the amount of something 
 
474 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 like 2,15O,OO0L per annum expiring at that time, when I hope 
 and believe you will possess a large, abounding surplus of 
 revenue ; and you will be able, if not to the letter, at least in 
 spirit, to accomplish the plan of the right honourable gentle- 
 man the member for the University of Oxford. It is for that 
 reason, in order that we may act fairly, candidly and sincerely 
 towards the country on this question ; in order that the wise 
 arrangements of the right honourable gentleman may be carried 
 out, and that that great policy — for a great policy with regard 
 to the income-tax I believe it to be — should be accomphshed, 
 that I shall propose not to encumber 1860 or 1861 with the 
 whole of the bonds which at present we cannot meet, but I shall 
 propose that in 1862 and 1863 1,000,000Z. should be appor- 
 tioned to each year. When that is done, I have little doubt 
 the policy of 1853 will be carried into effect. 
 
 Sir, I now submit these propositions to the consideration of 
 the Committee. When they recollect the expectations of the 
 coxmtry as to the revenue, and the fact that at the end of last 
 year — and, indeed, so lately as the period at which I assumed 
 office — the estimated deficiency we should have to encounter 
 was not less than 6,500,000L, I hope they will not be dissatisfied 
 that by the rallying of the revenue during the last quarter ; by 
 judicious retrenchments ; by measures sound in principle and 
 judicious in apphcation, the immense deficit that so long 
 brooded over the spirit and depressed the energy of the country 
 has been dissipated and that, too, with a remission of taxation 
 in respect to the particular impost most odious to the people, 
 in a manner which guarantees an accomplishment of the policy 
 of the right honourable gentleman the member for the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford. This result will, I think, be satisfactory to the 
 country, as well as to the Committee, and I trust the proposi- 
 tions I have made will not only receive the candid consideration 
 of the Committee, but obtain, after due thought and discussion, 
 the cordial acceptance of the coimtry. 
 
475 
 
 ME. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET, February 24, 1860. 
 
 [Mr. Disraeli himself says that the two speeches which follow, 
 delivered respectively on February 24, 1860, and April 8, 1862, 
 summarise Mr. Gladstone's financial career. ' The one passes judg- 
 ment on his policy from 1853 to 1860, with a warning which has 
 been almost literally fulfilled ; the other reviews it from the passing 
 of the French Treaty to the present day, 1862.' I have therefore 
 thought it unnecessary to give any others on the same subject. The 
 following was delivered on the occasion of a resolution moved by Mr. 
 Ducane : ' That while this Committee is desirous to relieve the trade 
 of the country from all duties of Customs which can safely be dis- 
 pensed with, it does not think it expedient to add to the existing 
 deficiency by diminishing the ordinary revenue, and is not prepared 
 to disappoint the j ust expectations of the country by rendering neces- 
 sary a large increase of the income-tax.' This was the year of the 
 commercial treaty with France, when the great reduction in the wine 
 duties was effected.] 
 
 ME. DISEAELI : I rise to answer the challenge of the right 
 honourable gentleman, and to interpret that indignant 
 negative which he heard from my friends behind, and which I 
 should like to translate to the House. The right honourable 
 gentleman has stated that the motion made by my honour- 
 able friend the member for Essex is one that impugns the 
 whole policy of commercial legislation for the last eighteen 
 years. He says that the measures which he has introduced 
 and the policy which he recommends are precisely the same as 
 those which on preceding occasions have received the sanction 
 of Parliament and the approbation- of the nation. He says 
 that if the House accedes to this motion we are declaring that 
 we entirely disapprove all that has been done in those eighteen 
 years to revise our commercial code. But I join issue at once 
 with the right honourable gentleman. I deny that there is 
 
476 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 that similarity between the measures which he introduces and 
 those to which he refers. Sir Eobert Peel, in 1842, in 1845, 
 and the right honourable gentleman himself, in 1853, certainly 
 found or made deficits, but when they proposed a tax like the 
 income-tax it was for a period which covered the interval 
 during which the experiment might have fair play, which 
 would rally the revenue, and bring about the result that was 
 held forth to the House as probable and desirable. But 
 what we charge against the measures of the right honour- 
 able gentleman is this — that he has found a deficit and made a 
 deficit, and has not proposed measures which will secure fair play 
 to any experiment by which that deficit can be supplied. The 
 whole speech of the right honourable gentleman depended on this 
 position. If the position of the right honourable gentleman is 
 not sound — as I hope I shall succeed in showing to the House — 
 the whole of his conclusions fall to the ground. The House, I 
 am sure, will generously remember, though the hour is late, 
 that this is not an occasion on which I should shrink from 
 representing the opinions of the party which I have the honom: 
 to represent. I will therefore consider, as briefly as I possibly 
 can, and for the moment in a merely financial point of view, 
 the plan of the right honourable gentleman, and I will see how 
 it agrees with the position he has laid down, and how you can 
 reconcile it with the character he has given of the motion of my 
 honourable friend. Of this Budget of the right honourable 
 gentleman I would say this — that it aims at too much and 
 provides too little. The right honourable gentleman finds a 
 deficit ; he increases that deficit, and he closes his proposition 
 with introducing a tax of a very extensive character and which 
 is to exist only for a short term. The right honourable gentle- 
 man has, I think, estimated his deficiency at nearly nine millions 
 and a half — 9,400,000. When the right honourable gentle- 
 man made his financial statement the army estimates were not 
 on the table — at least few gentlemen had enjoyed the opportunity 
 of studying them ; I, at least, had not been able to examine 
 them. But I think no one can deny, who has looked over 
 these estimates, that it would be a moderate calculation to 
 estimate that the sums on account of the army expenditure 
 
MR. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET, FEBRUAEY 1860. 477 
 
 would not be less than a million beyond what appears in the 
 estimates. We have heard to-night that regiments have been 
 sent to China from the Indian establishment, and that the 
 moment they arrive in China they will be on the British 
 establishment. We have also heard to-night of regiments 
 from India, which are expected in England, and which the 
 moment they arrive will be on the British establishment. In 
 the estimates we found one vote of half a million for the 
 Chinese war, which everyone felt at the moment was a 
 ludicrous amount. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer : You are not to suppose 
 that the vote of credit represents the whole charge of the 
 Chinese war. It only represents certain extraordinary charges 
 which could not be stated in the ordinary estimates. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli : Certainly the sum of 500,000^ would appear 
 at the first blush very unequal to the occasion. The estimate 
 has already assumed the dimensions of 850,000L 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer was understood to dis- 
 sent. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli : Without at this moment dwelling too much 
 on the estimates, it would be a very sanguine anticipation on 
 the part of the House to suppose that the deficit assumed by 
 the right honourable gentleman would not be exceeded. The 
 right honourable gentleman with this deficit of 9,400,000L 
 will next year find wanting those malt and hop credits for 
 d,400,000L, of which we have heard so much, and against the 
 appropriation of which I protest as a measure utterly un- 
 sound in finance, and of which I am quite surprised that the right 
 honourable gentleman should ever have proposed to avail him- 
 self. I remember that in 1852 I proposed, as a measure of 
 reform, the extinction of a very small office connected with the 
 Treasury which had a comparatively small sum of public money 
 intrusted to its administration — I believe, not more than 
 350,000L I proposed that that sum should be taken in the 
 revenue of the year, and I did so only in order to secure a 
 surplus, so that the amount would probably have been found in 
 the balances of the Exchequer. The right honourable gentle- 
 man denounced that project as one which could be justified on 
 
478 SPEECHES OF THE EABL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 no ground whatever, and called for the reprobation of Parlia- 
 ment, upon it ; but what he is now doing is just the same thing, 
 only upon a much greater scale, and under circumstances much 
 less justifiable. Then we have in addition the question of the 
 million of Exchequer bonds. I understand that the country is 
 in a position of unexampled prosperity. If we cannot pay our 
 debts at such a time when can we ? When I asked, the other 
 night, the Secretary to the Treasury, in the absence of the 
 right honourable gentleman, how and when he proposed to pay 
 that million of Exchequer bonds, the reply I received was a 
 courteous reminder that I had in 1858 postponed the payment 
 of 2,000,000L of Exchequer bonds. Surely he recollected the 
 circumstances under which I took that step ? That was not a 
 time of unexampled prosperity. The country was still stagger- 
 ing under a great commercial panic. The week before Parlia- 
 ment met, in the beginning of the year, the minimum rate of 
 discount was 10 per cent., and it was felt by everybody that it 
 was totally impossible under those circumstances to propose 
 taxes which would press especially on the commercial classes, 
 then suffering from such startling and fatal depression. The 
 proposition I made was unanimously adopted by the House, 
 and no one under the circumstances raised the slightest 
 protest against it ; but I see no similarity between the circum- 
 stances of that year and those of this year of unrivalled 
 prosperity with which we are now dealing. 
 
 What we object to in the scheme of the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer is that it does not resemble the transactions of 
 1842 or of 1845. It does not resemble the operations of Sir 
 Eobert Peel, or even those operations of 1853 which he himself 
 introduced in this House. It is because the right honourable 
 gentleman has neglected to take that security, because we find 
 his plan is improvident, and consequently, under the circum- 
 stances, extremely dangerous, that we ask the House to inter- 
 pose and express its opinion upon the propositions submitted 
 to them. What will be our situation a year hence ? It may 
 not under ordinary circumstances be discreet to indulge in 
 very prospective finance; but it appears to me it would be 
 perfect madness, in our present situation, not to contemplate 
 
MR. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET, FEBRUARY 1860. 479 
 
 what will be our position in 1861. The right honourable 
 member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring), who has some expe- 
 rience on such subjects, has calculated the amount of deficit. 
 I confess I shall be surprised, I need hardly say pleased, to find 
 it does not exceed that amount ; but if the possible deficit in 
 1861 be merely 12,000,000L, surely the House should pause 
 before it sanctions the proposition of the right honourable 
 gentleman and should hesitate, with such a prospect in view, 
 before it accedes to measures which must necessarily, according 
 to the right honoiirable gentleman's own account, increase the 
 deficit and augment the pressure of 1861. The right honour- 
 able gentleman seems to be disappointed that more than one 
 speaker in this debate has contemplated the dangerous and 
 inevitable consequences, in such a state of affairs, of attempt- 
 ing to fasten the expenditure of the country upon direct taxa- 
 tion ; and he has brought forward a paper to show how, in all 
 recent impositions of taxation, there has not been that fair 
 proportion between direct and indirect taxation imposed which 
 he believes is just and highly politic. But there is this fallacy 
 in the paper which the right honourable gentleman read, and 
 the inferences which he draws from it. We do not object to a 
 fair proportion of direct taxation in our financial system. 
 What we do object to is that direct taxation should take the 
 form of an income-tax on this large scale. It is not fair in the 
 right honourable gentleman always to state the question as one 
 of competition between direct and indirect taxation, and de- 
 scribe this side of the House as being always the advocates of 
 the indirect against the direct system. The question is not as 
 to which system is superior. There are but few in this House 
 who contemplate a time when a considerable amount of indirect 
 taxation must not form a part of our financial system. But 
 the question is whether that form of direct taxation, which no 
 one has denounced in more unsparing terms than the right 
 honourable gentleman, the national evils of which he has pro- 
 claimed the demoralising influence of which on the people he 
 has described in glowing terms, shall continue to exist, and not 
 only exist, but be increased under his administration, and go on 
 increasing in a ratio that none can contemplate without appre- 
 
480 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 hension. That is the question. More than one honourable 
 gentleman has addressed us in this way. We are told we are 
 advocating the interests of a class, and that we do not consider 
 sufficiently the interests of the masses that we now learn from 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer will probably elect the new 
 Parliament. I deny the justice of this observation. 
 
 There is a class of political philosophers, certainly repre- 
 sented in the present House of Commons, who think that they 
 will elevate a nation by degrading it into a mob. I do not 
 share this opinion. The contributors to the income-tax are of 
 various classes in the State, numerous, of very different degrees 
 of wealth, cultivation, and position. Those paying the income- 
 tax are, generally speaking, the flower of the nation. They 
 represent the traditions, the experience, the domestic integrity, 
 and the moral qualities of the nation ; and it is to their high 
 spirit and constancy, from the highest to the humblest, that 
 the State must look in the hour of exigency. It is not true 
 that the contributors to the income-tax are a class apart from 
 the great body of the nation; though divided into many 
 degrees, they are a portion of that great body. I will not go 
 into the subject of the comparative pressure of taxation, or 
 inquire whether those who fall under the imposition of the 
 income-tax do not suffer' more severely than any of the working 
 classes of this country. I acknowledge how important it is 
 to consider the condition of the working classes ; I know how 
 much depends on their ample and remunerative employment ; 
 I know how they contribute to the wealth of the country ; their 
 condition ought, by all means, to be elevated and improved. 
 And I know that you cannot accomplish such a result better 
 than by extending the commercial relations of this country 
 with others, and putting an end to those remaining imposts 
 that press on trade and industry. All these are high objects 
 of policy that the vast majority of this House are prepared by 
 great efforts to accomplish. But you can accomplish this 
 result on certain conditions only — namely, that they are 
 practicable and consistent with our financial position. And we 
 cannot decide on what is our financial position without, in 
 some degree, considering the future. I now wish to say a 
 
MR. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET, PEBRUARY 1860. 481 
 
 word on this commercial treaty with France. I entirely 
 approve any means that will increase our commercial relations 
 with that country. That has been for many years the object 
 of constant solicitude on the part of many successive Govern- 
 ments. In 1840 we were informed that a commercial treaty 
 with France was being negotiated. I am not aware why that 
 treaty was not ratified, but I believe that the difficulty did not 
 come from the French Grovernment. I should not have alluded 
 to the subject if it had not been mentioned by a member of the 
 cabinet, nor should I have felt at liberty to state what I am 
 about to say hut for what has fallen to-night from a servant of 
 the Crown. 
 
 Sir, in 1852, when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, I 
 was not in office a month before I made an attempt to es- 
 tablish increased commercial relations with France. When the 
 Secretary of State (Lord Malmesbury) had opened the more 
 formal business of the negotiation he requested me to place 
 myself in communication with Lord Cowley, and to enter into 
 correspondence with him on the subject, which I did. I do 
 not say that the result of our labours would have taken the 
 form of a treaty. Perhaps the alterations would not have been 
 so extensive as these, but at any rate they would not have been 
 of a despicable character in a commercial point of view, and 
 they would have been arranged by the mutual operation of our 
 respective tariffs. What was it that unfortunately prevented 
 those arrangements ? Towards the end of the autumn circum- 
 stances arose that rendered it our duty when Parliament 
 assembled to propose a great increase of om armaments. I 
 found it impossible to have a peace Budget and a war expendi- 
 ture. I was the victim, and my Budget never recovered that 
 fatal blow, I mention this to show that we have none of those 
 prejudices which the right honourable gentleman imputes to us 
 against increasing our commercial relations with the French 
 Grovernment. On the contrary, I think there is nothing more 
 desirable than that those relations should be enlarged, and 
 even if they took the form of a treaty I think I could endure 
 it. What I do object to in this treaty is that, irrespective of 
 the financial considerations involved, it is a very bad treaty, 
 
 VOL. I. 1 1 
 
482 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 I do not think there ever was a treaty drawn up apparently 
 with less forethought or less knowledge of the circumstances 
 with which the negotiators had to deal, which altogether con- 
 tains so many arrangements injurious, not only to the trade of 
 England, but also to that of France, or which is better calcu- 
 lated to sow the seeds of discord and dissension between the 
 two countries. It would not be convenient now, at this hour 
 of one o'clock, to go into details of the treaty, which would of 
 itself require rather an elaborate speech ; but I think that 
 famous clause relating to coal, for example, is a very great 
 mistake, and, if it is acceded to, ought to be accompanied by a 
 reciprocal engagement on the part of France that all com 
 coming to this country ought to be exported free of duty. 
 Then the arrangement about silk in the treaty is extremely 
 imperfect. Our arrangement in regard to silk was that it 
 should enter France at a duty of 15 per cent., while it is now 
 .charged 30 per cent. It is a great error that France should be 
 permitted by this treaty to levy an export duty on raw silk, 
 when our manufactured articles of silk are to be subject to a 
 duty of 30 per cent. 
 
 There are many other details, some of which are important, 
 but which I wiU not weary the House with at this horn:. I 
 object, however, to the treaty as an ill-drawn treaty, and one 
 which ought not to be allowed to pass without criticism and 
 some opposition. But what I object to is, that by entering on 
 this treaty the Grovernment have increased that deficiency of the 
 revenue under which the right honourable gentleman is suffer- 
 ing. I will say this of the treaty, that it adds certainly to our 
 deficit a sum of 1,200,000?. immediately, but it is so drawn 
 that in respect to wine, when the right honourable gentleman 
 brings his new duties into full operation, his tests, I feel 
 persuaded, will desert him. I do not understand how he will 
 put his machinery into such order that his wines can be 
 entered without a much greater sacrifice of revenue than he 
 contemplates. If that be so, his loss will be much more con- 
 siderable, aad will be 500,000i. more than he contemplated in 
 the statement he made when he opened his Budget to the 
 House. As regards commercial intercourse with France, there 
 
MR. GLADSTONE'S BUDaET, FEBRUARY 1860. 483 
 
 is on this side of the House no practical opposition to such a 
 course, but, on the contrary, the greatest readiness to enter 
 into arrangements for that object. But we object to the treaty 
 as a treaty not skilfully negotiated, and as one that occasions 
 a considerable deficiency in our revenue, probably a much more 
 considerable deficiency than the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 estimates. We object also to the time at which it is brought 
 forward, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself has 
 confessed that the French Government were prepared to post- 
 pone the treaty till 1861. There were secret negotiations, and 
 there is not the slightest reason why the treaty should not 
 have been ratified, and become a secret treaty, till it was 
 carried into operation. But we must consider the Budget of 
 this year combined with the Budget of 1853, for this is a 
 complement of that Budget, and they are inseparably united. 
 What has been the effect of the financial proposition of the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer in 185.3, and cannot we draw some 
 warning from its fate as to the probable result of the financial 
 arrangements of 1860? There are four great features of the 
 financial scheme of 1853 — that famous scheme the praises of 
 which have been so much celebrated, and on the credit of 
 which the Chancellor of the Exchequer flourished till he made 
 his financial statement for 1860. 
 
 The first feature of that celebrated Budget was, I will not 
 say to pay off the national debt, but to reduce the interest 
 paid to public creditors. We afterwards had the somewhat 
 ambiguous apology from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that 
 when he embarked in that enterprise he was not aware that 
 it was necessary to give a notice of six months to the holders 
 of 500,000,000^. of stock before they could be paid off— a cir- 
 cumstance which, of course, interfered with the operation. I 
 may say, in passing, what is perhaps not known to the House, 
 that that part of the scheme of 1853 cost us the whole of the 
 balances in the Exchequer, and when we entered on the 
 Eussian war our balance in the Treasury was little more than 
 1,000,000L The second feature of that financial scheme was 
 the reduction of the tea-duties to Is. a pound. I may say, in 
 passing, that that was a measure which had been adopted by 
 
 I I 2 
 
484 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 his predecessor. I had the honour to propose that the tea- 
 duties should be reduced to Is. a pound ; and had the proposi- 
 tion then been carried into law, a duty of Is. only would now 
 have been paid. The right honourable gentleman adopted 
 generally the plan I proposed, but with his eager mind he 
 proposed what he thought a more methodical arrangement. He 
 wished to do it quicker than I suggested ; and what has bee^i 
 the result ? The duty on tea is not Is. a pound ; it is much 
 more ; and I observed, from what passed at a meeting of the 
 tea trade the other day, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 received a suggestion from the gentlemen present that the 
 duty at the present exigency should be made one penny a 
 pound more. 
 
 On the third article of the Budget of 1853 — the Succession 
 Tax — I need hardly say anything, though the consequence of 
 it does affect us ; but let me recall to the House the mode in 
 which that tax was recommended to our notice, and the esti- 
 mate of its produce that was made. This is the great measure 
 which gained for the right honourable gentleman the sympathy 
 of the honourable member for Birmingham. Here was a tax 
 directed against the landed interest — a circumstance which 
 recommended it very much to that honourable gentleman's 
 favour, and which in 1860 was to produce two millions of 
 money. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told us then that 
 with those 2,000,000L and the 2,000,000L which we should 
 acquire by the falling in of the terminable annuities we should 
 have a pretty good sum in hand to assist us in putting an end 
 to the income-tax. Well, the year 1860 arrived, in which this 
 succession-duty was to produce 2,000,000?. per annum, and the 
 result, we find, is that it actually produced about one-half that 
 sum. This was the third great measure of the Budget of 1853, 
 and the third great failure. 
 
 The fourth great measure, and one much larger in its pro- 
 portions, is now under the consideration of the House — ^that 
 which relates to the income-tax, which, in a manner that 
 gained for him the applause of all parties and the assent of a 
 grateful country, he told us was at the commencement of 1860 
 to terminate altogether. Yet, notwithstanding that promise. 
 
MB. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET, FEBRUARY 1860. 485 
 
 we find that the income-tax of 1853 is, unfortunately, still 
 alive; nay, more, that it is a child which has greatly grown. 
 The income-tax of 1853, in short, which year after year was to 
 diminish, and which in the present year was entirely to cease, 
 has now increased to 4 per cent., or at the rate of lOd. in the 
 pound. This, Sir, was the fourth great feature of the famous 
 Budget of 1853, and the fourth great failure. Such, then, was 
 the scheme of the right honourable gentleman, and it is in 
 consequence of that great financial measure that we are asked 
 to place confidence in the wild and improvident propositions to 
 which our assent is now invited. But I will not state the case 
 unfairly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has reminded 
 the House that causes have intervened to prevent the realisation 
 of calculations which no one could control, and to those causes 
 it is that he attributes the failure of his arrangements. The 
 Eussian war broke out contrary to his expectation. Now, before 
 I touch briefly on that war, let me remind the right honoinable 
 gentleman that the plea put forward because of it has no vali- 
 dity whatever, so far as regards his attempts to account for not 
 keeping his engagement with respect to the termination of the 
 income-tax. Did he not, let me ask, ratify and renew those 
 engagements in 1857, when he criticised the Budget of the 
 right honourable baronet the member for Kadhor (Sir Gr. C. 
 Lewis), long, be it recollected, after peace had been proclaimed ? 
 Why, Sir, the right honourable gentleman was then the apostle 
 of the same policy as in 1853, and, so far as speeches can bind 
 him, he must admit that he recommended the same policy and 
 contemplated the same results. Nay, more ; at a still more 
 recent period, when I in 1858 occupied the position which he 
 now holds, when by course of law the income-tax was to have 
 lapsed to 5d.—ha.li its proposed amount— he (the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer), still faithful to his old views, sanctioned the 
 measure which I proposed,' and bound himself to the accom- 
 plishment of the same results to which.in 1853 he stood pledged. 
 But now what, let me ask, is the plea which he puts forward 
 for the abandonment of the policy to which I have referred ? 
 We now, instead of witnessing the termination of the income- 
 > Of. Speech on Budget of 1858, p. iii. 
 
486 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFrELD. 
 
 tax, are called upon to assent, not only to its great increase, 
 but to sanction an arrangement by which, in all probability, 
 another appeal in the same shape will next year be rendered 
 necessary, and we shall be asked to continue this tax in a still 
 more odious form. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman, however, tells us that to 
 the Russian war we are to attribute the utter failure of the 
 Budget of 1853 ; but let me remind the House, in dealing with 
 that plea, that we now know much more with respect to that 
 war than we did seven years ago. We have had since laid on 
 this table secret correspondence ' which took place between Her 
 Majesty's Minister at St. Petersburg and the members of the 
 present Government, the noble lord opposite then, as at present, 
 being Secretary for Foreign Affairs. That correspondence was 
 laid on the table in the spring of 1854. From the circum- 
 stance of my receiving authentic information which led me to 
 infer its existence, the noble lord was obliged ultimately to 
 produce it. What appeared by that correspondence ? Why, 
 this — that no sooner had Lord Derby's Government been ex- 
 pelled from ofiBce than the Emperor of Eussia disclosed to their 
 successors his designs on Turkey. Am I using an exaggerated 
 phrase in saying that immediately Lord Derby's Government 
 left office this disclosure was made ? I have a very good witness, 
 formerly a great commercial authority, now a great diplomatic 
 one, the secret negotiator at Paris — IMr. Cobden. I saw him 
 rise in this House, and heard him say that there never was a 
 vote in his life he regretted more having given than the one 
 which expelled Lord Derby from office in 1852, because, he said, 
 ' I have not the slightest doubt, from the information I possess, 
 that that vote produced the Eussian war.' On January 1, the 
 despatch was dated which informed Her Majesty's ministers that 
 it was the intention of the Emperor of Eussia to invade Turkey. 
 The Menschikoff mission, which honourable gentlemen recollect, 
 followed in due course, and yet it was with all this knowledge 
 — the right honourable gentleman, with his eager nature, was 
 not so absorbed in his office that he had not an acquaintance 
 
 ' I.e. with Sir Hamilton Seymour, relating the Czar's proposal for parti- 
 tion of Turkey. 
 
MK. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET, FEBEUAE.Y 1860. 487 
 
 with public affairs generally — that he brought forward his 
 famous Budget of 1853, with all those arrangements which only 
 a state of continuous peace could justify. He held out to a 
 Parliament which had repudiated the income-tax, which had 
 insisted that it should be referred to a select committee, this 
 mode as the satisfactory one of settling those long differences, 
 while the right honourable gentleman must have been aware 
 that Europe was on the eve of a great convulsion, and of a war 
 into which England would not be inferentially .and indirectly 
 drawn, but one in which she must have been the prime actor, 
 for her interests were about to be assailed. But is that all ? 
 We know that the Emperor of Eussia acted with great hesita- 
 tion, with great doubt and perplexity, watching with keenness 
 the conduct and temper of the British Grovernment ; and if it 
 had appeared to possess any real decision, would he not have 
 been arrested in his fatal course ? But we know from the 
 personal confessions of that Grovernment itself, that their 
 cabinet was the scene of internal dissension — we know that 
 there were two parties in it, and if the present Prime Minister 
 had been Prime Minister then, the war would not have taken 
 place.' There was a party over which Lord Aberdeen presided, 
 which exercised an influence greater than that of the present 
 Premier and the Foreign Secretary : and that was the party 
 that produced peace Budgets when they ought to have been 
 preparing war armaments. And what was the consequence ? 
 Has the House forgotten ? England, I am sure, has not for- 
 gotten that famous vote in 1854, in Supply, when the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer — determined, forced, at last to take a 
 new course, which would arrest that of the Emperor, and show 
 him that England was not to be trifled with— proposed that two 
 battalions should be sent to Malta, and proposed also the vote 
 that should pay for their passage back.^ Who can be surprised 
 at what took place ? Three months after such feeble conduct 
 on the part of the Grovernment the war was begun ; and what 
 were the consequences of that war ? An addition to your debt 
 
 > Of. Life of Lord Palmerston, by Mr. Evelyn Ashley, vol. ii, chaps, 3 
 
 and i. 
 
 2 Of. vol. ii. Speech on Prosecution of the War. 
 
488 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 of 40,000,000?.— an annual charge of 1,180,000?., exactly the 
 sum you are going to pay annually for- the French treaty of 
 commerce. And now we are told we know nothing ; but we 
 have great and successful financiers— the statesmen who pro- 
 duced the great Budgets of 1853 and 1860 — men who think 
 only of the incidence of taxation on the working classes — 
 who shrink from expenditure, who call for retrenchment, who 
 make every possible effort to lighten the burden of tax- 
 ation on the people. Why, if these great statesmen had only 
 shown a little more foresight and firmness, and prevented that 
 Russian war which they precipitated by their feebleness, the 
 incidence of taxation would have been very considerably 
 lightened ; and does not this prove that other qualities than 
 mere political economy are necessary for the government of a 
 nation ? 
 
 I told you that this Budget of 1853 was inseparably con- 
 nected with that of 1860. You see how completely the Budget 
 of 1853 has failed in all its four features. You see why it 
 failed — because external circumstances, that were not foreseen 
 by one who ought to have been prescient, interfered in a great 
 degree with their consummation. What is the state of affairs 
 now? Is the aspect more serene than it was in the spring of 
 1853 ? No man can suppose that the right honourable gentle- 
 man is ignorant of the state of external politics. If the Budget 
 of 1860 ends in that confusion which I believe awaits it, and 
 must await all schemes so utterly improvident, the right 
 honourable gentleman will not be able to teU us next year that 
 his plans have been frustrated by external causes which he 
 could not foresee. The right honourable gentleman takes a 
 great interest in the affairs of Italy. He has quarrelled with 
 his old friend the Pope, and with many of his old friends. He 
 is willing to extend that Christian charity he grudged me a 
 share of the other night to the Grreek Church, But I think it 
 would be well for this House, when we have a scheme of finance 
 of this improvident description placed before us — when, with 
 a deficit existing, a further deficiency is created, and that tax 
 increased which in the moment of emergency should be the 
 source on which we ought most to rely, I think it would be 
 
ME. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET, FEBRUARY 1860. 4S9 
 
 well for us to consider what is the state of our foreign affairs, 
 and what is really contained under that phrase which so glibly 
 runs through the mouths of men — the Italian question. 
 
 Sir, the affairs of Italy at this moment involve the greatest 
 causes which could possibly impel men to action, or which 
 could influence the destinies of empires. Totally irrespective 
 of many causes of comparative insignificance, all of which have 
 in old days produced war, you have in Italy now three matters 
 alone, any one of which is enough to convulse the world. You 
 have the question of Papal supremacy ; you have the question 
 of the natural boundaries of empires ; you have the question of 
 the nationality of races : each of the first two have before this 
 time produced the longest and most sanguinary struggle in the 
 memory of man. The question of Papal supremacy gave you 
 once the thirty years' war. The question of the natural boun- 
 daries of empires gave you the long war of the French Revolu- 
 tion. Those questions are still in existence ; and, in addition, 
 you have a new one, the solution of which cannot be ultimately 
 avoided, perhaps cannot be long delayed — the question of the 
 nationality of races. Are we to be told, in such circumstances 
 as these, that all a statesman should do is to simplify the tariff? 
 Was there ever a moment in the history of this country when 
 we ought more to husband our resources ? Is this a time 
 wantonly to put an end to the sources of your ordinary revenue? 
 Is this the time you should fix upon to anticipate the resources 
 of your direct taxation ? There is not a man out of this House, 
 if there be any man in it, who doubts the propriety of the 
 course we ought to pursue. I think the coutse recommended 
 by the Grovernment is the most improvident — I could use, but 
 I will not, a much stronger phrase — that ever yet was coun- 
 selled to Parliament. I should, under ordinary circumstances, 
 hesitate to support it ; but in a moment like this I feel it my 
 duty utterly and emphatically to protest against it. The 
 honourable member for Liskeard spoke with great friendship to 
 me this evening, and told me aloud, though of course in confi- 
 dence, that I had recommended a very unwise course to my 
 honourable friend the member for Essex in advising him to 
 propose that motion, which he introduced with so much spirit 
 
490 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 and promise. The honourable member for Liskeard asked why 
 we proposed such a resolution, why we did not admit the prin- 
 ciple of the Budget — that is to say, the principle of the policy 
 — and worry the Grovernment in committee. We should then 
 have got a great deal of assistance ; the honourable member 
 would have helped us himself; and we might have bsaten the 
 Grovernment on the details. I have no doubt the honourable 
 member would make a much more adroit leader of a party than 
 I can pretend to be, and, indeed, it is only with the assistance 
 and constant indulgence of my friends that I can for a moment 
 undertake the cares and duties of the post I now occupy. But 
 I must tell the honourable member for Liskeard he has totally 
 mistaken the mbtives which influence us on this occasion, and 
 which are totally different from those which would regulate 
 his conduct. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to 
 deride the speech of the right honourable member for the 
 University of Cambridge ' — a speech inspired, I believe, by as 
 true a sense of patriotism and characterised by as pure and 
 noble an eloquence as any speech ever made in this House. 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to deride the possi- , 
 bility that we had any object in the course we had taken but 
 to embarrass and subvert the Grovernment, ' If those are your 
 views of finance and policy,' said the right honourable gentle- 
 man, ' it is your duty to terminate our ministerial career, and if 
 you are not prepared to do that you ought not wantonly to 
 embarrass us.' This was the argument he used. But, Sir, I 
 remember the Parliament I am now addressing. I remember 
 it is a Parliament summoned by the Queen under the advice of 
 counsellors of whom I formed one myself, and that Parliament 
 on its meeting, though by a very narrow majority, declared that 
 they had no confidence in the then Government of her Majesty. 
 They had no confidence in our foreign policy. They had no con- 
 fidence in our refprm principles. What confidence the present 
 Parliament has in the foreign policy of the present Grovernment 
 I will not pretend to decide. All I know is that, so far as I can 
 form an opinion, the affairs of Italy are in exactly the same 
 position as when Parliament was prorogued in August last. 
 
 ' Mr. Walpole. 
 
ME. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET, FEBRUARY 1860. 491 
 
 So far as the Reform Bill is concerned, I confess, after the 
 announcement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the fran- 
 chise is to fee given to the masses, I admit that no Reform Bill 
 we could bring forward could vie with the coming measure of 
 the Grovemment. But I think I have a right under these 
 circumstances to say that neither I nor my colleagues, after 
 that vote, are at all anxious to attempt to reoccupy the places 
 we then filled. I may, at least, say for myself that, having for 
 more than two years led this house in a minority, I shrink from 
 the unparalleled anxiety and responsibility of such a post ; and I 
 would recommend no gentleman ever to accept that position 
 who has any regard for his nervous system. The important 
 office which the Chancellor of the Exchequer fills gives ample 
 opportunity to his eager mind and his impetuous rhetoric. 
 Perhaps in moments of solitary aspiration he has wished to 
 occupy the proud post of leader of the House of Commons, 
 which no one could fill more efficiently. But from what I have 
 observed of the right hon. gentleman's temperament, I thiak I 
 may tell him that it is well for him, however eminent his posi- 
 tion, that he reposes at least for a time beneath the mitis 
 sapientia of the noble lord the Foreign Secretary and the calm 
 patience of the noble Premier. Although, however, we are 
 neither anxious, nor, perhaps, able, to disturb you in your seats, 
 are we to forget our duties as members of this house? Are 
 we to forget that there is such a thing as the English nation, 
 and that there is such a thing to fulfil as public duty ? No, Sir ! 
 We are conscious of that duty. We will not enter into com- 
 binations and cabals to embarrass the Government. I have 
 heard in this debate a great deal of what are called party ques- 
 tions, and there is nothing upon which there appears to me 
 such confusion in the minds of men, and, of all men in the 
 world, in the minds of members of Parliament, as upon this 
 subject. Sir, when a great political party chooses on some 
 technical ground and narrow issue to join with a section of their 
 opponents and upset a Government, their conduct may be liable 
 to great public reproach. I say « may be liable,' because even 
 in such a case combination might be an act of duty, if they 
 thought that the general conduct of the Government was perni- 
 
492 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACOXSFIELD. 
 
 cious and they had the means and opportunity of rectifying it. 
 But when a great party, on a question of policy, financial, com- 
 mercial, and diplomatic, come forward to assert distinct princi- 
 ples, and to advocate an intelligible course, which none can 
 misapprehend, and with which I believe a great portion of the 
 nation sympathises, to hold up such a party movement as liable 
 to reproach is to confound the nature of things, and not to 
 comprehend the scope and spirit of our Constitution. It is the 
 duty, the noblest duty that can fall to members of this House, 
 to fulfil such a task. It must always be the lot of only the 
 minority to be Ministers of State, but it is the privilege of all 
 to have views upon political affairs, to support those views with 
 eloquence in this House if they desire it and have the gifts, 
 but, at all events, in honourable combination with those with 
 whom they have community of sentiment to assert with their 
 votes their influence and their opinions. 
 
 Sir, such is now the course which we are about to take. It 
 is our opinion that the proposition of the Grovemment is one 
 pernicious, and improvident in finance, not to say profligate — 
 one that may lead this country to an extremity of circumstances 
 this time next year which few can contemplate without the 
 utmost alarm. I wish to see such a course arrested. I do not 
 know what prolonged discussions in this House may not effect. 
 I have no hope or supposition that by asserting our policy in 
 this straightforward manner we can accomplish that object at 
 present. But, in affirming the resolution of my hon. Mend 
 the member for Essex, which declares that to add to a de- 
 ficiency in finance is a proceeding to be deprecated, and that 
 we ought not to disappoint the just expectations of the country 
 by largely increasing the income-tax, we assert a principle 
 which we believe in and will maintain. Those just expectations 
 I myself will not deceive, and to the country I ultimately 
 appeal. 
 
493 
 
 WAYS AND MEANS, April 7, 1862. 
 
 [By this time the condition of the revenue had begun to excite 
 very serious uneasiness in the House of Commons generally. It was 
 thought that the reduction of taxes and the increase of estimates 
 could not very well go on together. The financial policy of Mr. 
 Gladstone and the military and naval policy of Lord Palmerston, 
 sanctioned, however, by the country, must, if carried on side by side, 
 land the nation in some great monetary calamity. On Monday 
 April 7, Mr. Disraeli delivered the speech given below, which was 
 effectively supported by Sir Stafford Northcote : and in the follow- 
 ing June the subject was revived by Mr. Stansfeld and Mr. Wal- 
 pole, when a memorable scene ensued.] 
 
 MK. DISEAELI rose and said, — Before you leave the chair, 
 Sir, I wish to make a few observations upon our financial 
 position, which I think is not altogether free from anxiety. I 
 am the more disposed to take this course, because, from what 
 I hear and what I observe, it seems that there is considerable 
 misconception in the public mind upon a subject on which, of 
 all others, the people of this country should entertain accurate 
 notions. We are, according to the statement of the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, about to commence the year without a sur- 
 plus. Under any circumstances this is not a gratifying or 
 satisfactory position. No doubt, however, there are circum- 
 stances in which a Minister of Finance might be justified in 
 recommending such a course to Parliament for its acceptance 
 and sanction. If it were his lot, for example, by a considerable 
 remission of taxation to stimulate the industry and enterprise 
 of the country ; if our trade were flourishing, if our revenue 
 were rising, if we had every security for internal peace and ex- 
 ternal tranquillity, I can conceive that a Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer might feel himself justified in introducing a pro- 
 gramme of finance for the year from which the important 
 
494 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 feature of a surplus should be wanting. Unhappily, I think 
 that is not the position of this country at the present time. 
 Our trade is not increasing; it is, unfortunately, diminishing. 
 Our revenue is not rising; it is, unhappily, declining. The 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer himself alluded in the course of 
 his statement to circumstances which may diminish the means 
 for the employment of our people, and although their conduct 
 in a very trying period has justly elicited the approbation and 
 sympathy of all right-minded men, still if there is a great 
 diminution in the means of their employment, that fact cannot 
 be regarded as an additional guarantee for domestic tranquillity. 
 On the other hand, if we look abroad, if we look either to the 
 American or to the European continent, no one, however dis- 
 inclined to indulge in a gloomy view of the future, can for a 
 moment assert that the prospect is of an encouraging character. 
 Upon the state of America it is unnecessary for me to make a 
 single observation. It occupies all minds, and has already been 
 amply touched upon. But, with respect to the European 
 continent, although for the moment there is perfect quietude, 
 no one can shut his eyes to the fact that of all the difficulties 
 which occasioned a recent war, as well as of all those which 
 have since come into operation, not one has yet received a 
 solution. Under these circumstances it is much to be regretted 
 that the state of our finances is such that we commence our 
 financial year avowedly with only a nominal surplus. 
 
 It is impossible, I think, to evade this question — why is 
 there not a surplus ? That is a question which everybody, both 
 in and out of this House, is asking himself at the present time. 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer in his speech the other night 
 informed us that he had contemplated that during last year 
 there would be a loss by the repeal of the paper-duty to the 
 amount of 665,OOOL He went on to say that his estimate, Uke 
 other estimates, was erroneous, and that the loss last jnsar from 
 the repeal of the paper-duty was 865,000L In 1860-61 there 
 was a deficit of 2,558,000L Last year there was a deficit of 
 1,164,000L It is quite obvious that if we deduct SOO.OOOL 
 from 1,164,000Z., there would only be a deficiency in round 
 numbers of 300,000?. on the year just closed. But what 
 
"WAYS AND MEANS, APRIL 1862. 49,5 
 
 would have been our position if the paper-duty had not been 
 repealed, as regards a surplus in the present year? In the 
 financial year jast commenced there will be a total loss under 
 the head of the paper-duties alone of 1,300,000^., and to this, 
 if we add the very trifling, but in our present position not 
 utterly contemptible, surplus, to which the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer confessed the other night, we should have had a 
 surplus in the Budget of this year of about 1,400,000L— a safe 
 and comfortable surplus— but under the circumstances of the 
 country, with a declining trade, with a diminishing revenue, 
 with a possibility of critical occasions both on the American and 
 Emropean continents — a surplus not a single pound sterling too 
 great to be maintained. Now, Sir, when the repeal of the 
 paper-duties was first suggested by the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer it was opposed upon two main grounds. There were 
 some who, when a surplus was announced by the Minister of 
 Finance, did not think themselves justified in impugning the 
 accuracy of his calculations, unless they were prepared to bring 
 forward a motion which would have been substantially a motion 
 of want of confidence in the Government; and. Sir, those 
 gentlemen, among whom I may count myself, having to deal 
 with a surplus, proposed that, instead of repealing a tax, the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer should only reduce a tax, so that 
 no permanent branch of the revenue should be abolished. Be- 
 sides those who took that position in the discussions which 
 then occurred I must do justice to honourable gentlemen 
 who opposed the repeal of the paper-duties on perfectly dis- 
 tinct grounds. They opposed the repeal of the paper-duties 
 because they contested the existence of a surplus. Night after 
 night the honourable member for Norfolk ' brought that view of 
 the question before the House ; night after night, to his credit 
 be it spoken, he insisted that in the then state of affairs in 
 America it was more than probable some critical circumstances 
 might arise that would occasion an increase in our military and 
 naval expenditure. 
 
 Now, how were those representations, urged with such fre- 
 quency by the honourable member for Norfolk, treated by Her 
 
 ' Mr. Bentinck. 
 
496 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEAOONSFIELD. 
 
 Majesty's Grovernment ? First with indifference, and, I regret 
 to say — -I speak from my impressions — ultimately with derision. 
 The suggestion was scoffed at. The result is that critical cir- 
 cumstances connected with the civil war in America' led to an 
 increased expenditure naval and military, which has exceeded 
 in amount the sum we lost by the repeal of the paper-duties. 
 It was also denied that the estimates the right honourable 
 gentleman announced he had made of the receipts of the 
 China money were perfectly fallacious. It was my honourable 
 friend the member for Horsham (Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald) who 
 brought forward that subject, and he did so with the utmost 
 precision of statement and argument. The Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer had made an estimate that he would receive from 
 China 750,OOOL The member for Horsham proved by acute 
 argument and by statements founded apparently on authentic 
 facts that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not receive 
 more than half of that amount. What has been the result? 
 Instead of 750,OOOL, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has re- 
 ceived less than 400,000?. And how was the statement of the 
 honourable member for Horsham received ? Why, the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer absolutely carried that estimate of 
 750,OOOJ., I may say almost on his personal guarantee. It was 
 said, if a Chancellor of the Exchequer in an estimate of that 
 kind is not to be relied upon, if it is supposed that he can 
 deceive the House, it is vain to hope he can carry on the affairs 
 of the country. It was felt that was not a question on which 
 anyone could place his opinion in opposition to that of the 
 Minister of Finance, and 750,000?. was received as an authentic 
 calculation. I ask again what has been the result ? The result 
 has been a mistake of about 400,000?. in that estimate ; and 
 therefore, Sir, I think we may fairly conclude the objections 
 which were urged against the proposal of the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer to repeal the paper-duties, on his own showing, have 
 been fully justified by the event ; and I give the credit which 
 is due to the honourable member for Norfolk and the honourable 
 member for Horsham for the prescience which they exhibited 
 and the pertinacity With which they placed their views before 
 the country. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS, APEIL 1862. 497 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer the other night thought 
 the occasion apt for a general review of his financial career, and 
 I would follow him with great brevity. Sir, it is but due to 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer to admit that for the financial 
 operations of 1859-60 he is but partially, and, I would even 
 say, not at all, responsible. That year, ending with a surplus, 
 does not at all influence, and did not at aU occasion, the pecu- 
 liar and perilous position in which the country now finds itself. 
 Therefore, I will take, not the three years, but the two years 
 in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer, unrestricted and 
 uncontrolled, has had the great opportunity of bringing for- 
 ward the whole of his financial schemes, and has been allowed, 
 by an indulgent and admiring House of Commons, to steer the 
 financial vessel — I will not say into port or into the shallows, 
 but — into the position in which it now finds itself. Well, 
 those two years have had some remarkable characteristics. 
 The year 1861-62, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer informed 
 us a few nights ago, has terminated with a deficiency of 
 l,164,000i. The preceding year, 1860-61, terminated with a 
 deficiency of 2,558,000L There have been excesses of expendi- 
 ture since ascertained to the amount of 278,000^. ; and the 
 deficiencies of those two years — of the period during which 
 the right honourable gentleman has been perfectly master of 
 the situation, and has not been hampered by any arrangements 
 of his predecessors, or by the engagements of those who went 
 before him — those two years have resulted in a united deficit 
 of four millions sterling. I mention this, among other reasons, 
 for this one in particular — that the House should understand 
 the cost of luxuries. The French Treaty was an admirable 
 performance. No one is against French treaties of commerce, 
 if it be the right time at which we should enter into them. 
 Many ministers, before the Chancellor of the Exchequer, have 
 either carried or attempted to carry such treaties. But still, 
 understand that the year of the French Treaty passing resulted 
 in a deficiency of 2,558,000L, and the year of the repeal of the 
 paper-duty— another equally popular arrangement— resulted 
 in a deficiency of 1,164,000L So that, as I have already men- 
 tioned, there has accrued from the management of the finances 
 VOL. T. ^ ^ 
 
498 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 by the right honourable gentleman during the two years in 
 which he has been unchecked and uncontrolled, and has given 
 full play to that imagination which has dealt with the resources 
 of the country in so brilliant a manner, a deficiency of 
 4,000,000L 
 
 But is that all ? Alas ! it is only a small portion of the 
 achievements of the right honourable gentleman. In addition 
 to this deficit of 4,000,000?., the right honourable gentleman 
 during these two years has anticipated the resources of the 
 country to the extent of 3,5OO,000L — something more than 
 1,200,000L upon the malt-credit, and 2,000,000?. anticipated 
 upon the income-tax. Well, Sir, with one-half of the Spanish 
 payment — for only one-half of that payment has been enjoyed 
 by the right honourable gentleman dming those two years — 
 the House will perceive that those sums made up the amount 
 of 3,500,000?. Therefore this great minister of our finances 
 has in the course of two years expended more than the ordinary 
 revenue of the country gave him — indeed, has exceeded the 
 ordinary revenue of the country by no less than 7,500,000?. 
 But is that all ? What was the ordinary revenue of the country 
 during those two years when its amount was exceeded by 
 the right honourable gentleman by the enormous sum of 
 7,500,000?. ? It was an ordinary revenue sustained and sup- 
 ported by war taxation — by a war income-tax, by war duties 
 upon tea and upon sugar. And yet, swollen and bloated as the 
 ordinary revenue of the country was by these war taxes, it was 
 exceeded by the right honourable gentleman during those two 
 years by the sum of 7,500,000?. But is that all ? It seems 
 impossible that there can be any aggravation of such aggra- 
 vated circumstances. And yet I can show the House that 
 hitherto they have not measured the amount of the prodigality 
 of the right honourable gentleman ; for not only has he ex- 
 ceeded during two years the ordinary revenue of the country 
 by 7,500,000?., that revenue being sustained by war taxation, 
 but he has done this at a period when the charges for the 
 National Debt had diminished to the extent of 2,000,000?. by 
 the lapse of terminable annuities. 
 
 Now, Sir, I think the House will agree that I have laid 
 
WAYS AND MEANS, APRIL 1862. 499 
 
 before them a very serious state of affairs— the immense excess 
 of expenditure, the actual deficit, the exhaustion of all sources 
 of extraordinary revenue, and that at a period when the politi- 
 cal horizon abroad and at home is certainly not unclouded. 
 But the House will be curious to know^ — for, in the blaze of 
 rhetoric in which the annual communication of our financial 
 state is made, we lose sight of that necessary information 
 which, after all, ought to guide our opinions — the House will 
 like to be reminded how this deficit has been supplied. We 
 clearly understand how the 3,500,000L of anticipated revenue 
 has been obtained ; but how has the deficit been supplied ? 
 It has been supplied by the Chancellor of the Exchequer draw- 
 ing reckless draughts to the amount of 2,664,000L upon the 
 balances in the Exchequer, which were not even then strong. 
 It has been supplied by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for 
 two consecutive years, stopping in Hounslow fashion repayments 
 of money into the Exchequer, and those repayments thus 
 stopped in the two years amount to 881,000Z., being repay- 
 ments of loans which have been raised by the country. For 
 example, there was the Irish loan some years ago, of which 
 repayments are still going on. The deficit has been further 
 supplied by a positive increase of the debt to certainly no less 
 an amount than 461,000L If we add together the draughts 
 upon the balances, 2,684,000L, the application of repayments, 
 881,000?., and the creation of new debt, 461,000^, the House 
 will find that they make the sum of 4,026,000?., and they will 
 at once' perceive that that is the sum which has provided for 
 the deficit. I ought, perhaps, to remind the House that the 
 balances in the Exchequer in March 1860 were 7,972,000L ; in 
 March 1862 they were 5,288,000?.; and the difference, 
 2,684,000?., is the sum which the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 has drawn out by his draughts upon those balances. 
 
 The House will admit that this is a very critical position 
 for our finances to be in, and it is interesting to observe in 
 what manner the Chancellor of the Exchequer encourages us 
 under the inevitable announcement which it was his duty to 
 make on Thursday week. All that the arts of rhetoric could 
 supply to soften facts, to confuse figures, and ingeniously to 
 
 ^ '• K K 2 
 
 
500 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 bewilder the House, were no doubt had recourse to, but so 
 happy and adroit was the manner of the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer that, although the announcement was not made in so 
 harsh and crude a shape as it is now communicated to the 
 House, still sufficient was known in some degree to prepare 
 the minds of the public for the intelligence which could account 
 for such portentous results as a deficit in two years of 
 4,000,000L — the appropriation, or rather misappropriation, of 
 3,500,000?. of anticipated resources ; and all that at a period 
 when trade and revenue are both declining, and when, accord- 
 ing to the minister himself, the aspect of affairs at home and 
 abroad is of the least encouraging character. How does the 
 right honourable gentleman account for, vindicate, extenuate, 
 these tremendous results ? First, we are told that these two 
 years during which our finances have been managed in this 
 satisfactory manner were exceptional years. I deny that they 
 were exceptional years. What were the exceptional circum- 
 stances ? The Chancellor of the Exchequer has told us. There 
 was the war with China. Is that an exceptional circumstance ? 
 I have had the honour of sitting for a quarter of a century in 
 this House, and I do not think I can recall two consecutive 
 sessions in which Parliament has not had to deal with circum- 
 stances as exceptional as the war with China. I came in with 
 the Canadian insurrection, which cost something. We are now 
 dealing with a Canadian invasion, the cost of which every 
 gentleman knows. There have been in that period three 
 Chinese wars, two Kaffir wars, a Persian war, and, I' think, 
 two New Zealand wars. There has been a Syrian invasion, 
 which cost something, and an Irish famine which cost a 
 great deal, although no one begrudges that expenditure. 
 Under these circumstances, is any minister justified in stating 
 the China war as an exceptional circumstance, and ought he 
 not in his calculations to anticipate that some occurrence of 
 an analogous character may happen in the course of the year ? 
 ' But,' says the right honourable gentleman, ' never mind. 
 The cost has been large ; some of you may think the manage- 
 ment has been loose ; but although I have not a stick or a 
 stiver left,' — for he told us that — ' although I have managed 
 
"WAYS AND MEANS, APRIL 1862. 501 
 
 your resources so as to create the greatest deficit that ever 
 was made m a like period, still there is this consolation for 
 you — I have reduced the amount of the National Debt by 
 4,000,000i.' I deny the alleged reduction of 4,000,000^. I 
 deny that he has reduced the amount of the National Debt at 
 all. Instead of a diminution of the public debt, there has 
 absolutely been an increase during the financial administration 
 of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But we have a third 
 somrce of consolation in the terrible scrapes in which we so 
 unexpectedly find ourselves. ' Exceptional circumstances ' is 
 an abstraction, and we may pass it by. ' The reduction of the 
 debt ' was a more material assertion, and does not bear criticism. 
 But there was something not so abstract as ' exceptional cir- 
 cumstances,' and not quite so easily grappled within a material 
 sense as ' reduction of the debt,' yet still bearing a delightful 
 and popular title ; and beneath this cloud the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, like other heroes, covers himself in a position of 
 great peril. At the announcement that the epoch of retrench- 
 ment has commenced I observed that gentlemen below the 
 gangway pricked up their ears immediately. 'The epoch of 
 retrenchment has commenced ! ' Well, that is a most en- 
 couraging circumstance. Never mind past disaster, never 
 mind deficits and mortgages. If we are really to have an in- 
 auguration of the epoch of retrenchment, we will soon make 
 up leeway, and depend upon it we may enjoy all the advantages 
 which have accrued to us, and still put ovx finances in a solid 
 position. But, Sir, I confess that I was extremely perplexed 
 to know how this retrenchment was to be effected. The right 
 honourable gentleman was inaugurating the epoch of retrench- 
 ment, and what is his statement ? He compares the estimates 
 of the present year with the expenditure of the last, and he 
 says the expenditure of last year exceeds the estimates of the 
 present year by 1,700,000L I say that it is moonshine to do 
 this. If I am referred to the expenditure of last year, let me 
 have the expenditure of this year. The right honourable 
 gentleman seems to say that I am not quoting him correctly 
 on the subject of estimates. He shall have his own figures. 
 In 1860-61 the estimates were 70,100,000^., and the expendi- 
 
502 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 ture was 72,842,000?. Error in the year 1860-61, 2,642,000?. 
 The estimates of 1861-62 were 69,875,000?., and the expendi- 
 ture was 70,838,000?. Error in 1861-62, 963,000?. The^ 
 estimates of 1862-63, which we have just had, are 69,120,000?. ; 
 and as, of course, we cannot yet get at the expenditure, I put 
 opposite this estimate a colossal query. But, Sir, if you 
 compare the estimates of this year with the estimates of the 
 last, the diminution is only 750,000?., not 1,750,000?., and if 
 honourable gentlemen below the gangway think that is a re- 
 duction which inaugurates an epoch of retrenchment, they are 
 more easily satisfied than their speeches — I do not say their 
 votes — would imply. 
 
 Having thus placed clearly before the House and the 
 country our exact financial position, our deficits, our anticipated 
 resources, and the prospect before us, I say that I have shown 
 to the House that the three excuses which were offered by the 
 right honourable gentleman to account for and extenuate our 
 actual financial position, and to calm down the public mind, 
 which is necessarily and rightly agitated, are utterly flimsy. 
 The debt has not been reduced ; retrenchment is all moon- 
 shine ; and, should any critical circumstances occur this year, 
 either in America or Europe, that may require Eirgland to in- 
 crease her expenditure, where are we ? Where is the surplus 
 for us to fall back upon ? The abolition of the paper-duty was 
 wrung from a reluctant House of Commons ; the duty was re- 
 pealed in defiance of a solemn decision of the other House ol 
 Parliament ; and we may yet appeal to history to vindicate 
 the wisdom of that House. But there is another subject that 
 I think more alarming even than increased taxation, and those 
 accounts of financial disaster that can be no longer concealed. 
 The whole speech of the right honourable gentleman where he 
 referred to taxation seemed based on the principle that the 
 income-tax is to be a permanent feature of our financial system. 
 He referred to half-a-dozen other taxes which he could not yet 
 repeal, and to some that he could soften ; but the whole tenor 
 of the right honourable gentleman's discourse was that the 
 income-tax is to be a permanent part of our financial system. 
 Is that the opinion of the House of Commons ? I do not be- 
 
WAYS AND MEANS, APEIL 1862. 503 
 
 lieve it possible that the income-tax in its present form can 
 be a permanent part of our financial system. Though I have 
 listened to every suggestion that has been made on the subject, 
 and weighed them, I trust, with patience and without partiahty, 
 I have yet met with no scientific solution of the difficulties 
 connected with this tax that would be satisfactory to the 
 Treasury of Her Majesty. The income-tax remains, as de- 
 scribed by the right honourable gentleman himself, unjust, 
 unequal, and inquisitorial, as when it was branded with that 
 character of infamy by the right honourable gentleman, when 
 he made it the basis of his most considerable and most fallacious 
 financial measure. I therefore think we had a right to expect 
 that the right honourable gentleman should on this occasion 
 have spoken frankly on the question of the income-tax. He has 
 no right to fritter away the resources of the country and leave 
 that tax pressing upon us. 
 
 There is something in the speeches of the right honourable 
 gentleman on this subject, and, indeed, on the whole of our 
 financial system, that fills me with perplexity ; which, I think, 
 conveys to the country a sentiment, not merely of perplexity, 
 but of distrust ; and it is this — -that, while the right honourable 
 gentleman is without parallel or exception the most profuse 
 Finance Minister that ever directed the affairs of this coun- 
 try in time of peace, he is perpetually insinuating — to use the 
 mildest term — both to this House and to the country, that 
 he disapproves of our expenditure, and that he is burning to 
 denounce it. Now, I say that is not a legitimate position for 
 the right honourable gentleman to occupy. If he disapproves 
 of this profuse expenditure, why does he sit on that bench, and 
 lend to its enactment and enforcement all the authority of his 
 character and all the lustre of his reputation ? If, on the con- 
 trary, he approves this expenditure, then his duty, as the 
 Finance Minister especially, is not to dispirit and discontent 
 the people, but rather to animate them and sustain their 
 courage under the burdens it is his duty to impose upon them. 
 He never proposes a vote — and it has fallen to him to propose 
 the most profuse votes any minister has ever brought forward 
 in time of peace — without an intimation that in his heart he 
 
504 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 does not sanction the expenditure. But the right honourable 
 gentleman has gained the confidence and support of a party, 
 not very numerous, but still distinguished by talent, per- 
 severance, and, I will add, integrity — I mean the party that 
 calls for a reduction of our expenditure. How is it that that 
 party, which preaches retrenchment and reduction, which be- 
 lieves that all our estimates, and especially the naval and 
 military estimates, are much too extravagant ; who are opposed 
 to fortifications, and who do not much like iron ships, always 
 support the minister who brings forward these excessive es- 
 timates, and who provides for this enormous expenditure ? 
 This is a great question. This, at least, we know, that while 
 this spendthrift is weeping over pence — ^while this penurious 
 prodigal is proposing his enormous expenditure, he always 
 contrives to repeal some tax to gratify the interests or feelings 
 of the party of retrenchment. No wonder, then, we no longer 
 hear the same character given of the income-tax ; no wonder 
 we are no longer reminded of that compact entered into by the 
 House and accepted by the country for its gradual aboKtion. 
 Unless the House on some fitting occasion expresses its opinion, 
 I see little hope of obtaining any redress in this respect. Well, 
 who will deny that this position of affairs is pecuUar and 
 perilous ? I remember some years ago, when the right 
 honourable gentleman was at the head of a small and select 
 party of politicians, who were not then absorbed in the gulf of 
 Liberalism, they were accustomed to prattle much about 
 ' political morality.' What then most distinguished the right 
 honourable gentleman and his friends was their monopoly of 
 that admirable quality. They were perpetually thanking God 
 they were not as other men, and always pointing their finger 
 at the unfortunate wights who sat opposite to them. Now we 
 see what is the end of political morality. We see the position 
 to which political morality has brought the finances of a great 
 nation. I denounce this system as one which is detrimental 
 to the character of public men, and most injiurious to the for- 
 tunes of the realm. 
 
505 
 
 MR WALPOLE'S EESOLUTION, June 3, 1862. 
 
 [On Tuesday, June 3, the House of Commons met to consider 
 a resolution proposed by Mr. Stansfeld to the effect that ' the national 
 expenditure was capable of reduction withoat compromising the 
 safety, the independence, or the legitimate influence of the country.' 
 Lord Palmerston met the resolution by an amendment which was 
 ultimately carried by 367 votes to 65. But Mr. Walpole had given 
 notice of another amendment to be moved in substitution for Lord 
 Palmerston's, which would have received the support of the entire 
 Conservative party, and of a good many Liberals besides. Eeferring 
 to this amendment before the debate began, Lord Palmerston observed 
 that ' the question which the House would now be called on to decide 
 was whether gentlemen who sat on the mioisterial or the opposite 
 benches were best entitled to the confidence of the House and the 
 coimtry.' By this language he drew from Mr. Walpole a declaration 
 that he would not, under those circumstances, take the responsibility 
 of moving his amendment. The effect was, of course, to reduce the 
 debate, which might have involved a serious check to the ministry, 
 to the level of a mere recormoissance. Mr. Walpole did not formally 
 give notice of his intention to abstain from moving until the main 
 question had been put on Mr. Stansfeld's resolution ; but it had been 
 made generally known to the House, and is referred to by Mr. 
 Disraeli in the following speech.] 
 
 ME. DISEAELI : From the address of the noble lord (Palm 
 erston) I observed that one topic was studiously omitted ; 
 he avoided all reference to the present condition of our 
 finances ; though that position is described by a member of 
 Her Majesty's Grovernment as unhealthy, and is believed by 
 Parliament and the people of England to be dangerous. The 
 subject of national expenditure has been brought somewhat 
 suddenly, it may be, but most earnestly under the consideration 
 both of Parliament and of the people. I am sure I do not mis- 
 represent the general feeling of the House when I say there is 
 
506 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 a desire to effect all practicable reductions in that expenditure 
 which are consistent with the complete efl&ciency of the public 
 service, with the security of our shores, and with the guardian- 
 ship of all those interests abroad which constantly engage our 
 attention. Let me take the first point to which the noble lord 
 adverted, and to which the first part of the honourable gentle- 
 man's resolution refers. Let us look to the question of our 
 defences at home, of which we have lately heard so much. 
 Well, that is not a new question. We have been establishing 
 and completing our home defences for a considerable period. 
 It is a subject which has engaged the attention of Parliament 
 and the resources of this country now for ten years. Ten years 
 ago a ministry was formed for the sole purpose of establishing 
 a Militia throughout this country, founded on a popular princi- 
 ple. Well, a Militia on that principle was established — most 
 successfully established. During the ten years that have 
 elapsed that Militia has been embodied and disembodied, and 
 has fed our regular army with soldiers equal to veterans. It 
 has supplied our garrisons in the colonies with men whose 
 discipline those who have commanded them have recognised as 
 equal to that of the Line. When the war was finished the 
 Militia was disembodied, and an appeal was made to the men 
 who composed it for their annual attendance. At the time it 
 was said that appeal was illusory. It has been responded to 
 with an alacrity which we have seen displayed even within the 
 last few weeks — I may say days. The tnanner in which the 
 Militia has responded to the call made on it has shown us what 
 an army has been completed, and I hope permanently estab- 
 lished. And, Sir, the Grovernment that ten years ago was called 
 specifically into existence to effect that object accomplished 
 another great object connected with our home defences. I 
 allude to the establishment of the Channel Fleet. After that 
 period this country was engaged in a war, and its immediate 
 attention was for the moment turned from the specific object 
 of its home defences ; but the indirect effect of that war very 
 much increased our means of defence at home ; for it produced 
 a perfect army in this country, which in every branch and every 
 military attribute is recognised now as inferior to none in exist- 
 
ME. WALPOLE'S resolution, JUNE 1862. 507 
 
 ence. Well, Sir, subsequently to all this we witnessed one of 
 those spontaneous acts of public spirit which eminently distin- 
 guishes England, and now the great Volunteer movement pro- 
 duces an army admirable in its discipline— and which, I trust, 
 wiU. be of a permanent character. What will be the conse- 
 quence of all those great incidents, as far as our home defences 
 are concerned ? Counting our regular army, which for some 
 years on the average has never numbered less than 100,000 
 men, you have in England, or, at least, in the United Kingdom, 
 a body of disciplined men, accustomed to the use of arms, of not 
 less than from 350,000 to 400,000 men, a garrison for these 
 islands equal almost to the army of France ; and in addition you 
 have the command of the Channel with your fleet. Therefore 
 I say, as far as our home defences are concerned, we have not 
 been idle or unsuccessful in our exertions ; and it is difficult to 
 conceive how any country can be in a position more completely 
 secure than Great Britain is at this present moment. If, how- 
 ever, there be any proposition by which our home defences can 
 be really improved, I am quite sure Parliament will listen to 
 those propositions from any Grovernment with the utmost at- 
 tention ; but for the present this great result remains, and 
 none can deny it — that we have in England, and have had in 
 England now for some years, a regular garrison — a national 
 garrison I may call it — composed of regular troops, our Militiaj 
 our Volunteers, and other elements which it would be weari- 
 some to dwell upon — scarcely less than 400,000 men ; and we 
 have in the Channel an efficient and commanding fleet. I am 
 myself a supporter of such a state of affairs as regards our de- 
 fences, and not with reference to any country contiguous to 
 us, or with any disposition of hostility towards oiir neighbours. 
 My opinion is that this state of things ought to exist 
 abstractedly, if I may use the term, with regard to the defences 
 of this country. I would not recommend that programme of 
 defences on the assumption of friendship on the part of our 
 neighbours. That is an element which I, for one, have no wish 
 to bring into consideration. On the other hand, I do not, as 
 the noble lord does, argue for the necessity of those means of 
 defence on the animosity of our neighbours. We ought to look 
 
508 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 to our means of defence on this principle alone — whether they 
 are adequate to the position which this country occupies. I 
 must say I was astonished that, even within the recent period 
 of the last few weeks, when we had a discussion on this subject 
 the noble lord at the head of the Grovernment concluded the 
 debate by stating his view of the defences to be that the 
 country should be prepared for an invasion of its shores by its 
 nearest neighbour — prepared for some midnight foray of a 
 cordial ally. Such a declaration confounds civilisation ; and if 
 a policy be founded on such principles, it must lead to national 
 disaster. So much for our national defences ; so much for that 
 subject which has engaged the country and Parliament, more 
 or less, for ten years. And what is this country you have so 
 properly guarded and defended ? Is it a country without any 
 spirit of its own — is it like some other countries to which I 
 shall not more particularly refer, where the Government is one 
 of police, where there is no political liberty, no freedom of 
 opinion, and where the Government can only trust to guards to 
 protect them ? The Government is unworthy to govern this 
 country who forgets that the people of England are the most 
 enthusiastic in the world. There are more excitable people — 
 the people of France, for instance ; but there is no people so 
 enthusiastic as England has shown herself to be on this question 
 of national defences. In this country, protected by 400,000 
 men and a commanding fleet in the Channel, to say that free- 
 men are in danger of midnight invasion from cordial allies is a 
 mystification too monstrous for belief. 
 
 I now come to the next point — our interests abroad. I have 
 been- trying to give some meaning to a phrase so vague. It 
 has been stated that in all our stations throughout the world 
 we should be defended by armed forces — that our foreign 
 garrisons should be efficient ; that our fortifications should be 
 strong; and that om: great naval stations in the Mediterranean 
 and the West Indies should be commanding. Well, Sir, these 
 are the soxu-ces of influence which England possesses in her in- 
 tercourse with foreign Powers and foreign Courts. When it is 
 known that the garrisons of England are strong, that her fleets 
 are commanding, that her extensive and unrivalled commerce 
 
MR. WALPOLE'S EESOLUTION, JUNE 1862. 509 
 
 in every quarter and in every clime is adequately defended, no 
 doubt these are sources of respect and influence for us with 
 foreign Courts and countries. But allow me to say that there 
 is also another great source of influence, and perhaps the greatest 
 that England possesses with foreign countries. I pretend to no 
 more experience of foreign Courts and foreign statesmen than 
 must have fallen to the lot of many, perhaps the majority of 
 gentlemen in this House ; but I have seen some, and I have in 
 the course of my life been in communication with some of the 
 most eminent statesmen of various countries — men of different 
 political parties and varied experience — and I have always 
 heard them use this language with regard to the influence of 
 England : that the real cause of that influence of England — ■ 
 which influence is, perhaps, on an average, the most permanent 
 throughout the Continent — has arisen from this circumstance, 
 that England is the only country which, when it enters into a 
 quarrel that it believes to be just, never ceases its efforts until 
 it has accomplished its aim. Whereas (I do not now speak of 
 present days and existing States) it was always felt in old times 
 and generations that are past — and honourable gentlemen can 
 ascertain whether the present state of Europe makes any 
 difference in this matter — that, with scarcely an exception, 
 there was not a State in Europe, not even the proudest and 
 most powerful, that could ever enter into a third campaign. 
 Well, what gave us this power of continuing war into which we 
 had entered, and in which we were ready to persevere because 
 we believed it to be just? It was the financial reserve of 
 England. It was the conviction that the reserves of England, 
 when we once chose to engage in a quarrel, were such that it 
 was not a question of one, two, or three campaigns, but that, as 
 we have proved in old days, our determination, supported by 
 our resources, would allow us to prepare for an indefinite 
 struggle when we had an adequate and worthy object in view. 
 If however, you allow your finances to be sapped and weakened, 
 you are at the same time weakening this prime source of your 
 authority. You may have these garrisons in foreign parts, 
 these improved armaments, and these fleets of commanding 
 power, but if you have also omitted the principal source of 
 
510 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 your power — namely, a sound state of your finance — you may 
 find you have omitted one of the most important elements of 
 that influence abroad and that security for maintaining it of 
 which we have heard so much. 
 
 We are asked sometimes, ' Why do you not propose some- 
 thing definite when you talk of retrenchment ? ' The answer 
 is very obvious. In the position in which we stand we must 
 deal with general truths and aim at general conclusions. It is 
 only for gentlemen on the other side of that table to come for- 
 ward with specific propositions on specific items ; but I think 
 it is not difficult even for those who sit on this side the table 
 to place before the House some results which, if I have not 
 mistaken the character of the House of Commons and the com- 
 mon sense of England, will not be listened to with carelessness 
 and inattention. Whether you look at your home defences at 
 the present moment, or the means which you possess of guard- 
 ing your interests and maintaining your influence abroad, you 
 have made adequate preparations, I have taken the necessary 
 pains to calculate the cost of these home defences, of which I 
 think we may be justly proud, and with which we may be per- 
 fectly satisfied. What also is the cost of those fleets and 
 garrisons which we have abroad to guard our interests and 
 maintain our influence ? From an official document of which 
 every honourable member is in possession, I have made a calcu- 
 lation of the united cost and expenditure of the country under 
 these two heads. I find that when I have ascertained this 
 expenditure it does not account for our military and naval ex- 
 penditure by a vast sum ; that, after supplying the sums 
 necessary to maintain these defences and guard these interests, 
 there still remains a vast amount of public expenditure under 
 these heads that is still unaccounted for. Then, I say, at the 
 first glance, there would appear to be some margin even in 
 that view of the case of considerable and, in the present state 
 of our finances, of necessary reduction. But then a plausible 
 objection may be taken — and I am here to acknowledge its 
 plausibility and to answer it, for we hear it every day when this 
 question is brought forward — ' You forget that the naval and 
 military condition of England is, at the present moment, one 
 
MR. WAIPOLE'S EESOLUTION, JUN£ 1862. 511 
 
 of transition ; that you are changing in this age of scientific 
 discovery, and especially of scientific discovery as applied to 
 armaments, your whole system of armaments, and that this 
 leads to the vast expenditure which cannot be accounted for.' 
 Well, that is a satisfactory solution, provided one condition is 
 fulfilled — that it is true. I will now examine its truth. "We 
 have before us now, in the statements of Ministers and in 
 papers on our table, authentic information on these subjects. 
 What have you done with regard to the armaments of your 
 army, navy, and other forces during the last few years ? You 
 have done great things. You have completely armed your 
 regular troops, in amount exceeding 200,000 men, with the 
 most perfect weapon of modern invention — the Enfield rifle ; 
 you have armed your Militia, your Volunteers, you have armed 
 even Canada with the Enfield rifle ; and, having done all this, 
 you have in store at this moment a number of Enfield rifles 
 capable of arming your regular forces, your Militia, your 
 Volunteers, and even Canada for the space of ten years. If you 
 have effected these great results with your small arms, what 
 have you done with your artillery ? You have armed the whole 
 of your foreign garrisons with Armstrong guns ; you have armed 
 your domestic garrisons with the same weapon ; you have com- 
 pletely armed the whole of your field artUlery with Armstrong 
 guns ; and you have for this current year 1862-63 voted money 
 which will produce nearly 2,500 Armstrong guns, two-thirds 
 having a calibre which altogether gives you about 5,000 guns of 
 that character. You have done more than this — you have at 
 this moment military stores which both in number and effec- 
 tiveness exceed any collection of stores which this country has 
 had for the last fifty years. My authority for that statement is 
 one who long sat in this House, who was a great advocate of 
 military expenditure, and a most distinguished member of the 
 military profession; and I believe I am right in saying that 
 from the siege-train to the ambulance England was never so 
 • profusely and so effectively furnished as at the present moment. 
 The conclusion we must come to when we find that these 
 armaments have been carried out so effectively and so com- 
 pletely and apparently are so near entire fulfilment, is that the 
 
512 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 time has come — and, in the present condition of affairs, we are 
 compelled to ask whether it has come or not — when a consider- 
 able reduction may be made in our naval and military expendi- 
 ture without the least impairing our home defences or the effi- 
 ciency of those forces which defend our interests abroad. 
 
 But I may be told that I forget that, though our armaments 
 are complete, our forces amounting to hundreds of thousands of 
 men armed with the Enfield rifle, with arms enough in store to 
 last for ten years — though at the end of the year we may have 
 5,000 Armstrong guns, two-thirds of which are of the highest 
 calibre ; though all our garrisons abroad, and nearly all at home, 
 and all our field batteries are furnished with this unrivalled 
 weapon — yet a great change has taken place in the materials by 
 which ships are constructed. Let us see whether we cannot 
 examine that point with some calmness. I am not going to 
 enter into any controversy with the noble lord as to the relative 
 number of iron ships possessed by France and ourselves. I 
 think the time has not yet come when the rival powers of Eng- 
 land and France in that respect are to be counted by iron ships. 
 But, as the noble lord will always thrust his view of the question 
 before us, I have taken the best pains I could to inform myself 
 upon the subject, and I believe the statement repeated by the 
 noble lord is a monstrous mystification. The noble lord always 
 seems to count an order to construct an iron ship as an actual 
 ship, forgetting altogether that, in France, when an order is 
 given in the bureau of the Minister of Marine it is executed at 
 leisure ; sometimes it takes ten years to execute, and occasion- 
 ally three or four years elapse before the construction of the 
 vessel is commenced. But there is to be no rivalry about iron 
 ships — our navy is not to be equal to France, but it is to be 
 greatly superior. It is a necessary condition of our geographical 
 position and our political power that our navy should be as 
 superior to the navy of France as the army of France is superior to 
 ours. But this I wish to impress upon the House — that the utmost 
 caution and consideration are necessary in reconstructing the 
 navy with these new materials, and in the case of these iron 
 ships we must not conclude too rashly and too rapidly when any 
 apparent novelty has been introduced that it is instantly to be 
 
ME. WALPOLE'S RESOLUTION, JUNE 1862. 513 
 
 recognised as the type and model of perfection. When these 
 great changes take place some caution and some temperateness 
 of conduct are requisite, and I take it for granted that the 
 noble lord is deeply conscious of the value of those virtues, 
 because, though the whole resources of the country have been 
 at his command since he held office, he has generally spent 
 them in building wooden ships. If France has that superiority 
 over us which the noble lord tells us she has, if she really has 
 thirty-six , to our twenty-five, more shame to the noble lord. 
 Where are all the millions the noble lord has had ? 
 
 Lord Palmerston : The right honourable gentleman has 
 misapprehended me. I said France had thirty-six built and 
 building to our twenty-five. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli : The same distinction applies to both ; there- 
 fore I am quite right in my representation of the noble lord's 
 argument. But I have not done yet with the noble lord on 
 iron ships. If iron ships are wanted, let no false principles of 
 economy prevent us voting the money, but take care first that 
 they are wanted, and take care next that when the money is voted 
 it is expended on iron ships. There was an extraordinary case 
 only last session, when the noble lord, or some of his colleagues 
 in this House under his immediate orders —though I rather 
 think it was the noble lord himself— came down to this House 
 and addressed us on this alarming subject, the iron navy of 
 France. It was late in the session, and he succeeded in extort- 
 ing from an appalled House of Commons an estimate of some- 
 where about 350,000L for building iron ships. It so happens 
 that not one shilKng of this money has been employed in the 
 construction of iron ships, but has been appropriated to an 
 entirely different purpose. I don't think the noble lord will be 
 able to deny the accuracy of that statement ; and I say it is a 
 monstrous thing for a minister to come down here to make 
 sensation speeches about the iron navy, to obtain large votes 
 from a credulous and enthusiastic House of Commons, and then 
 to prorogue Parliament, as he will prorogue it again in a very 
 short time, and then expend the resources of the country he 
 has thus obtained for other objects and purposes. The conclu- 
 gbn I have arrived at from these views— general views, I admit, 
 
 VOL. 1. L ^ 
 
514 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 but founded on authentic facts — is that at this moment we are 
 entering into a great expenditure for military and naval pur- 
 poses, which are not necessary for the security of our shores, or 
 for thei maintenance of our interests and influence abroad. 
 These are considerations which I think the House should not 
 allow wholly to escape its consideration. I am not at all pre- 
 pared to agree that the expenditure of the present Grovemment 
 has been justified ; but, as I said the other night, what is the 
 use of talking about the past ? What I want to know is, what 
 is to be done at present and for the future ; how, when we have 
 before us a prospect of continuous deficits, we are to make both 
 ends meet ? I will make no comment upon the amendment of 
 the honourable gentleman (Mr. D. Grriffith) who sits up aloft — 
 I will come to the amendment of the noble lord who, having on 
 several occasions expressed his opinion that there ought to be 
 no resolution whatever upon the subject, concludes by proposing 
 two resolutions, and accompanies the proposal of those two re- 
 solutions with the lamest and most unsatisfactory reasons to 
 account for them which I ever heard ; because it was perfectly 
 open to the noble lord to meet the resolution of the honourable 
 member for Halifax and any Succeeding amendment which 
 became a substantive motion by the simple negative. It was 
 not the least necessary for the noble lord to bring forward any 
 resolutions, but if he did he should, at least, have brought for- 
 ward satisfactory ones. Are these resolutions satisfactory ? The 
 noble lord is ' deeply impressed with the necessity of economy 
 in every department of the State,' and that is the first time I 
 ever heard he was. You may talk of eating the leek, but I 
 think that is a supper which may satisfy even an Opposition. 
 Well ! the noble lord being 'deeply impressed with the necessity 
 of economy in every department of the State, is at the same 
 time mindful of its obligations to provide for the security of the 
 country at home, and the protection of its interests abroad.' I 
 think it is more than an obligation : but let that pass. 
 
 The noble lord says, ' This House observes with satisfaction 
 the decrease which has already been effected in the national 
 expenditure.' Upon the principle that it is no use talking of 
 •what has passed, I was perfectly prepared to vote for that stater 
 
MR. "WALPOLE'S EJESOLUTION, JUNE 1862. 515 
 
 ment in the amended resolution of the right honourable gentle- 
 man the member for the University of Cambridge ; but still, as 
 we are got into criticism, I am bound to say to the House that 
 there is not a word of truth in it. For reasons which I will give 
 the House when the proper time comes, we would not in the 
 amendment disturb a single word of the resolution of the noble 
 lord which we could avoid altering, and we passed over expres- 
 sions which many of my friends did not approve, and language 
 to which I could not help objecting on the point of veracity. 
 Let us come to the resolution of the noble lord — ' We observe 
 with satisfaction the decrease which has already been efifected 
 in the national expenditure.' The figures are very shortly stated, 
 and they are very instructive. Our expenditm'e in 1860-61 
 was 72,521, 825L I deduct from that expenditure some items, 
 and I am sure the House will recognise their fairness. I deduct 
 the China vote, 3,043,000?. ; a second China vote, 1,111,920L ; 
 and I deduct the fortifications, 578,387?. The total of those 
 deductions is 4,733,193?., which being taken from 72,521,825?., 
 leaves the real expenditure, without those exceptional items, for 
 that year at 67,788,632?. Now take the expenditure for the year 
 1861-62, in which these boasted deductions have been made. 
 Our expenditure for that year was 70,838,441?. I deduct the 
 China vote, 1,230,000?.; the Trent afifair, 900,000?., which is 
 the estimate of the minister ; and fortifications, 158,185?. The 
 total deduction is 2,228,185?., which being taken from 
 70,838,441?. leaves the expenditure 68,550,256?. So that the 
 expenditure of 1860-61 was really 67,788,000?., and the ex- 
 penditure of 1861-62, 68,550,000?. Then we come to the ex- 
 penditure of 1862-63, which is the present year. That expendi- 
 ture is 69,000,293?. I deduct 500,000?. for China and 163,000?. 
 for fortifications, and that leaves 68,337,293?, Here is the 
 comparative expenditure for the three years. In 1860-61 it 
 was 67,788,632?. ; in 1861-62 it was 68,550,256?. ; and in the 
 present year 1862-63 it is not 68,550,000?., but it is 
 68,337,000?. Therefore, I am glad to see there is 150,000?. 
 which will allow us to vote for this resolution absolutely with a 
 clear conscience. The noble lord says, ' The House observes 
 with satisfaction the decrease which has already been effected 
 
 I, X 2 
 
516 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 in the national expenditure,' and if that decrease be of the 
 character which I have shown, I fear the House will view with 
 little satisfaction the reduction of expenditure which the noble 
 lord holds out the hope of, and which is described in the follow- 
 ing words : — ' And trusts that such fuither diminution may be 
 made therein as the futxu-e state of things may warrant.' What 
 is the future state of things, and whoever heard of such language 
 by a Minister of State ? I can only account for this resolution, 
 on the supposition that, like that unfortunate document, a 
 Queen's Speech, it is the united composition of the whole 
 cabinet. I say seriously to the House that when they are 
 meeting to consider the condition of the country in consequence 
 of the state of the finances — when the Prime Minister acknow- 
 ledges that it is necessary that the House should come to some 
 resolution, and that no one less than himself should propose it, 
 that resolution ought to have some definite object. I do not 
 say that it should be so precise as to tie down the minister, but, 
 not treating the House like children, it should indicate some 
 object and intimate some policy. In the present state of affairs 
 the first duty of a ministry is to make such reductions as shall 
 equalise our charges and our revenue, and as those reductions 
 are effected to diminish the war taxation, which, used in a time 
 of peace, is sapping and wasting that financial reserve which is 
 the surest source of our influence with foreign nations and the 
 best security for our prosperity at home. Under these circum- 
 stances, being forced to an opinion by the noble lord, who him- 
 self proposes this awkward and shambling vote of confidence in 
 his own Grovernment, we thought it very desirable that the 
 objects which I have mentioned should be specifically indicated, 
 and that a general policy should be defined. Therefore a reso- 
 lution was prepared by my right honourable friend, who appears 
 to have been appalled to-night by the address which has been 
 made to him by the noble lord. 
 
 If our object were such as the noble lord supposes, if we 
 were really intending an assault upon the Treasiury bench, I do 
 not suppose it would be quite impossible to find another com- 
 mander who would lead us in the attack. But our object was 
 only to assert, at a moment of great perplexity in the House, a 
 
MB. WALPOLE'S RESOLUTION, JUNE 1862. 517 
 
 policy which we thought temperate and practicable, and which 
 we believed the House must ultimately adopt, and public 
 opinion sanction, without supposing that the noble lord would 
 convert a proposal of that kind into a challenge to the Grovern- 
 ment of the country. I am not surprised, therefore, that my 
 right honourable friend was shaken by the statement of the 
 noble lord, which, although loudly supported by those about 
 him, did not appear to me to recommend itself to the sense of 
 propriety of the House generally. No doubt, the statement has 
 produced considerable effect, because if the noble lord really 
 means to say that an attempt on the part of the House of 
 Commons to make his resolution on finance intelligible is an 
 effort to upset the Government there is no doubt that it gives 
 quite a new aspect to the proposal. I cannot conceal from my- 
 self the alarming consequences which might attend even the 
 candid observations of my right honourable friend on this sub- 
 ject. If I had any intention such as the noble lord supposses, 
 I do not know that I should have asked my right honourable 
 friend to move this resolution ; but it appeared to me that the 
 resolution, on the expediency of which the House was universally 
 decided, ought to be one that should secure the good opinion of 
 the country, or at least that respect which an intelligible pur- 
 pose always commands. I am not prepared to suggest any 
 course which should effect that object. I see several amend- 
 ments on the paper which are offered for the purpose of attain- 
 ing it. With most of them I am obliged for one reason or 
 another to differ. There remained that of my right honourable 
 friend, which I was disposed to prefer to them all. To-morrow 
 I believe we shall all be engaged elsewhere.^ I daresay that 
 many hono\u:able gentlemen who take more interest than I do 
 in that noble pastime will have their favourites. I hope they 
 will not be so unlucky as to find their favourites bolting. If 
 any are placed in that dilemma, they will be better able to 
 understand and sympathise with my feelings on this occasion. 
 I was extremely anxious that this resolution should have been 
 adopted by the House, and I confess I had not myself much 
 
 • The ' Derby ' was to be run the next day, and the House was to stand 
 adjourned, as usual, to the day after. 
 
518 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 doubt that the noble lord would have taken it. With this re- 
 solution we should have had something to guide us. We 
 should have had a policy, temperately expressed, and only to 
 be carried into effect if the circumstances of the country justi- 
 fied it. I cannot doubt that if the resolution had been unanim- 
 ously accepted by the House we should have had next year on 
 those benches a Government, composed no matter of what 
 materials — except, indeed, it were formed by the honourable 
 member for Halifax, and then I am sure we should have per- 
 petual war — who would have submitted the expenditure of the 
 country to a severe revision, with a view to that retrenchment , 
 which is perfectly consistent with the efficiency of the public 
 service. 
 
519 
 
 COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH ITALY, rebruary 17, 1863.1 
 
 [This speecli may be called the locus classicus of Mr. Disraeli's 
 speeches on commercial treaties. The gist of it is that commercial 
 treaties could do us very little good when, owing to our free-trade 
 policy, we had nothing left to give in exchange.] 
 
 ME. DISRAELI : Sir, it is, I think, very much to the credit 
 of the Liberal party that we have at last heard from an 
 honourable gentleman a free-trade speech. I shall not offer 
 any observations in vindication of those rags and shreds 
 of protection of which the House has just been reminded. 
 I think our opinion on that subject has been expressed in a 
 manner which cannot be mistaken. Our sincerity as to the 
 course of policy which it has been the wisdom of the country 
 to pursue has been proved by as great sacrifices as can be made 
 by public men. But upon the other side of the House — where 
 honourable members are, or are supposed to be, the advocates 
 of free trade and Parliamentary Reform — I did not expect to 
 have heard this discussion commenced by the Under Secretary 
 for Foreign Affairs making a personal and violent attack upon 
 my honourable friend near me, on the ground that because he 
 advocates the policy of commercial treaties he is showing him- 
 self to be a new convert to the principles of free trade. Sir, I 
 never heard that commercial treaties were connected with the 
 abstract principle of a free exchange of commodities between 
 nations. There is nothing very modern, I believe, in the in- 
 vention of commercial treaties ; nor am I aware that the Tory 
 party have ever shown a disrelish to support commercial treaties, 
 if commercial treaties are to be accepted, as we are told by a 
 
 > This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
520 SPEECHES OF THE EA-RL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 member of the Grovemment, as a test of sincerity in the belief 
 in the principle of free trade. Why, Sir, commercial treaties 
 even with France, have been negotiated successfally by Tory 
 ministers many years before the present commercial treaty with 
 France. There was the commercial treaty of Mr. Pitt, which 
 was only a reproduction of the treaty which Lord Bolingbroke, 
 a Tory minister, negotiated successfully more than 150 years ago 
 for the exchange of products between England and France on 
 terms much easier than those that at present exist. And why was 
 that treaty negotiated, but not ratified ? Why was it defeated ? 
 It was defeated through the opposition of the Whig party in 
 this House. Mr. Addison, one of the most distinguised mem- 
 bers that ever sat in this House, and who afterwards was 
 Secretary of State, exerted all his wit and unrivalled powers of 
 humour and composition in ridiculing the arrival of a distin- 
 guished foreigner in this country — one Count Tariffe, whose 
 mission was to introduce the habit of free exchange of commo- 
 dities between two great nations. Those powers of ridicule and 
 humour, supported by the unfortunate prejudices of the country, 
 defeated that treaty. Therefore, nothing can be more unfounded 
 than to suppose that because we on this side of the House are 
 in favour of commercial treaties we are in fact at all deserting 
 those principles which have been habitually supported, I may 
 almost say for centuries, by the Tory party. But the honour- 
 able Under Secretary of State attacks my friend, and says : 
 ' Because you are a supporter of a commercial treaty I hold you 
 up to public reprobation as only a recent convert to the prin- 
 ciples of free trade.' 
 
 Now, Sir, if there can be anything opposed to the abstract 
 principles of free exchange upon which unrestricted competition 
 depends, it is, it must be, those regulations or conventions by 
 which reciprocal advantages are sought in the commercial ex- 
 change of nations. You are departing from those principles 
 which you take every opportunity of claiming as your own ; 
 you are departing from the ground of pure science and inexor- 
 able logic the moment you attempt to negotiate the terms upon 
 which commercial exchange shall take place. Now, in the ease 
 of the French treaty we came forward with certain advantages 
 
COMMEBCIAX TREATY WITH ITALY, FEBRUAKY 1863. 521 
 
 which we proposed to exchange for others. That I thought 
 myself at the time, generally speaking, to be a most wise policy. 
 I thought, and always have thought, that anything which 
 favoured commercial exchange between England and France 
 was a policy which each country ought to favour, but the scheme 
 was entirely contrary to those abstract principles of free ex- 
 change which you have always upheld. Nothing, then, can be 
 more inconsistent than to reproach any gentleman on this side 
 because he supports commercial treaties. I remember, Sir, 
 many years ago, introducing the subject of commercial treaties 
 to this House. It was before the honourable member for 
 Eochdale, a gentleman who on all subjects shows great capacity, 
 was one of its members. But having supported in that motion 
 the system of commercial treaties, as one which I thought would, 
 upon the whole, most promote the increase of the commerce of 
 this country, I remember being attacked out of the House by 
 the honourable member on that subject. I do not know whether 
 the words were uttered aloud, so that we can find them in 
 authentic record ; but I can say from my own personal experi- 
 ence, that no less a personage than Sir Robert Peel said upon 
 that occasion, ' Don't you think we have heard the last of com- 
 mercial treaties ? ' 
 
 Well, Sir, we had not heard the last of commercial treaties. 
 A very considerable commercial treaty was destined to be nego- 
 tiated years after. So shrewd, so sagacious a statesman as Sir 
 Robert Peel, so cautious in expressing his opinion, in 1844 pro- 
 bably was, then, of the belief that we had heard the last of 
 commercial treaties. Yet we had not heard the last of com- 
 mercial treaties. A most important commercial treaty was after- 
 wards negotiated, and by whom ? By the honourable gentleman 
 the member for Rochdale (Mr. Cobden). Now, that is a lesson 
 to all of us. It teaches us this — that, whatever the value or 
 the truth of abstract principles, it is in their application — in 
 the wise and necessary application of those principles, that is 
 involved the prosperity of nations. Now, Sir, I think we 
 are very much indebted to my honourable friend for bringing 
 this subject before us; not that I think the observations he has 
 made to-night, or the interesting debate which has followed, 
 
522 SPEECHES OF THE EABL OF BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 ■will at all advance in this country the question of commercial 
 treaties. I think we have got into a position in which that is 
 impracticable : but the discussion will at least teach the country 
 the position which upon that subject it really occupies. We 
 have no means of negotiation, and it is most unwise, in my 
 opinion, to hold out generally to the country that the Grovern- 
 ment have the power of negotiating treaties of commercial 
 advantage. The country has accepted the policy of unrestricted 
 competition. If it be dissatisfied with that policy, let it frankly 
 announce its dissatisfaction. But we cannot have the advantage 
 of a policy of unrestricted competition and at the same time, 
 as regards commerce, enjoy the advantage of exchange under 
 diplomatic arrangement — it is impossible at once to enjoy both. 
 The country now wants to have the double advantage, but 
 warning enough has been given. You have been told often 
 and often by members of this House that whether it regards 
 commerce, or whether it respects navigation, you were too liberal 
 in parting with the advantages and privileges you possessed ; 
 but the principles of unrestricted competition were adopted, 
 and it is now too late to inquire whether you were right or 
 wrong. The policy which you then supported was accepted, 
 and by that policy you must, in my opinion, stand. Why, in 
 navigation alone, I remember how constantly you were told 
 that you were needlessly giving up a thousand points. The 
 constant answer was, ' Only make the surrender, only endure 
 the sacrifice, and you will see that your example will inspire 
 others.' I am not aware myself of the satisfactory returns to 
 which those sacrifices have tended. They appear to me, as far 
 as I can recall them at this moment, to be very slight and 
 mean. But the policy was adopted after great discussion — after 
 frequent appeals to the country — after great debate in this 
 House, and great political consequences ; and that you should 
 now endeavour to' combine the commercial advantages which 
 accrue from unrestricted competition with the benefits which 
 can only attend upon diplomatic arrangements, is a monstrous 
 effort, which, depend upon it, must end in failure. It is not 
 now for you to come forward — you who favour free trade and 
 commercial treaties — and find fault with the Grovernment be- 
 
COMJIERCIAL TREATY WITH ITALY, FEBEUAEY 1863. 523 
 
 cause they cannot accomplish such results. You have your- 
 selves resolved that the means which only can bring about these 
 arrangements should be surrendered at discretion. You gave 
 them up without condition, and it is impossible now to resume 
 the position you have lost. But that is no reason whatever 
 why the Grovernment should attempt to carry on negotiations 
 in this matter in the manner that the present Grovernment 
 does. 
 
 The Government know very well the position they occupy, 
 and we are painfully conscious of it ; and the Grovernment, 
 who are always better instructed than the House of Commons, 
 must be doubly conscious of the difficulty of attempts to nego- 
 tiate commercial treaties. The fault I find with the Grovern- 
 ment in pretending to negotiate commercial treaties is that 
 they hold out an idea to the country that by an Italian or 
 Austrian treaty they would create a great interchange. They 
 know that it is impossible they can do it. It would be more 
 dignified, to my mind, to hold aloof. Having adopted a com- 
 mercial system the principle of which is unrestricted competi- 
 tion, it would be more dignified, and I believe, in the end, more 
 successful, if you held aloof rather than pretend you can nego- 
 tiate these treaties. Every day we hear, ' We have had a 
 successful commercial treaty with France ; why not with Italy — 
 why not with Austria ? ' You know very well that you cannot 
 have the same results as with France. You had something to 
 give to France. You had the principle of reciprocity to act 
 with, the principle which you have always despised and always 
 condemned. That led to your success — that led to the results 
 which have been obtained, and you claimed that as a discovery 
 which was accomplished more than a century ago by some of the 
 greatest statesmen that ever have existed in this country. It is 
 past — the age of commercial treaties is past, because you have no 
 means and no materials for negotiation. All you can do is to 
 exercise that moral influence, of which we hear so much, with 
 foreign countries with which you are placed in communication, 
 to lead them by your own example and your own prosperity. 
 Never mind whether it arose from your present or your old 
 system of commerce — for the old as well as the present 
 
524 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEAOONSFIELD. 
 
 system of commerce has equally brought prosperity to this 
 country — from the contemplation of that prosperity the con- 
 viction will grow in those countries that with immense re- 
 sources they are producing small revenues ; that they are not 
 raising revenues that bear a due relation to their resources, and 
 you may trust to that to lead to reciprocal exchanges and mutual 
 benefits in commercial transactions. But you will gain that as 
 completely, and perhaps sooner, without the embarrassment of 
 commercial treaties than you would with these conventions. I 
 regret that, through the conduct of the Grovemment and through 
 the extraordinary behaviour of the free-trade party in patronising 
 artificial agreements of exchange, there has arisen in this 
 country the impression that the best and most politic mode of 
 stimulating commerce is to have recourse to that method. That 
 was a good theory twenty years ago, and not only a good theory, 
 but a good theory which could be put in beneficial practice. 
 I will not enter into a discussion now — at all times a barren 
 controversy — whether if, twenty years ago, you had followed the 
 principle of commercial exchange you would have derived more 
 advantage than by suddenly adopting the principle of unre-, 
 stricted competition. You have adopted unrestricted compe- 
 tition as the principle of your commercial code. By accident 
 certain articles were excepted, and two years ago you used them 
 as the means of negotiating a treaty of commerce with a great 
 country, with a large population, and with very rich and 
 valuable resoiirces. You have played all your cards, and to 
 attempt at the present moment — to pretend that you can assist 
 and support the commerce of this country by commercial 
 treaties is a mere delusion. 
 
 No doubt the Grovemment of this country may make use of 
 its legitimate influence to obtain commercial advantages, but to 
 obtain treaties on commercial and political principles are two 
 different subjects ; and my honourable friend is perfectly right 
 in pointing out how important it is that the Grovemment, wheh 
 holding out the principle of commercial treaties as one highly 
 advantageous to our allies, should not follow at the same time 
 a general policy which irritates the feelings and offends the 
 pride of foreign Governments. In taking that line my honour- 
 
COMMEECIAl TREATY WITH ITALY, FEBEUARY 1863. 525 
 
 able friend is highly to be commended, and no doubt what he 
 has said wUl lead to suggestions in the public mind which will 
 be advantageous. At the same time, I regret very much that 
 honourable gentlemen opposite, after so many years, during 
 which they have held with so much tenacity abstract opinions 
 on commercial exchange, should now come forward and be 
 agitating the country with the absolute necessity of making 
 artificial arrangements for stimulating the commerce of the 
 country. The plan which they seem now to foster is one not 
 founded on right principles, and practically cannot be carried 
 into effect ; and any commercial treaties which England may 
 now negotiate, and which when they are negotiated must be 
 beneficial to the different countries concerned, no man can deny 
 must be negotiated by political influence, and not by the 
 influence of commercial considerations. 
 
PAET IV. 
 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, 
 
 BOROUGH FRANCHISE . . . May 8, 1865. 
 
 ON INTRODUCING BILL OF 1867 . Maboh 18, 1867. 
 
 SECOND READING „ . March 26, 1867. 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S AMENDMENT 
 
 (COMPOUND HOUSEHOLDERS) . April 12, 1867. 
 
 THIRD READING .... July 15, 1867. 
 
 COUNTY FRANCHISE . . . May 18, 1874. 
 
629 
 
 PAELIAMENTARY REFORM, May 8, 1865. 
 
 [The Government whicli succeeded Lord Derby in 1859 came 
 into office pledged to settle the Reform question, but they failed as 
 he had failed, and after the withdrawal of their Bill in 1860, allowed 
 the question to drop. Their followers, however, were not equally 
 willing to abandon it, and a running fire was kept up by Mr. Locke 
 King and Mr. Baines dui-ing the whole of Lord Palmerston's adminis- 
 tration. On the second reading of a Bill introduced by the latter in 
 1865, for the reduction of the Borough Franchise, Mr. Disraeli spoke 
 as follows in support of Lord Elcho, who moved the previous question.] 
 
 ME. DISEAELI : Sir, I could have wished, and once I 
 almost believed, that it was not necessary for me to take 
 part in this debate. I look on this discussion as the natural 
 epilogue to the Parliament of 1859. We remember the pro- 
 logue. I consider this to be a controversy between the ' edu- 
 cated section of the Liberal party,' ' and that section of the 
 Liberal party not entitled, according to their companions and 
 colleagues, to an epithet so euphuistic and complimentary. But 
 after the speech of the minister, I hardly think it would become 
 me — representing the opinions of the gentlemen with whom 
 I am acting on this side of the House — entirely to be silent. 
 
 Sir, we have a measure before us to-night which is to increase 
 the franchise in boroughs. I object to that measure. I object to 
 it because an increase of the franchise in boroughs is a proposal 
 to re-distribute political power in the country. I do not think 
 that the distribution of political power in the country ought to 
 be treated partially — from the very nature of things it is im- 
 possible, if there is to be a re-distribution of political power, 
 
 ' Lord Hartington, when he proposed in 18.59 a vote of want of confidence 
 in Lord Derby's Government, counselled a coalition between the Whigs and 
 the Ka'dicals, and described the Whigs as ' the educated section of the Liberal 
 party.' 
 
 VOL. I. MM 
 
530 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 that you can only regard the suffrage as it affects one section 
 of the constituent body. 
 
 Whatever the proposition of the honourable gentleman — 
 whether abstractedly it be expedient or not — this is quite clear, 
 that it must be considered not only in relation to the particular 
 persons with whom it will deal, but in relation to other persons 
 with whom it does not deal, although it may affect them. And, 
 therefore, it has always been clear that if you deal with the 
 subject popularly called Parliamentary Eeform, you must deal 
 with -it comprehensively. The arrangements you may make 
 with reference to one part of the constituency may not be 
 objectionable in themselves, but maybe extremely objectionable 
 if you consider them with relation to other parts. Consequently, 
 it has been held — and the more we consider the subject the more 
 true and just appears to be the conclusion — that if you deal 
 with the matter you must deal with it as a whole. You must 
 not only consider borough constituencies, you must consider 
 ■ county constituencies ; and when persons rise up and urge 
 their claims to be introduced into the constituent body, even if 
 you think there is a plausible case substantiated on iheir part, 
 you are bound in policy and justice to consider also the claim 
 of other bodies not in possession of the franchise, but whose 
 right to consideration may be equally valid. And so clear is it, 
 when you come to the distribution of power, that you must 
 consider the question in all its bearings, that even honourable 
 gentlemen who have taken part in this debate, which is one 
 merely on the borough franchise, have not been able to avoid 
 the question of what they call the re-distribution of seats — a 
 very important part of the question to which I have referred, 
 the distribution of power. 
 
 It is easy for the honourable member for Liskeard (Mr. 
 Bernal Osborne), for example, to rise and say, in supporting 
 this measure for the increase of the borough franchise, that it 
 is impossible any longer to conceal the anomalies of our system 
 in regard to the distribution of seats. ' Is it not monstrous,' 
 he asks, ' that Calne, with 173 voters, should return a member, 
 while Glasgow returns only two, with a constituency of 20,000 ? ' 
 Well, it may be equally monstrous that Liskeard should return 
 
PARLIAMENTAEY EEFOEM, MAY 1865. 531 
 
 one member, and that Birkenhead should only make a similar 
 . return. Sir, the distribution of seats — as anyone must know 
 who has ever considered the subject deeply and with a sense of 
 responsibility towards the country — is one of the most profound 
 and difi&cult questions that can be brought before the House. 
 It is all very well to treat it in an easy offhand manner; but 
 how are you to reconcile the case of North Cheshire, of North 
 Durham, of West Kent, and many other counties, where you 
 find a few towns, with an aggregate population, perhaps, of 
 100,000, returning six members to this House, while the rest 
 of the population of the county, though equal in amount, returns 
 only two members ? How are you to meet the case of the 
 West Riding in reference to its boroughs, or the case of the 
 representation of South Lancashire in reference to its boroughs ? 
 Why, those are more anomalous than the case of Calne. Then 
 there is the question of Scotland. With a population hardly 
 equal to that of the metropolis, and with wealth greatly inferior 
 — probably not more than two-thirds of the amount — Scotland 
 yet possesses forty-eight members, while the metropolis has 
 only twenty. Do you reformers mean to say that you are pre- 
 pared to disfranchise Scotland in proportion to the population ; 
 or that you are going to develop the representation of the 
 metropolis in proportion to its population and property ; and 
 so allow a country like England, so devoted to local govern- 
 ment and so influenced by local feeling, to be governed by 
 London ? And therefore, when those speeches are made which 
 gain a cheer for the moment, and are supposed to be unanswer- 
 able as arguments in favour of Parliamentary change, I would 
 recommend the House to recollect that this as a question is one 
 of the most difficult and one of the deepest that can possibly 
 engage the attention of the country. The fact is, in the 
 representation of this country other elements enter besides 
 merely population and property — you have to take care that 
 the country itself is represented. That is one reason why 1 
 am opposed to the second reading of the Bill — because it deals 
 partially with the subject, and not completely and comprehen- 
 sively. 
 
 Sir, there is another objection which I have to this Bill 
 
 U M 2 
 
532 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 brought forward by the honourable member for Leeds, and that 
 is that it is brought forward by the member for Leeds. I do, 
 not consider this a subject which ought to be intrusted to the 
 care and guidance of any individual member in this House. If 
 there be one subject more than another that deserves the con- 
 sideration and demands the responsibility of the Government, 
 it certainly is the re-construction of our Parliamentary system ; 
 and it is the Grovernment or a political party, candidates for 
 power, who recommend a policy, and who will not shrink from 
 the responsibility of carrying that policy into effect if the 
 opportunity be afforded to them, who alone are qualified to deal 
 with such a question. But, Sir, I shall be told — as we have 
 been told in a previous portion of the adjourned debate — that 
 the two great parties of the State cannot be trusted to deal 
 with this question, because they have both trifled with it. That 
 is a charge which has been made repeatedly during this dis- 
 cussion and on previous occasions, and certainly a graver one 
 could not be urged in this House. 
 
 I am not prepared to admit that even our opponents have 
 trifled with this question. We have had a very animated 
 account by the right honourable gentleman ' who has just 
 addressed us as to what may be called the Story of the Eeform 
 Measures. It was animated, but it was not accurate. Mine 
 will be accurate, though perhaps not animated. I am not pre- 
 pared to believe that English statesmen, though they be opposed 
 to us in politics and may sit on opposite benches, could ever 
 have intended to trifle with this question. I think that 
 possibly they may have made great mistakes in the course 
 which they took ; they may have miscalculated ; they may have 
 been misled ; but I do not believe that any men in this country, 
 occupying the posts — the eminent posts — of those who have 
 recommended any re-construction of our Parliamentary system 
 in modern days, could have advised a course which they dis- 
 approved. They may have thought it perilous — they may have 
 thought it difficult — but though they may have been misled I 
 am convinced they must have felt that it was necessary. Let 
 me say a word on behalf of one with whom I have had no 
 ' Mr, Horsman. 
 
PAELIAMENTAEY EEFOEM, MAY 1865. 533 
 
 political connection and to whom I have been placed in constant 
 opposition in this House when he was an honoured member of 
 it — I mean Lord Russell. I cannot at all agree with the lively 
 narrative of the right honourable gentleman, according to which 
 Parliamentary Reform was but the creature of Lord John 
 Russell, whose cabinet, controlled by him with the vigour of a 
 Richelieu, at all times disapproved his course ; still less can I 
 acknowledge that merely to am.use himself, or in a moment of 
 difficulty to excite some popular sympathy, Lord John Russell 
 was a statesman always with a Reform Bill in his pocket, ready 
 to produce it and make a display. How different, says the right 
 honourable gentleman, from that astute and sagacious statesman 
 now at the head of Her Majesty's Government — whom I almost 
 hoped to have seen in his place this evening. I am sure it 
 would have given the House great pleasure to have seen him 
 here, and I certainly did hope that the noble lord would have 
 been enabled to be in his place and prepared to support his 
 policy. 
 
 According to the animated but not accurate account of the 
 right honourable gentleman who has just sat down, all that 
 Lord Derby did was to sanction and humour the caprices of 
 Lord John Russell. Now, I must remind the right honourable 
 gentleman that he has forgotten the history of the subject, 
 recent though it be. It is true that Lord John Russell, when 
 Prime Minister, originally recommended that Her Majesty in 
 the Speech from the Throne, should call the attention of Parlia- 
 ment to the condition of our representative system. There is 
 no doubt about that. But Lord John Russell unfortunately 
 shortly afterwards retired from his eminent position. He was 
 soon after succeeded by one of the most considerable statesmen 
 of our days — a statesman not connected with the political school 
 of Lord John Russell, who was supported by a whole staff of 
 emineiit statesmen who had been educated in the same school 
 as himself, and under the same distinguished master. This 
 eminent statesman, however, is entirely forgotten by the right 
 honourable gentleman, although he took office with every advan- 
 tage. The right honourable gentleman overlooks the fact that 
 Lord Aberdeen, when Prime ]\Iinister, and when all the principal 
 
534 SPEECHES OF THE EAUL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 places in his cabinet were filled with the disciples of Sir Eobert 
 Peel, did think it his duty to recommend the same counsel to 
 Her Majesty. But this is an important, though not the only 
 important item in the history of the Eeform Bill which has 
 been ignored by the right honourable gentleman. But is this 
 all? The time came when Lord Aberdeen gave place to 
 another statesman, one who has been complimented to-night 
 on his sagacity in evading the subject — as if such a course 
 could be a subject for congratulation. Let me vindicate the 
 policy of Lord Palmerston in his absence. He did not evade 
 the question. Lord Palmerston followed the example of Lord 
 John Russell. He followed the example, also, of Lord Aber- 
 deen, and recommended Her Majesty to notice the subject of 
 Parliamentary Reform in the Speech from the Throne. 
 
 What becomes, then, of the lively narrative of the right 
 honourable gentleman, and the inference and conclusions which 
 he drew from it ? Not only is his account inaccurate, but it is 
 injurious, as I take it, to the honour of public men. Well, now 
 you have three Prime Ministers — not one, merely from caprice 
 or personal littleness — bringing forward the question of Parlia- 
 mentary Reform ; you have Lord John Russell, Lord Aberdeen, 
 and you have even that statesman who, according to the account 
 of the right honourable gentleman, was so eminent for his 
 sagacity in evading the subject altogether. Now, let me ask 
 the House to consider the position of Lord Derby when he was 
 called to power — a position which you cannot rightly under- 
 stand if you accept as correct the fallacious statements of the 
 right honourable gentleman. I will give the House an account 
 of this subject the accuracy of which I believe neither side will 
 impugn. It may not possibly be without interest, and will not, 
 I am sure, be without significance. Lord Derby was sent for 
 by Her Majesty, an unwilling candidate for ofiice — for let me 
 remind the House that at that moment he had an adverse 
 majority of 140 in the House of Commons, and I therefore do 
 not think that Lord Derby was open to any imputation in 
 hesitating to accept political responsibility under such circum- 
 stances. Lord Derby laid these considerations before Her 
 Majesty. I speak, of course, with reserve, yet really say nothing 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, MAY 1865. 535 
 
 now which I have not been authorised to say before in the 
 discussion of these matters in this House. But when a Govern- 
 ment comes in on Reform and remains in power six years 
 without passing any measure of the kind, it is possible that 
 these circumstances, too, may be lost sight of. Lord Derby 
 advised Her Majesty not to form a Grovernment under his 
 influence, because there existed so large a majority against him 
 in the House of Commons, and because this question of Reform 
 was placed in such a position that it was impossible not to deal 
 with it, and he did not wish to deal with it. For it should be 
 remembered that Lord Derby was a member of the famous 
 cabinet which carried the Reform Bill in 1832. Lord Derby, 
 as Mr. Stanley, was in the House of Commons one of the most 
 efficient promoters of the measure. Lord Derby believed that 
 the Act of 1832 had tended to effect the purpose for which it 
 was designed; and although no man, superior, as he is, to 
 prejudice, could fail to see that some who were qualified for the 
 exercise of the franchise were still debarred from the privilege, 
 yet he could not also fail to perceive the danger which would 
 arise in a country like England from constantly tampering with 
 the franchise, and that therefore it was inexpedient to deal 
 with the question. On these grounds Lord Derby declined the 
 honour which Her Majesty desired to confer upon him. 
 
 Her Majesty was then left without advisers, and the appeal 
 to Lord Derby was repeated. Under such circumstances it was 
 impossible for any English statesman to hesitate. But I am 
 bound to say that although there was no contract or understand- 
 ing further than that which prevails among men, however 
 different their politics, who love their country and wish to 
 maintain its greatness, still there was an understanding at the 
 time among men of weight on both sides of the House that the 
 position in which the Reform question was placed was one 
 embarrassing to the Crown and not creditable to the House, and 
 that any minister trying his best to deal with it under these 
 circumstances would receive, not a pledge' of support to his 
 measure— that would be impossible and preposterous — but 
 would be insured the candid consideration of the House. It 
 was thought, moreover, that the time had possibly arrived when 
 
536 SPEECHES OE THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 both parties might unite in endeavouring to bring about a 
 solution to the advantage and benefit of the country. Under 
 these circumstances Lord Derby gave his mind to the measure. 
 And yet, says the right honourable gentleman who has just 
 addressed you, it was only in 1860 that the portentous truth 
 flashed across the mind of the country that the question of 
 Parliamentary Eeform was this — was it possible to admit a 
 portion of the working classes to the enjoyment of the franchise, 
 without impairing the Constitution of the country — it was only 
 in 1860, after so many ministers had been dealing with the 
 question for so many years that this real state of the question 
 flashed upon the conscience of the country. All I can say is 
 that this was the question, and the only question, which en- 
 gaged the attention of Lord Derby's cabinet in 1858. The 
 question was, whether they could secure the franchise for a 
 certain portion of the working classes who, by their industry, 
 their intelligence, and their integrity, showed that they were 
 worthy of such a possession, without at the same time over- 
 whelming the rest of the constituency by the numbers of those 
 whom they admitted. That, Sir, was the only question which 
 occupied the attention of the Grovernment of Lord Derby ; and 
 yet the right honourable gentleman says that it was only in 
 1860 that the attention of the public was first called to the 
 subject, when, in fact, the question of Parliamentary Eeform had 
 been before them for more than ten years, and on a greater 
 scale than that embraced by the measure under consideration 
 this evening. 
 
 I need not remind the House of the reception which Lord 
 Derby's Bill encountered. It is neither my disposition, nor, I 
 am sure, that of any of my colleagues, to complain of the votes 
 of this House on that occasion, nor to indulge in reproaches 
 against any of its members. Political life must be taken as you 
 find it, and so far as I am concerned not a word shall escape me 
 on the subject. But from the speeches made on the first night 
 of this debate, and from the speech made by the right honour- 
 able gentleman this evening, I deem it my duty to vindicate the 
 conduct pursued by the party with which I act. I say we were 
 perfectly well aware of the great question which it was our 
 
PAELIAMENTARY EEFOEM, MAY 1865. 537 
 
 business to solve, and I say this now which I would not have 
 said under other circumstances, that I believe that the measure 
 which we brought forward was the only one which has attempted 
 to meet its difficulties. Totally irrespective of other modes of 
 dealing with the question, there were two franchises especially 
 ^proposed on that occasion which, in my mind, would have done 
 much towards solving them. The first was the franchise 
 founded upon personal property, and the second the franchise 
 founded upon partial occupation. Those two franchises, irre^ 
 spective of other modes by which we attempted to meet the 
 want and the difficulty — those two franchises, had they been 
 brought into Committee of this House, would, in my opinion, 
 have been so shaped and adapted that they would have effected 
 those objects which the majority of the House desire. We en- 
 deavoured in that Bill to make proposals which were in the 
 genius of the English Constitution. It is easy to speak of the 
 English Constitution as a mere phrase. We did not consider 
 the Constitution a mere phrase. We knew that the Constitu- 
 tion of this country is a monarchy tempered by the authority of 
 co-ordinate estates of the realm. We knew that the House of 
 Commons is an estate of the realm. We knew that an estate 
 of the realm is a political body, invested with political power 
 for the government of the country and for the public good : 
 therefore, a body founded upon privilege and not upon right. 
 It is therefore in the noblest and properest sense of the word 
 an aristocratic body, and from the first the estate of the Com- 
 mons has had that character. From that characteristic the 
 Reform Bill of 1832 did not derogate ; and if at this moment- 
 we could contrive, as we proposed to do in 1859, to add con- 
 siderably to the number of the constituent body, we should not 
 change that characteristic, but it would still remain founded 
 upon an aristocratic principle. 
 
 Well, now the right honourable gentleman the Secretary of 
 State 1 has addressed us to-night in a remarkable speech. He 
 also takes up the history of Eeform ; but before I touch upon 
 some of the features of that speech it is my duty to refer to 
 the statements which he made with regard to the policy which 
 ' Sir George Grey. 
 
538 SPEECHES OE THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 the Grovernment of Lord Derby was prepared to assume after 
 the general election of 1859. By a total misrepresentation of 
 the character of the amendment proposed by Lord John Eussell, 
 which threw the Grovernment in 1859 into a minority, and by 
 quoting a passage from a very long speech of mine in 1859, the 
 right honourable gentleman most dexterously conveyed these 
 two propositions to the House — first, that Lord John Russell 
 had proposed an amendment to oiu- Reform Bill, by which 
 the House declared that no Bill could be satisffictory by 
 which the working classes were not admitted to the franchise 
 — one of our main objects being that the working classes should 
 in a great measure be admitted to the franchise ; and, secondly, 
 that after the election I was prepared, as the organ of the 
 Grovernment, to give up all the schemes of those franchises 
 founded upon personal property, partial occupation, and other 
 grounds, and to substitute a Bill lowering the borough qualifi- 
 cation. That, in the first place, conveyed to the House a 
 totally inaccurate idea of the amendment of Lord John Russell. 
 There was not a single word in that amendmeiit about the 
 working classes. There was not a single phrase upon which 
 that issue was raised ; nor could it have been raised, because 
 our Bill, whether it could have effected the object or not, was a 
 Bill which proposed greatly to enfranchise the working classes. 
 And, in the second place, as regards the statement I made, it 
 simply was this. The election was over — we were still minis- 
 ters, and, still acting according to our sense of duty, recom- 
 mended in the Royal Speech that the question of Parliamentary 
 Reform should be dealt with ; because I must be allowed to 
 remind the House that, whatever may have been our errors, we 
 never paltered with the Reform question — we proposed a Bill 
 which we intended to carry. And having once taken up this 
 question as a matter of duty, no doubt greatly influenced by 
 what we considered the unhappy mistakes of our predecessors, 
 and the difficult position in which they had placed the Crown, 
 Parliament, and the country, we determined not to leave the 
 question until it had been settled. As ministers of the Crown, 
 we felt it to be our duty to recommend to Her Majesty to 
 introduce the question of Reform in the Speech from the 
 
PARLIAMENTAEY REFORM, MAY 1865. 539 
 
 Throne which opened the Parliament of 1859. And how v/ere 
 we, except in that spirit of compromise which is the principal 
 characteristic of our political system — how could we introduce 
 a Eeform Bill after that election, without in some degree con- 
 sidering the possibility of lowering the borough franchise ? But 
 it was not a franchise of 6?., but an arrangement that was to be 
 taken with the rest of the Bill, and if it had been met in the 
 same spirit, a measure might have been passed. 
 
 But, says the right honourable baronet, pursuing his history 
 of the Eeform question, ' when the Government of 'Lord Derby 
 retired from office, we came in and we were perfectly sincere in 
 our intentions to carry that Eeform Bill to which we had 
 pledged ourselves and by means of which we had driven the 
 Grovemment from office ; but look at the opposition we received 
 — there never was such opposition ! There was the right 
 honourable gentleman' — meaning myself — 'he absolutely al- 
 lowed our Bill to be read a second time.' That tremendous 
 reckless opposition of mine which allowed the Bill to be read 
 a second time, seems to have laid the Government prostrate. 
 If I had succeeded in throwing out the Bill, we should have 
 relieved the new Government from great embarrassment ; but, 
 their Bill having been read a second time, the Government 
 were quite overcome, and, it appears, have never recovered the 
 paralysis up to this time. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman was good enough to say 
 that the proposition of his Government was rather coldly re- 
 ceived upon his side of the House, but he said ' nobody spoke 
 against it.' Certainly, nobody spoke against the Bill on this 
 side ; but I think I remember some remarkable speeches from 
 the right honourable gentleman's friends against their measure. 
 There was the great city of Edinburgh ' represented by an acute 
 eloquence of which we never weary, and which again upon the 
 present occasion we have heard ; there was the great city of 
 Bristol,'^ represented also by a devoted supporter of the Govern- 
 ment, and many other constituencies of equal importance. But 
 the most remarkable speech — the speech which ' killed Cock 
 
 > Mr. Black. 
 
 ^ Hon. F. H. F. Berkeley. 
 
540 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Robin' — was absolutely delivered by one who might be de- 
 scribed as a member of the Grovernment, the Chairman of Ways 
 and Means (Mr. Massey), and who, I believe, spoke from imme- 
 diately behind the Prime Minister. Did the Grovernment 
 express any disapprobation of such conduct ? They promoted 
 him to a great post, and sent him to India with an income of 
 fabulous amount. And now they are astonished they cannot 
 carry a Reform Bill ! If they remove all those among their 
 supporters who oppose such Bills by preferring them to posts of 
 great confidence and great lucre, how can they suppose that 
 will ever carry one ? 
 
 Looking at the policy of the Grovernment, I am not at all 
 astonished at the speech which the right honourable gentleman 
 the Secretary of State has made this evening, of which speech 
 I may observe, that although it was remarkable for many things, 
 yet there were two salient conclusions at which the right 
 honourable gentleman arrived: first, the repudiation of the 
 rights of man ; and next, the repudiation of the 61. franchise. 
 The first is a great relief : and, remembering what the feeling 
 of the House was only a year ago, when, by the dangerous 
 eloquence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we were led to 
 believe that the days of Tom Paine had returned, and that 
 Rousseau was to be rivalled in a new social contract,' it must be 
 a vast relief to every respectable man here to find that not only 
 are we not to have the rights of man, but we are not even to 
 have the 61. franchise. It is a matter, I think, of much con- 
 gratulation, and I am ready to give credit to the Secretary of 
 State for the honesty with which he has expressed himself; I 
 only wish we had had the same frankness, the same honesty of 
 expression, arising from a clear view of his subject, in the first 
 year of the Parliament as we have had in the last. I will 
 follow the example of the right honourable gentleman and his 
 friends, and be frank. I have not changed my opinion upon 
 the subject of what is called Parliamentary Reform. All that 
 has occurred ; all that I have observed ; all the results of my 
 reflections lead me to this more and more — that the principle 
 
 ' Alluding to Mr. Gladstone's speech on Mr. Baines' Borough Franchise 
 Bill, 1864. 
 
PAELIAMENTAEY EEFORM, MAY 1865. 541 
 
 upon which the constituencies of this country should be in- 
 creased is one not of radical, but, I would say, of lateral reform 
 — the extension of the franchise, not its degradation. Although 
 — I do not wish in any way to deny it — being in the most 
 difficult position when the Parliament of 1859 met, being 
 anxious to assist the Crown and the Parliament, by proposing 
 some moderate measure which men on both sides might sup- 
 port, we did to a certain extent agree to some modification of 
 the lOZ. franchise, yet I confess that my present opinion is 
 opposed, as it originally was, to any course of the kind. I think 
 that it would fail in its object ; that it would not secure the 
 introduction of that particular class which we all desire to 
 introduce, but that it would introduce many others who are 
 unworthy of the suffrage. But, Sir, I retain those opinions ; I 
 think it is possible to increase the electoral body of the country, 
 if the opportunity were favourable and the necessity urgent, by 
 the introduction of voters upon principles in unison with the 
 principles of the Constitution, so that the suffrage should remain 
 a privilege, and not a right — a privilege to be gained by virtue, 
 by intelligence, by industry, by integrity, and to be exercised 
 for the common good. And I think if you quit that ground — 
 if you" once admit that a man has a right to vote whom you 
 cannot prove to be disqualified for it, you would change the 
 character of the Constitution, and you would change it in a 
 manner which will tend to lower the importance of this 
 country. 
 
 Between the scheme we brought forward and the measure \ 
 now brought forward by the honomable member for Leeds, and / 
 the inevitable conclusion which its principal supporters acknow-' 
 ledge it must lead to, it is a question between an aristocratic 
 government in the proper sense of the term — that is, a govern- 
 ment by the best men of all classes — and a democracy. I 
 doubt very much whether a democracy is a government that 
 would suit this country ; and it is just as well that the House 
 when coming to a vote on this question should really consider 
 if that be the issue — and it is the real issue — between retain- 
 ing the present Constitution — not the present constituent body, 
 but between the present Constitution and a democracy— it is 
 
542 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 just as well for the House to recollect that the stake is not 
 mean — that what is at issue is of some price. You must re- 
 member, not to use the epithet profanely, that we are dealing 
 really with a peculiar people. There is no country at the 
 present moment that exists under the circumstances and under 
 the same conditions as the people of this realm. You have, 
 for example, an ancient, powerful, richly-endowed Church and 
 perfect religious liberty. You have tmbroken order and com- 
 plete freedom. You have landed estates as large as the 
 Romans, combined with commercial enterprise such as Carthage 
 and Venice united never equalled. And you must remember 
 that this peculiar country, with these strong contrasts, is not 
 governed by force ; it is not governed by standing armies ; it 
 is governed by a most singular series of traditionary influences, 
 which generation after generation cherishes and preserves 
 because it knows that they embalm custom and represent law. 
 And, with this, what have you done ? You have created 
 the greatest Empire of modern time. You have amassed a 
 capital of fabulous amount. You have devised and sustained a 
 system of credit still more marvellous. And, above all, you 
 have established and maintained a scheme so vast and com- 
 plicated of labour and industry, that the history of the world 
 offers no parallel to it. And all these mighty creations are out 
 of all proportion to the essential and indigenous elements and 
 resources of the country. If you destroy that state of society, 
 remember this — England cannot begin again. 
 
 There are countries which have been in great danger and 
 gone through great suffering ; the United States, for example, 
 whose fortunes are now so perilous, and who in our own imme- 
 diate day have had great trials ; you have had — perhaps even 
 now in the United States of America you have — a protracted 
 and fratricidal civil war which has lasted for four years ; but if 
 it lasted for four years more, vast, as would be the disaster and 
 desolation, when ended the United States might begin again, 
 because the United States then would only be in the same con- 
 dition that England was at the end of the War of the Roses, 
 when probably she had not even 3,000,000 of population, with 
 vast tracts of virgin soil and mineral treasures, not only und.- 
 
PABLIAMENTARY EEFORM, MAY 1865. 543 
 
 veloped but undreamt of. Then you have France. France had 
 a real revolution in this century — a real revolution, not merely 
 a political but a social revolution. The institutions of the 
 country were uprooted, the orders of society abolished — even 
 the landmarks and local names removed and erased. But 
 France could begin again. France had the greatest spread of 
 the most exuberant soil in Europe, and a climate not less genial ; 
 she had, and always had, comparatively, a limited population, 
 living in a most simple manner. France, therefore, could begin 
 again. But England — the England we know, the England we 
 live in, the England of which we are proud — could not begin 
 again. I do not mean to say that after great troubles England 
 would become a howling wilderness, or doubt that the good 
 sense of the people would, to some degree, prevail, and some 
 fragments of the national character survive ; but it would not 
 be old England — the England of power and tradition, of credit 
 and capital, that now exists. It is not in the nature of things ; 
 and. Sir, under these circumstances, I hope the House, when 
 the question before us is one impeaching the character of our 
 Constitution, will hesitate — that it will sanction no step that 
 has a tendency to democracy, but that it will maintain the 
 ordered state of free England in which we live. 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 REFOEM BILL, March 18, 1867.1 
 
 [On the death of Lord Palmerston, in 1865, and the formation of 
 the RusseU Government, with Mr. Gladstone as leader of the House 
 of Commons, it became evident that Parliamentary Reform, which 
 had smouldered through the peaceful administration of the great 
 Tory -Whig minister, would again become a burning question and 
 be set upon a candlestick. In the session of 1866 the ministry in- 
 troduced a measure which, after some narrow escapes, was carried into 
 Committee, only however, to fall a victim to an amendment proposed 
 by Lord Dunkellin substituting ' rateable value ' for ' clear yearly 
 value ' as the basis for the borough franchise. This amendment was 
 opposed by the Government, who were defeated by a majority of 11, 
 in a House of 619. 
 
 In consequence of this vote Lord Russell resigned office, and Lord 
 Derby received the Queen's commands to form a Ministry, and, for 
 the third time, entrusted the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 and the Leadership of the House of Commons to Mr. Disraeli. 
 
 It was now resolved in the session of 1867 to attempt a final 
 settlement of this vexatious question. It was decided in the first 
 instance to proceed by resolutions ; and a series of thirteen resolutions, 
 embodying certain general principles which Parliament was requested 
 to accept as the basis of legislation, was after long and careful con- 
 sideration agreed to by the Cabinet, and laid before the House of 
 Commons. In explaining the reasons which had induced the 
 Government to adopt this method, Mr. Disraeli dwelt on the fact that 
 five Governments in succession had tried to settle the question, and 
 had all failed in consequence of the opposition of the House of Com- 
 mons : an opposition, nevertheless, which had not caused the question 
 to disappear, or relieved other Governments from the necessity of 
 dealing with it. Lord Palmerston was pledged to a Reform Bill when he 
 went out in 1858. By keeping the question alive, and yet refusing 
 to allow it to be settled, the House of Commons had incurred a very 
 grave responsibility, and one which justified the Government in asking 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
PAELIAMENTAEY KEFORM, MAECH 1867. 545 
 
 the House itself to take the matter in hand, and say beforehand 
 what would and what would not satisfy it. Five Governments had 
 failed in consequence of Parliamentary opposition. Let Parliament, 
 therefore, which would allow no one party to carry a BUI, carry one 
 itself, and cease to act like the dog in the manger on the subject. 
 The Liberal party, however, shrank from a step which would have 
 committed them to the support of the measure on all essential 
 points, and barred them from any opposition serious enough to 
 overthrow the Government. The resolutions were accordingly with- 
 drawn; and no alternative remained but to proceed by Bill. The 
 Cabinet, however, was divided on the subject. Lord Derby, Mr. 
 Disraeli, and the majority being in favour of a measure which the 
 two leaders of the party had long had under consideration : while 
 Lords Cranborne and Carnarvon and General Peel considered tha 
 it went too far. In deference to their opinions, and to avert th. 'I'o 
 resignation, a measure of a different character was devised, and 
 subsequently submitted to the House. The unwonted depression 
 under which Mr. Disraeli was labouring while discharging what to 
 him was a very unwelcome duty was perceptible to every one ; and 
 he had at one time tendered his own resignation rather than under- 
 take it. The ministry, however, found their new position untenable. 
 The measure was stillborn. Their own followers demanded the 
 original scheme. The resignation of the dissentients was accepted, 
 and on March 18, 1867, the memorable BiU was introduced.] 
 
 THE Chancellor of the Exchequer ; Sir, I rise to ask leave to 
 introduce a Bill further to amend the laws for regulating 
 the representation of the people in Parliament. Sir, the principles 
 of political representation, and especially as applied to the 
 circumstances of this country, have of late years been so pro- 
 foundly and so extensively discussed and investigated that it is 
 scarcely necessary on this occasion that I should advert to them. 
 I propose, therefore, to confine my observations to two points. 
 I will endeavour, in the first place, clearly to convey to the 
 House the object of the Government iu the Bill which I am 
 asking leave to introduce ; and, secondly, I will detail the 
 means by which that purpose, in their opinion, can be accom- 
 plished. It will be for the House, first, to decide whether that 
 object js desirable, and, secondly, if desirable, whether the 
 means which we propose are adequate ; and, in the first place, 
 I would say that our object is, not only to maintain, but to 
 VOL. I. N N 
 
546 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 strengthen the character and functions of this House. They 
 are peculiar ; not only rare, but perhaps unexampled in any 
 other popular assembly which has existed. The House of 
 Commons has combined national representation with the 
 attributes of a senate. That peculiar union has, in our opinion, 
 been owing to the variety of elements of which it is formed. 
 Its variety of character has given to it its deliberative power, 
 and it owes to its deliberative power its general authority. We 
 wish, I repeat, not only to maintain, but to strengthen that 
 character and those functions ; and we believe that, in the 
 present age, and under the existing circumstances of the 
 country, the best way to do so is to establish them on a broad 
 pl>pular basis. 
 
 I know that there are some persons in whose minds the 
 epithet which I have jiist used may create a feeling of distrust ; 
 but I attribute the sentiment of alarm which is associated with 
 it to a misapprehension of its meaning, and to that perplexity 
 of ideas which too often confounds popular privileges with 
 democratic rights. They are not identical : they are not 
 similar. More than that ; they are contrary. Popular privileges 
 are consistent with a state of society in which there is great 
 inequality of conditions. Democratic rights, on the contrary, 
 demand that there should be equality of conditions as the 
 fundamental basis of the society which they regulate. Now, 
 that is, I think, a distinction which ought to be borne in mind 
 by the House in dealing with the provisions of the Bill which 
 I am about to ask leave to introduce. If this Bill be a proposal 
 that Her Majesty shall be enabled to concede to her subjects 
 with the advice and concurrence of her Parliament a liberal 
 measure of popular privileges, then there may be many of its 
 provisions which will be regarded as prudent, wise, and 
 essentially constitutional. If, on the other hand, it be looked 
 upon as a measure having for its object to confer democratic 
 rights, then I admit much that it may contain may be viewed 
 in the light of being indefensible and unjust. We do not, how- 
 ever, live — and I trust it will never be the fate of this country 
 to live — under a democracy. The propositions which I am 
 going to make to-night certainly have no tendency in that 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, MARCH 1867. 547 
 
 direction. Grenerally speaking, I would say that, looking to 
 what has occurred since the Eeform Act of 1832 was passed — 
 to the increase of population, the progress of industry, the 
 spread of knowledge, and our ingenuity in the arts — we are of 
 opinion that numbers, thoughts and feelings have since that 
 time been created which it is desirable should be admitted 
 within the circle of the Constitution, We wish that admission 
 to take place in the spirit of our existing institutions, and with 
 a due deference to the traditions of an ancient State. 
 
 In dealing with the question of the distribution of power in 
 such a State — which is really the question before us — I would, 
 in the first place, call the attention of the House to that part 
 of it which is perhaps the most important, and which certainly 
 to the greatest extent commands the interest of the public. I 
 allude to the franchise and especially that which would prevail 
 in towns. I would ask the House at the outset to consider the 
 principles upon which the occupation franchise in boroughs ought 
 to rest, and upon which it is expedient to base it. In 1832 
 the borough franchise was founded on the principle of value. 
 Those who paid lOl. for the house in which they lived, subject 
 to certain regulations as regards rates and residence, had the 
 borough franchise conferred upon them. I believe that fran- 
 chise may be fairly considered as having been an efiBcient and 
 satisfactory franchise, and as having in its generation operated 
 with advantage to the country. My own opinion from the 
 commencement has always been that seed was sown in that 
 arrangement which would necessarily in the course of time lead 
 to some disturbance. That is, however, a question of contro- 
 versy, and I will not indulge in controversy at the present 
 moment. It is, nevertheless, an historic fact that only twenty 
 years after the passing of the great measure of 1832 the prin- 
 cipal, or at least one of the principal authors of that measure 
 announced in this House that the arrangement which had been 
 entered into, especially with respect to the borough franchise, 
 was no longer satisfactory, and invited us to consider a new 
 arrangement which might command a more complete assent. 
 That is a fact which cannot be denied. 
 
 The proposition which was made at the period to which I 
 
 N N 2 
 
548 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 refer, in order to allay discontent and meet the requirements 
 of the time by the statesman who, upon the whole, had taken 
 nearly the most prominent part in the passing of the Act of 
 1832, involved a diminution of the value on which the borough 
 franchise was established. That proposition was received with 
 no satisfaction, and from that period up to the present — and 
 fifteen years have, I think, since elapsed — the question has 
 more or less engaged public attention, and has been taken up, 
 by public men who have brought forward various schemes with 
 a view to the solution of the difficulties by which it is sur- 
 rounded. All these schemes have in their turn proved to be 
 unsatisfactory, and all have been unsuccessful; but every one 
 of them has been distinguished by this characteristic, that the 
 only remedy proposed was a diminution in some form or 
 another, or in some degree or another, of the value on which 
 the borough franchise was based in 1832. The House will 
 easily recall to its recollection the combination of figures which 
 have been submitted to the notice of Parliament on this 
 subject. We had before us 81. and 71. rating or rental; 6L in 
 every form ; and we now hear of other figures. No proposition, 
 however, which has as yet been put forward has given satis- 
 faction, because the country and the House, reflecting the 
 feeling of the country, have felt that by none of the changes 
 suggested was a settlement of the question likely to be insured. 
 Last year a Bill was introduced with the same object as that 
 which I have risen to ask for leave to bring in to-night — 
 namely, to amend the laws for the representation of the people 
 in Parliament. That Bill was avowedly not founded on a prin- 
 ciple ; it was avowedly founded, as far as I can understand, on 
 expediency. The right honourable gentleman who was its 
 powerful advocate in this House seemed to me always distinctly 
 to have laid it down, in the course of his argument on the 
 subject, that it was necessary there should be an admission of 
 the working classes into the constituencies ; that in accordance 
 with a figure which he had fixed upon, he calculated that a 
 certain portion of them would he admitted, but that if another 
 figure which he named were adopted he thought the number 
 admitted would be excessive, and he therefore recommended 
 
PAELIAMENTAKY EEFORM, MARCH 1867. 549 
 
 the first figure as that which upon the whole would, he thought, 
 furnish the best and safest solution of the difficulty. His 
 proposal, therefore, involved no principle. It might have been 
 an appropriate arrangement, but it was essentially an expedient. 
 
 The House knows what took place during the long discus- 
 sions in which we were engaged last year. I infer from that 
 cheer that the House is prepared to recognise the truth of the 
 statement that it was generally felt that the proposal of the late 
 Government afforded no prospect of a satisfactory settlement of 
 this question. A' very considerable amount of time was last 
 session employed in a very unsatisfactory manner, until at last 
 the House took the matter into its own hands, and, in one of 
 the largest divisions which ever took place within these walls, 
 asserted a principle with regard to the borough franchise which 
 was carried by a majority. That principle was that the borough 
 franchise should be founded on rating. The House will admit 
 that the statement I have made is fair and accurate. No one 
 questions for a moment that the Government fully realised the 
 importance of that decision. Of course, if they had not acknow- 
 ledged its importance, they would not have retired from a posi- 
 tion of power ; but they felt that the decision at which the 
 House of Commons had arrived was one opposed to the whole 
 policy which they had pursued during the session. I do not say 
 that every gentleman on both sides of the House who con- 
 tributed to that division — I do not say that everyone in a division 
 which numbered above 600 members, had narrowly investigated 
 and pursued to the last consequences all that must follow from 
 the assertion and adoption of that principle ; but it happened, 
 as happens in all popular assemblies, that a great decision was 
 arrived at by the unerring instinct of the House. The House 
 felt that for the last fifteen years this question of the borough 
 franchise had not been treated in a satisfactory manner by any 
 Government which had attempted to deal with it, and that the 
 time had come when some principle should be laid down in a 
 distinct and decided manner for the guidance of those who 
 might have to offer propositions to the House on the subject. 
 
 I take it for granted that if ever there was a decision of the 
 House of Commons which meant something it was that decision 
 
550 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 which determined the fate of the ministry ; and if anything 
 ever had the character of authority in this House at all, it was 
 the vote arrived at on that occasion. The House, I assume, 
 meant by the decision it arrived at that the person who was to 
 be intrusted with a vote to elect members of Parliament should 
 be one with respect to whom there should be some guarantee 
 and security for the regularity of his life and the general 
 trustworthiness of his conduct, and the House thought that, 
 the fact of a man being rated to' the relief of the poor and 
 being able to pay his rates gave that fair assurance which the 
 State had a right to require. T take it that the vote of the 
 House of Commons meant this: — If you are going to invest 
 men with the exercise of public rights, let that great trust be 
 accompanied with the exercise of public duty. I take it for 
 granted that was what the House of Commons meant. It 
 meant that the being rated to the poor, and the paying of the 
 rates, constituted a fair assurance that the man who fulfilled 
 those conditions was one likely to be characterised by regularity 
 of life and general trustworthiness of conduct. That is a 
 principle which the House thought ought not to be lost sight 
 of, but should be a sine qua non in the settlement of the 
 borough franchise. In having to consider this question, we 
 accepted as a guide that decision of the House of Commons, 
 placing on it what we deemed to be its real interpretation. 
 We believe that the House has resolved and wishes that the 
 borough suffrage should be bound up and united with the duty 
 of paying rates for the maintenance of the poor, and paying 
 them really ; that in fact a bond fide rating franchise is what 
 the House of Commons meant by the resolution it adopted. 
 Accepting the decision of the House with that interpretation, 
 we had to consider how such a proposition could be united with 
 the principle of value, which hitherto was and still is the law 
 of the country with respect to the borough franchise, and which 
 without exception during all the discussions on the subject for 
 the last fifteen years has been accepted by Parliament. 
 
 The result of this attempt was not satisfactory. In accept- 
 ing a real and genuine principle of rating as a basis, we found, 
 the moment we endeavoured to connect it with value, disturb- 
 
PAHLIAMENTAHY REFORM, MARCH 1867. 551 
 
 ing elements, which promised no prospect of solution, and gave 
 no chance of permanency. Therefore, under these circum- 
 stances, in the course of consideration we proposed to ourselves 
 to examine the whole question of occupation in boroughs, and 
 see what would be the effect of the application of the principle 
 of genuine rating without reference to value. Let me call 
 the attention of the House to some figures, which will be in 
 the hands of members immediately and in greater detail. 
 There are in the boroughs of England and Wales 1,367,000 male 
 householders, of whom there are at present qualified to vote 
 644,000. There would therefore remain unqualified 723,000. 
 In applying the principle of a franchise founded on being rated 
 to the poor, and on personal payment of the rates, we found 
 that out of these 723,000 now disqualified, or rather not quali- 
 fied, for voting under the existing law, we should at once have 
 had to take away 237,000 — that is to say, that beneath the 
 lOl. line which now qualifies there are 237,000 persons who 
 are rated to the poor and who pay rates, and who if the law 
 were so changed that value should not be an element would 
 then be qualified to vote for members of Parliament. Now, if 
 you add these 237,000 persons who are rated to the poor, and 
 who pay their rates, to the 644,000 who are at present quali- 
 fied you will find that there would be 881,000 persons, fulfill- 
 ing the required conditions — that is to say, almost exactly 
 two-thirds of the whole of the householders in the boroughs 
 of England and Wales. There would still remain 486,000 
 who would not be qualified under these circumstances, because 
 they do not pay rates personally. A great deduction must be 
 made from those 486,000 on account of persons who might 
 claim to pay the rates ; but a great amount of those 486,000 
 persons would still remain without the opportunity of being 
 rated to the poor, because there are certain Acts of Parliament, 
 some of a general and some of a local character, by which the 
 landlord compounds for the rates of his tenants, who, in con- 
 sequence are called compound-householders, and most of these 
 are under the operation of the Act with the details of which 
 every gentleman in the House is familiar — the Small Tenements 
 Act. There are fifty-eight boroughs which are entirely under 
 
552 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD, 
 
 the operation of that Act, and there are ninety- eight boronghs 
 in which certain parishes only are under the operation of the 
 Act. 
 
 In considering the settlement of the franchise for boroughs 
 and the possibility of attempting to establish it, not on the 
 fluctuating principle of value, which is only a question of 
 degree, which may vary, and which we might be called on to 
 change from year to year,- it is impossible not to take into 
 view the peculiar position of the compound-householders. 
 And the question arises, Ought a compound householder to 
 have a vote? Well, Sir, in our opinion, assuming that the 
 House is of the same opinion, that the foundation of the fran- 
 chise should be rating and a payment of rates, and that that 
 is adopted by the House, not as a check, as some would say, 
 but on the contrary, as a qualification, and because it is the 
 best evidence of the trustworthiness of the individual, we have 
 no hesitation in saying om-selves that we do not think that the 
 compound-householder, as a compound-householder, ought to 
 have a vote. But, Sir, we are far from saying that any person 
 who is a compound-householder from the effects of Acts which 
 have been passed for the convenience of vestries should be 
 deprived of the opportunity of obtaining and enjoying this 
 right which persons in the same sphere of life may have 
 granted to them, and which, for aught we know, these com- 
 pound-householders may be equally competent to possess and 
 to exercise. And, therefore. Sir, we should have to consider 
 whether it would not be possible, in the case of compound- 
 householders who are deprived of rating for the moment by 
 Acts to which I have referred, either of a general or local 
 character — whether it might not be possible to give them the 
 opportunity of accepting the public duty, and in consequence 
 the public right, which others in the same sphere of life, and 
 influenced in their conduct by the same conditions of existence, 
 might possess ; and taking this general view of the question, 
 seeing the impossibility of settling it on any principle con- 
 nected with value, and that it is only by taking the rating 
 principle in its completeness and authenticity that you can get 
 one on . which you can rest a perfect settlement, our opinioa 
 
PARLIAMENTAEY KEFORM, MARCH 1867. 553 
 
 is — and we shall make that proposition to the House — that we 
 should establish the franchise in the boroughs on this principle, 
 that any man who has occupied a house for two years, and 
 been rated to the relief of the poor, and pays his rates — every 
 householder under these conditions should enjoy the borough 
 franchise. By that means the 237,000 persons who are now 
 rated and pay their rates would, of course, be at once qualified. 
 But with regard to the compound-householders, we propose 
 that every facility shoiild be given to them — that they shall 
 be allowed to enter their names upon the rate-book, to fulfil 
 the constitutional condition to which I have adverted, and then 
 they will, of course, succeed to the constitutional right which 
 is connected with it. Sir, if we pursue that course you have 
 your borough franchise fixed upon principle ; you know where 
 you are ; you know that the power of electing members of 
 Parliament must be exercised by men who, by their position 
 in life, have shown that they are qualified for its exercise. 
 And meeting the difiSeulty of compound-householders by the 
 provisions which are in the Bill, and which will give them 
 every facility to claim the exercise of the same right on condi- 
 tion of fulfilling the same duty, the whole of the 723,000 
 householders in the boroughs of England that are at present 
 not qualified to vote for members of Parliament will be 
 qualified by the Bill I am asking leave to introduce. Nor 
 will there be a man among them who, if he deserves the 
 franchise, may not possess it. 
 
 Now, Sir, I have heard many observations made on this 
 question of compound-householders, but the arguments, though 
 plausible, amount only to this — those who wish that compound- 
 householders should not qualify themselves for a vote upon 
 the constitutional condition which we propose as a means by 
 which the right should be obtained really, in fact, make one 
 assumption on which all their remarks are founded; and 
 that is this, that the working classes of this country are so 
 little interested in the possession and exercise of the suffrage 
 that they will not take the slightest trouble in order to avail 
 themselves of it and possess it. Well, that may be the opinion 
 of those who make such observations, but it is not the opinion 
 
554 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 of Her Majesty's ministers. We believe that the feeling- of 
 the great body of the people on this subject is very different ; 
 that it is a feeling very likely to increase in this country, and 
 that the conditions which we have laid down as those which 
 should qualify a householder in a borough for a vote are con- 
 sistent with the security of society, and are at the same time 
 conditions which would be agreeable to the mind of every in- 
 dustrious man of integrity. Now, Sir, I may recapitulate to 
 the House for a moment the figures we have to deal with, be- 
 cause such vague assertions are made in the absence of correct 
 statistics of voting and of householders that it is well that the 
 House should bear them in mind. There are, as I have said, 
 1,367,000 male householders in the boroughs of England, and 
 at the present moment 644,000 of them are qualified. 
 
 Mr. Bright: May I ask the right honourable gentleman 
 whether these houses include warehouses and shops ? 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer: They are houses — 
 dwelling-houses. I am referring to the male occupiers of 
 dwelling-houses. Of the remaining 723,000, if the House 
 accedes to the Bill I have to introduce, 237,000, now rated to 
 the relief of the poor and paying their rates, would immediately 
 be qualified to vote ; and in the case of the 486,000 who are 
 compound-householders, facilities would be afforded to them, if 
 they chose, of claiming their vote — that is to say, of inserting 
 their names in the rate-book and paying their rates, and then 
 they also, as a matter of course, will succeed to the enjoyment 
 of the right. Well, Sir, that appears to me to be the only 
 solid foundation upon which you can settle this question of the 
 borough franchise. I have heard nothing which gives me any 
 hope that any other plan can be offered which involves at the 
 same time the principle that society has a right to ask that the 
 person who exercises the suffrage is not a migratory pauper ; 
 and as regards settlement, I can see no satisfactory settlement 
 unless you lay down the principle that every householder who 
 fulfils the constitutional conditions to which I have adverted 
 proves himself one qualified for the possession and exercise of 
 such a trust ; unless you take that settlement I can see no 
 chance of this question being ever settled. Now, Sir, there is 
 
PAELIAMENTAEY EEFOEM, MARCH 1867. 555. 
 
 a plan which I am told at this moment is popular among certain 
 persons. Indeed, there are a great many plans, both as regards 
 rhe suffrage, distribution of seats, and other matters, which I 
 have no doubt will come before the consideration of the House, 
 and when they do it will be very much for the advantage of 
 those who introduce them to our notice, for I believe these 
 subjects never can be better understood than after a discussion 
 in the House of Commons, But there is a plan, I am told, 
 popular with some persons, and which is held forth as a more 
 satisfactory settlement of this question than the one I have 
 proposed on the part of the Government, and that is what is 
 called the 51. rating — that the suffrage should be established on 
 a 51. rating. 
 
 Now, Sir, I must say, having had very much to consider 
 these questions, I know of no Serbonian bog deeper than a 51. 
 rating woidd prove to be. Just let the House see how it stands. 
 In the present state of the law, as I shall show to the House, if 
 the interpretation we have placed on the great vote of last year 
 be a sound one — and if it be not a sound one it proves the House 
 of Commons was trifling with the question — there really is no 
 such thing as a 51. rating ; you let in a very large and very 
 indiscriminate number to the enjoyment of the right without 
 the preliminary performance of duties, and when they are let in 
 you leave a great many behind them who, because others are 
 let in, immediately cry out to be admitted. Then where is 
 your settlement ? There is no more reason why a 51. rating 
 should give a qualification than one of 41. But then I am told 
 that this great difficulty is to be entirely overcome by a violent 
 change to be effected in the law of England. Nominal 51. 
 raters are to be turned into bond fide 51. raters by the operation 
 of the law, and no Englishman who pays less than that sum is 
 to enjoy the privilege of voting. All below that line are, in 
 fact, to be taken out of the sphere of self-government, and de- 
 prived of the opportunity which the humblest now possesses, 
 and would possess under the plan we propose, of performing 
 public duties, and consequently of obtaining public rights. I 
 can imagine no scheme more injurious — I may say, more fatal 
 — than a proposition of this kind ; and it seems to me that, if 
 
556 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 we were to adopt it, manhood suffrage would be the logical and 
 necessary consequence, and that every man who finds that he is 
 in a position in which he may not be permitted to fulfil a con- 
 stitutional condition which may give him a constitutional right 
 would naturally fall back into the arms of the lowest agitators, 
 and feel that his only chance of ever obtaining the rights of 
 constitutional citizenship would be by a process which has not 
 hitherto been recognised by any authority in this country^ I 
 have now expressed to the House, as far as the occupation in 
 boroughs is concerned, upon what principle we recommend the 
 borough franchise to be founded. It would make at once 
 237,000 persons qualified for the suffrage, and would allow all 
 who were not rated before to avail themselves of the right, and 
 so, if they chose, to become electors. 
 
 But it is said, and it has been said by a very high authority — 
 one for whom I have a great personal regard and respect, 
 although, considering what a high authority he is, I think he 
 sometimes makes, especially with regard to his opponents, very 
 reckless remarks — that the plan of the Grovemment, with which 
 that high authority, at the time he said it, was really unac- 
 quainted, and for which he might have waited, was an assault 
 upon the rights and power of the middle classes. It is certainly 
 not the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce a 
 measure which shall make such an assault. Her Majesty's 
 Government are anxious that on the one hand the aristocracy 
 and on the other hand the working classes shall have their 
 due share in the Parliamentary constitution of the country ; 
 but they recognise with sincerity the extreme expediency of 
 the principle that the influence of the middle classes of the 
 country should not be diminished. The Government look to 
 the steady virtues of those classes to exercise a right bias on the 
 constitution of the country, and they believe that the authority 
 which those classes obtained in a great degree under the Act of 
 1832 has been exercised wisely, worthily, and to the advantage 
 of the country at large. But if there be, by the proposition 
 which I have to make, any chance such as has been intimated 
 by this great authority, why I think that we meet it by a pro- 
 position to institute a franchise founded on a most popular 
 
PAHLIAMENTAEY REFORM, MARCH 1867. 557 
 
 principle, and one of which the middle classes must largely 
 partake — that is, the franchise founded on the payment of direct 
 taxation. We propose that every person in England who pays 
 20s. a year direct taxation shall possess a vote. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone : Whether he be a compound-householder 
 or not ? 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer : Everybody who pays 20s. 
 annually in direct taxation shall have a vote. Thus we build 
 up the constituency which would establish the franchise in the 
 boroughs upon two great principles — the payment of direct 
 taxation, and the payment of rates. But it has been urged 
 that the enjoyment of this franchise, founded upon the payment 
 of direct taxes is one which would not be enjoyed as intended 
 in a great degree by the class whose influence it is said our 
 proposition may assail : that is to say, that most of them are 
 householders, and therefore they would not enjoy this franchise. 
 Therefore, we meet that objection by proposing that a person 
 who pays 20s. direct taxation, and who enjoys the franchise 
 which depends upon the payment of direct taxation, if he is 
 also a householder and pays his rates, may exercise his suffrage 
 in respect of both qualifications. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone : I wish to ask a question very material to 
 the complete understanding of this subject, and that is, whether 
 a compound-householder not paying his own rates, but paying 
 direct taxes to the requisite amount, will have a vote in respect 
 of the payment of direct taxation ? 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer : He would, of course, have 
 a vote in respect of the franchise which he enjoys as a payer of. 
 direct taxation, and if he chose to pay his rates in addition, 
 then he would have two votes. Now, Sir, before I give to the 
 House a general summary of the result of these franchises upon 
 the borough constituency, there are yet some other franchises 
 with which the House is familiar, but which I again wish to 
 recommend to its consideration. 
 
 Mr. Eoebuck : Will the right honourable gentleman explain 
 what he means by direct taxation ? 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer : I mean the payment of 
 income-tax and assessed taxes. But I wish to observe that it 
 
558 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 will not include the qualification which was so humorously 
 referred to by an honourable gentleman the other night, 
 because it will not include anything which is paid under licences 
 of any description. There are other franchises which we also 
 propose. The House is already acquainted with them, and 
 although they are not of vast importance, still I think they are 
 founded upon right principles, and I hope the House will 
 candidly consider them. The vote which we wish to found 
 upon the possession of 50L property in the funds or of 501. in 
 savings banks constitutes property qualifications of this charac- 
 ter : that is to say, we will give to small holders of personal 
 property the same privileges which the small holders of real 
 property have ; and, as a man possessed of a 40s. freehold has a 
 vote, we think that the person who has an equivalent property 
 of a personal character should also have a vote. We think that 
 by this means a vote would be intrusted to a body of persons, 
 belonging chieflj' to the working classes, who would exercise 
 the privilege to the advantage of the country. Then there is 
 the educational franchise. It has been said that if you intro- 
 duce a suffrage founded upon the payment of direct taxation 
 that it would supply means for exercising the vote to those 
 persons who otherwise would have it under the educational 
 franchise. To a certain degree there is truth in that; but 
 having taken some pains to investigate what would be the 
 operation of such a franchise, I am bound to say that there 
 are many persons in whose condition the House would be 
 deeply interested, some of whom would not have any oppor- 
 tunity, either as householders— and this would be peculiarly 
 the case in counties — or as payers of direct taxation, of 
 exercising the suffrage, but who are peculiarly qualified to exer- 
 cise such a trust. Among others, the position of ministers of 
 religion is very remarkable. I am speaking of ministers of 
 all sects. I find that men who entirely devote their lives to 
 solace or to elevate the sense of existence are men who under 
 this franchise would exercise, and I think admirably exercise, 
 a certain degree of political influence, but who, either as house- 
 holders or as payers of income-tax especially to the amount of 
 20s. would certainly be debarred from the franchise. I there- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, MARCH 1867. 559 
 
 fore trust that the House will allow these three franchises to 
 pass. 
 
 I do not think that it is our business to act the part of 
 electioneering agents, and to make estimates, always of a most 
 speculative character, of the number of persons who wiU vote 
 under the plan we propose. That is not our business as minis- 
 ters in Parliament. We are to see who, under the laws of this 
 country, are to have the opportunity of acquiring a vote. And 
 allow me to remind the House of the nature of the arguments 
 which are always used by those who are the promoters of in- 
 creased suffrage. They are always founded upon the number 
 of the population. But the business of the House of Commons 
 in proposing or in passing laws upcn this subject is to ascertain 
 as far as possible the number who will be admitted under the 
 particular measure. They are not to estimate a thing which, 
 after all, can only be done in a speculative manner — the number 
 who may be tempted, in consequence of the passing of the Bill, 
 to register their ijuffrages. Their business is simply to pass 
 those laws which they think will conduce to the welfare or 
 safety of the country. Well, I will say that if this Bill be 
 carried there is not a man — whether he be a rate-payer paying a 
 rental of less than lOL, or a compound-householder who may 
 not qualify himself if he choose. In the new boroughs to 
 which I will afterwards advert the estimated number of voters 
 will be 68,000. The number of direct tax-payers who would 
 probably vote in boroughs will be very considerable. The 
 public departments have no means of offering to the House any 
 recent information upon this subject, and it would probably 
 take months to obtain any. Making due allowance, however, 
 for the increased property and assessed taxes — probably at the 
 rate of 23 per cent. — since Mr. Macaulay's returns were made to 
 the House, I should think that the number who would qualify in 
 boroughs would greatly exceed 200,000. (Mr. Gladstone : From 
 direct taxes ?) Yes, from direct taxes. The educational franchise 
 would in the boroughs give 35,000 voters, the fundholders' fran- 
 chise 25,000, and the savings bank franchise 45,000. You would 
 thus have more than 100,000 voters who could qualify them- 
 selves in the boroughs for the exercise of the franchise. It has 
 
560 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 been said that they will not choose to avail themselves of that 
 great right. I regret to hear that opinion, but I venture to doubt 
 its correctness. But still, whatever may be our opinion, it is 
 the duty of the House so to deal with this question that those 
 whom they believe to be qualified for the exercise of this privi- 
 lege shall have that opportunity, and the duty of Parliament 
 ceases when that has been accomplished. 
 
 I will now proceed to consider the question of the county 
 franchise. We propose that these new suffrages shall be 
 extended to the counties ; but in consequence of the great 
 difference which prevails between counties and boroughs 
 we do not propose under any circumstances that any 
 person should exercise the privilege of voting twice. I 
 now come to the consideration of the amount of the 
 occupation in counties. When I last made some observations 
 to the House upon this subject, I stated that Her Majesty's 
 Grovemment thought, on the whole, that the county qualifica- 
 tions had better be placed at 20L rating. When I made that 
 statement I made it with a feeling on the part of the Govern- 
 ment that the opinion of the House of Commons ought to be 
 consulted upon the subject, and because, also, they believed 
 that the House had never had the opportunity of arriving at 
 any decided opinion upon the matter. The question was reaUy 
 never put fairly before the House. When the honourable mem- 
 ber for Surrey and others came forward with propositions to re- 
 duce the occupation franchise for counties to lOl. the House was 
 always asked to consider those propositions in an isolated manner. 
 Now, we thought (and I believe that the House has been long 
 of the same opinion) that this question ought to be considered 
 in conjunction with those of analogous character, and ought not 
 to be treated in a isolated manner. They depend upon each 
 other, and I look upon all those attempts to reduce the county 
 franchise as barren of results ; and, as a proof of the correctness 
 of that opinion, I may remark that they have been barren of 
 consequences. No one ever felt that a satisfactory settlement 
 would be likely to result from those debates. Last year there 
 was an opportunity whep the Reform Bill was before the House ; 
 when the mind of the House was accustomed to consider in all 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, MARCH 1867. 561 
 
 its details, and in all its ramifications, the principles of Parlia- 
 mentary representation — there was, I say, at that time a fair 
 opportunity for discussing this question in a satisfactory manner, 
 and for arriving at a satisfactory settlement. But this subject, 
 always unfortunate, was never more unfortunate than on that 
 occasion, because a great party scene and division took place at 
 the beginning of the evening destined for its discussion.' It 
 was brought on in a languid House — in a very thin House. It 
 was decided, I grant, in a very full House ; but it was discussed 
 in an unsatisfactory and feeble manner. My opinion is a per- 
 fectly impartial one, for I myself took part in the debate. The 
 division was taken in a full House, and the majority was only 
 a very slight one, but the question was decided upon a principle 
 which the result of the session showed was not the conviction 
 of the House of Commons. Well, if the House of Commons 
 meant anything else, it meant that rating should be the prin- 
 ciple of the franchise, and I believe that that decision has been 
 received by the country as one of the soundest at which the 
 House of Commons ever arrived. 
 
 "Well, Sir, we should have been glad if the question had 
 been calmly and completely discussed ; and at whatever opinion 
 the House of Commons had arrived, we should have accepted 
 that opinion as a wise and a sound one. In endeavouring, 
 however, to bring forward a complete measure, and as far as we 
 can to offer a definite and definitive position to the considera- 
 tion of the House, Her Majesty's Grovernment gave much 
 attention to this question of the county occupation franchise ; 
 and, on the whole, they believe that the qualification that 
 would be most advantageous and most satisfactory would be a 
 15?. rating, and that is the amount at which they are deter- 
 mined to fix it. That would qualify 171,000 additional house- 
 holders for the exercise of the franchise. The savings bank 
 franchise will give 40,000 ; the fundholders' iranchise 25,000 ; 
 and the educational franchise 44,000 voters. A very large 
 number, exceeding 150,000, will vote in virtue of the payment 
 of direct taxes. No doubt many of these would possess double 
 
 1 Reference to Lord Dunkellin's amendment in favour of a rating fran- 
 chise, carried against Government, June 18, 1866, by a majority of eleven. 
 VOL. I. '^ ^ 
 
562 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 qualifications, but there will still be an addition to the county 
 franchise of upwards of 300,000 voters, 
 
 I have now occupied the attention of the House with a 
 subject which I am afraid is at no time entertaining, and 
 which, when the conclusions have been to some extent foregone, 
 must possess less attraction than ever ; but I have placed before 
 the House, I hope, with some clearness, the proposal of the 
 Government. There is another part of the subject of very 
 great interest, on which, although to-day I am anxious to touch 
 upon nothing but what is necessary, it is requisite that I 
 should make some observations', and that is the distribution of 
 seats. Now, Sir, that is a question that very greatly interests 
 the public mind, and I know there are members on both sides 
 of the House who take a very deep interest in it. The pro- 
 position which I made upon a previous occasion has been 
 described as quite inadequate to the occasion and to the cir- 
 cumstances in which the country is placed ; and we have heard 
 that it is an insufficient response to the demands of the public 
 voice. I am perfectly ready to meet those objections, though 
 I have no desire upon an occasion such as this to invite contro- 
 versy, for I have no doubt there will be opportunities hereafter 
 for entering upon matters of detail. 
 
 It is said that there should be a much larger scheme of 
 disfranchisement ; that at the very least every town of 10,000 
 inhabitants or less should lose a member, and some say we 
 should even go further than that. We are also told that a 
 third member should be given to many places, and thus, by a 
 process of disfranchisement and cumulative votes, at last a 
 perfect representation of the people would be accomplished. 
 We have given that subject the great consideration which it 
 deserves. My own opinion is that the votaries of this new 
 system are not very numerous in the country, and I doubt 
 whether they are very numerous in this House ; but its advo- 
 cates are, no doubt, in many cases men of distinguished ability 
 and high character, and persons whose opinions upon any 
 public subject will command and demand attention. But 
 whatever may be the number of those persons who advocate 
 three-cornered constituencies and cumulative voting, there is 
 
PARLIAMENTAHY EEFORM, MARCH 1867. 563 
 
 no doubt that a very great noise has been made by them. I 
 am willing to admit that, as far as the articles and the letters 
 in the newspapers are concerned, the question is settled ; but I 
 have always thought that those articles and letters — I do not wish 
 to speak sUghtingly of them, for I have written leading articles 
 for newspapers myself — have one distinguishing characteristic, 
 and that is that they always assume there is only one side 
 of a question ; but their writers are wise in their generation, 
 because if they did not act on that assumption, nobody at the 
 moment would read theu- productions. As, then, the question 
 of three-cornered constituencies and cumulative votes has been 
 brought before the consideration of the House, I, and others 
 who are near me, will meet the question frankly and fully. 
 
 The House will not, I am sure, permit the introduction of 
 any controversial matter upon the present occasion, but it has 
 a right to hear the opinions of the Government upon a question ; 
 and therefore I say that, having considered the matter without 
 prejudice, and having completely and thoroughly tested it at 
 every point, and tried it in every quarter, our opinion is that 
 the scheme is erroneous in equity, and would be so in practice. 
 Sir, there are only two courses to follow if you wish to improve 
 the representation of the people by a redistribution of seats ; 
 there is no middle course. You must either create a new 
 electoral map of England, or you must deal practically with the 
 circumstances before you, and follow the line to which I at this 
 moment refer, and which I think the Grovemment has followed. 
 With regard to the proposition that there should be a complete 
 revision of the representative system of the country as far as 
 electoral localities are concerned, if I may be presumed to give 
 advice to the House of Commons, I would say, Do not make that a 
 question to be settled by a Parliamentary majority, or accepted 
 on the authority of any ministry whatever. It is a subject too 
 vast and too deep for us to treat of and deal with without pre- 
 liminary investigation conducted by persons of the highest 
 standing, and character, and experience, and learning in the 
 country. When in possession of the result of their accumu- 
 lated knowledge, and of their mature thought and great expe- 
 rienee a popular assembly might weigh their opinions, and a 
 
 o o 2 
 
564 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 practical ministry might embody their resolutions. There is 
 no other means by which you can deal with this proposition j 
 but if you are not of opinion that the electoral map of England 
 should be reconstructed, then you must proceed prudently and 
 practically ; you must inquire what unrepresented places ought 
 fairly speaking to be represented, and you ought not to lose the 
 opportunity then offered of giving the teeming multitudes of 
 the counties as far as you can that direct representation which 
 they want, and which, indirectly, I admit, they possess. These 
 are the two practical points which you ought to have before 
 you. There is no medium between dealing with the whole 
 question in a vast and solemn manner by means adequate for 
 the settlement of so great a matter, and the prudent practical 
 method which I mentioned. 
 
 Well, Sir, we are not prepared to take the first course, al- 
 though I do not say it is unworthy of deep and respectful con- 
 sideration ; we therefore propose to follow the second, and we 
 have found towns in this country which we think ought to be 
 represented, and whose representatives would bring fresh vigour 
 to the House. The population of the counties, invigorated 
 and vivified with the new franchises which you are giving it, 
 will demand direct representation in this House, and you ought 
 to move in that direction as far as you can, so that counties 
 may no longer be said to be represented only indirectly by small 
 boroughs. I am of opinion that this may be done without any 
 very serious disturbance of your representative system. . What- 
 ever you do, your representation must be fairly distributed over 
 the country ; if you give a greater preponderance to one part at 
 the expense of another you create two nations ; there will be a 
 want of sympathy and cordiality between the parts, and you 
 will in fact be going back to the principles of the Heptarchy. 
 Although I have read the names of the places we propose to 
 enfranchise before, with one exception, I think it becoming to 
 repeat them, with the addition of the place that before was 
 wanting. We propose, then, that by the thirty seats that will 
 be obtained by the process of disfranchisement we shall give a 
 representative to Hartlepool, Darlington, Burnley, Staleybridge, 
 St. Helen's, Dewsbury, Barnsley, Middle sborough, Wednesbury, 
 
PAELIAMENTAEY REFORM, MARCH 1867. 565 
 
 Croydon, Gravesend, and Torquay, and two to the Tower 
 Hamlets. In respect to the counties, we propose to divide 
 North Lancashire, North Lincolnshire, West Kent, East Surrey, 
 Middlesex, South Staffordshire, and South Devon, and give 
 them two members each ; and dividing South Lancashire also, 
 we propose to give it an additional member. We also propose 
 to give a seat to the London University. 
 
 I have placed before the House the principal features of the 
 Bill which I am asked to introduce. The Bill itself will be in 
 the hands of the members to-morrow, and then they will be 
 perfectly well qualified to form an opinion upon the manner in 
 which the principles I have laid down are acted on. I hope 
 that the House will candidly consider this measure. As far as 
 we are concerned, we have spared no pains, no thought, and 
 have not shrunk from what was more important, perhaps, in 
 endeavouring to bring it before the House. I will not advert 
 unnecessarily to the circumstances attending the framing of this 
 measure, which has now been brought before the House of 
 Commons, under very great difficulties and at very great sacri- 
 fices. I do not wish to disguise that I have felt great chagrin 
 and great mortification in connection with what has taken 
 place ; but I believe I have done my duty, and under the cir- 
 cumstances I do not think I could have done other than I have. 
 In attempting to bring the question to this point we have lost 
 those whose absence from our councils we more than regret ; 
 we have had to appeal to a high-spirited party to make what 
 no doubt to some was to a certain extent a sacrifice of prin- 
 ciple, much sacrifice of sentiment, and much sacrifice of interest. 
 But we have not appealed in vain, because the members of that 
 party were animated by the same feeling which influenced us — 
 a sense of duty and conviction. They felt that the time had 
 arrived when this question must be dealt with and settled ex- 
 tensively and completely. I hope, therefore, the House of 
 Conmions will give this measure a fair and candid considera- 
 tion. We believe it is one which, if adopted in spirit, will 
 settle its long differences ; and that it is qualified to meet the 
 requirements of the country. I am told for certain that there 
 are objections against it ; but I beg to remind the House of the 
 
566 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 distinction which we draw between popular privileges and 
 democratic rights. I am told that in this measure there are 
 checks and counterpoises in our scheme. We live under a Con- 
 stitution of which we boast that it is a Constitution of checks 
 and counterpoises. If the measure bears some reference to 
 existing classes in this country, why should we conceal from. 
 ourselves, or omit from our discussions, the fact that this 
 country is a country of classes, and a country of classes it will 
 ever remain ? What we desire to do is to give everyone who 
 is worthy of it a fair share in the government of the country by 
 means of the elective franchise ; but, at the same time, we have 
 been equally anxious to maintain the character of the House, 
 to make propositions in harmony with the circumstances of the 
 country, to prevent a preponderance of any class, and to give a 
 representation to the nation. 
 
567 
 
 SECOND READING, March 26, 1867.' 
 
 [The second reading of the Bill was taken on March 25 ; and at 
 midnight on the 26th Mr. Disraeli rose to answer the various objec- 
 tions which had been raised to it. This speech was considered at the 
 time to be one of his greatest efforts. ' With no other notes to assist 
 him than a few which he had jotted down in the course of the second 
 night's debate, Mr. Disraeli nevertheless summed up the whole case 
 to his audience with that exhaustion of detail, and that powerful 
 grasp of general principles which are seldom found united even after 
 elaboration and with the aid of the most abundant references.' — 
 ' Day,' 2 March 29, 1867.] 
 
 SIE, the honourable member for Birmingham commenced his 
 speech with his usual protest, a protest against gentlemen 
 on this side of the House presuming to deal with a Liberal 
 monopoly. As long as the honourable gentleman and his 
 friends were allowed to remain the only ameliorators of the 
 condition of the people, so long we received from the honour- 
 able gentleman all those encouragements which in his milder 
 moments he knows how to employ. But I have myself always 
 protested against the opinions of the honourable gentleman on 
 this subject. I hold that we have a full constitutional right to 
 deal by any means we think best with the question, to endeavour 
 to improve the representation of the people in this House of 
 Commons, and I would assert that right at all times in spite of 
 the dogmas of the honourable member for Birmingham. The 
 
 1 This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates hj permission of Mr. 
 
 Hansard. 
 
 ^ The Day was a newspaper representing the views of those mdependent 
 Liberals who gave a general support to the Bill. They acquired the name of 
 the ' Cave ' from a witticism of Mr. Bright, who Ukened them to the dwellers 
 in the Cave of AduUam. The chief among them were Earl Grosvenor, Lord 
 Elcho, Colonel Anson, and Lord Lichfield. 
 
568 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD, 
 
 honourable gentleman tells us to-night that I, on the part of 
 the Government, have brought in a Bill vrhieh is full of false 
 pretences, imputing to me statements which I never made, 
 and opinions which I have never professed. But how easy is it 
 to show the utter fallacy and want of foundation for the state- 
 ments which the honourable gentleman has made. The hon- 
 ourable gentleman said : ' You made a statement which left the 
 House under the impression that you were giving a large 
 amount of enfranchisement to the people.' The statement I 
 made must be still fresh in the recollection of the House, and 
 what did I say ? I said if the measure which I proposed were 
 passed, if all the persons now under lOl. line were rated to the 
 poor and paid their rates, 240,000 men would be quahfied to 
 avail themselves of the franchise if they complied with the con- 
 stitutional conditions which I explained. Now, what happened ? 
 Why, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, no doubt well informed 
 
 Well, I hope the words are not prophetic. But the right 
 
 honourable gentleman, no doubt well informed, but acting, as I 
 am sure, entirely under a misapprehension, having imputed to 
 me that I made a statement that 240,000 men would be added to 
 the constituency — which is not my statement ; what I said waS 
 that they would be qualified — and having allowed me to correct 
 him, afterwards reduced the number to one half; the honourable 
 member for Birmingham has adopted that estimate, and says 
 that only half the number will be added to the constituency. 
 I won't impeach the accuracy of this estimate. I will suppose 
 it to be true, and I will ask how is it that only half the number 
 will be taken in ? We know the reasons. We know that the 
 other half are of a migratory character, are paupers, and we 
 have evidence of that. I am not speaking now of the com- 
 pound householders ; I am speaking of those who are rated to 
 the poor, and who, if they paid their rates, would be qualified 
 by this Bill. And why, then, is this amount reduced to 1 50,000 ? 
 Because, as I have said, they are migratory and paupers. Well 
 then, does the honourable member for Birmingham wish that this 
 moiety of migratory paupers should have the suffrage, or does 
 he not ? Let him answer. He knows very well that he does 
 not wish the migratory pauper to be an elector. Well then, 
 
PAELIAMENTAEY EEFOEM, MARCH 1867. 569 
 
 what becomes of the charge that I am the advocate of exclusion, 
 and that I bring in a Bill which shuts out one half of those 
 >ho shoiild be admitted from the right of voting ? The charge 
 is utterly shallow. Well, if it is true that you must make this 
 deduction from the 240,000 men who are at the present moment 
 rated to the payment of poor rates, it is equally true that the 
 same deductions must be made from the great body of com- 
 pound-householders. I never heard anybody dispute that. 
 
 The honourable member for Birmingham knows that state- 
 ment is perfectly accurate ; he knows well what the deductions 
 would be and from what cause. Then, what becomes of this 
 charge of exclusion ? And what becomes of the charge that 
 this is a revolutionary measure ; for as such it is treated on one 
 night, and then the next night we are told it is a measure of 
 extreme restriction ? "Why, Sfr, it is a measure founded upon 
 principle — upon a popular and a rational principle, 'it is of 
 general application, without restriction whatever; and any 
 person who fulfils the conditions — which are conditions, as I 
 believe, entfrely approved by the great majority of the people — 
 may possess and enjoy the suffrage of this country. Well, the 
 subject has been very little discussed. Considering the nature 
 of the Bill before us, and the great attendance there has always 
 been in the House when this question has been mentioned, it 
 is remarkable how everything like Parliamentary discussion has 
 been as it were evaded. Why, when I asked leave to bring in 
 the Bill, what happened ? The right honourable gentleman the 
 member for South Lancashire rose and delivered a speech or 
 rather an invective against a measure which he had never even 
 seen, basing many of his conclusions upon assumptions which, 
 when he found the Bill in his hands, he saw had no foundation 
 whatever. But if the right honourable gentleman on the 
 motion for bringing in the Bill made a speech which was only 
 adapted to the second reading, when the second reading is 
 moved, instead of allowing a general discussion to take place 
 upon it, he jumps up at once and immediately makes a speech 
 which is only fitted for the Committee. And, Sir, if the course 
 which the right honourable gentleman indicated last night had 
 been followed, the discussion would have ended that evening, 
 
570 SPEECHES OE THE EARL OF BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 and probably at a very early hour. Now, is tliat a fair or proper 
 way in which to treat a question like this, which the attend- 
 ance here always shows to be one deeply interesting to the 
 House as well as to the country ; and by the due discussion of 
 which the Government introducing a measure of this character 
 can alone obtain any accurate knowledge or cognisance of the 
 feelings of this assembly ? 
 
 The right honourable gentleman said last night in a very- 
 solemn tone that if this were a motion for the third reading of 
 the Bill we should all agree that it would be impossible to pass 
 it. As if that were not the fate of every Bill ! As if you wer^ 
 on the second reading of any Bill to treat it as though it then 
 stood for a third reading ; and as if any Reform Bill, of all Bills 
 in the world, could be proposed to be read the second time, and 
 anyone could' expect it to pass the third reading in the exact 
 shape in which it was then presented to the House ! Sir, that 
 is not a fair criticism. And then the right honourable gentle- 
 man gets up and addresses me in a tone which I must say is 
 very unusual in this House. Not that I at all care for the heat 
 he displays, although really his manner is sometimes so very 
 excited and so alarming that one might almost feel thankful 
 that gentlemen in this House who sit on opposite sides of this 
 table are divided by a good broad piece of furniture.' Sir, I 
 can fairly say that I neither wish to accept the conditions of the 
 right honourable gentleman nor to oppose them. I will always 
 endeavour to treat this House as Her Majesty's Government are 
 perfectly willing and anxious to do. I have certainly never 
 supposed that we could bring any matter like this to a conclu- 
 sion without the candid and cordial co-operation of the House 
 of Commons ; and it is only by discussion, by becoming ac- 
 quainted with the different views of honourable members, by 
 ■Hiutual concessions and arrangement, that any conclusion what- 
 ever on such a question can be arrived at. Well, the right 
 honourable gentleman yesterday made a very stern appeal to 
 me on the subject of the lodger franchise. He said that the 
 ' lodger franchise must be conceded.' Now, I thought that was 
 
 ' A reference to some gestvire of impatience on the part of Mr. Gladstone. 
 
PAELIAMENTAEY REFORM, MARCH 1867. 571 
 
 a very extraordinary tone in which to address one who certainly 
 on the subject of the lodger franchise can't be supposed to have 
 a very great prejudice against it. Indeed, if I may say so, I 
 was myself the father of the lodger franchise. Undoubtedly I 
 was the first minister who ever proposed its adoption by this 
 House. 
 
 We hear a great deal of abuse of what are called the 
 ' by-franchises ' or the special franchises. We are obliged to 
 the right honourable gentleman for giving a decent epithet to 
 describe them after the phrases applied to them by the honour- 
 able member for Birmingham. We hear, I say, a great deal of 
 abuse uttered against those franchises ; but I believe that the 
 ■opinion of the House of Commons— the opinion of the majority 
 of the House of Commons — is in their favom ; and also that the 
 calm opinion of the country really approves them. Who is the 
 author, who are the great patrons of all these special fran- 
 chises ? Why, they did not emanate from me ; they did not 
 come from this Bench. They came from the late Prime 
 Ministers, and from coalition Chancellors of the Exchequer. 
 There is no doubt one of these special franchises which has re- 
 commended itself to the very ardent sympathies of a great 
 portion of the people, but which was never invented by a Whig 
 or by a coalition minister, and it is this very lodger franchise 
 which I am now sternly told we must concede, as if in being 
 asked to concede that we were asked to make some enormous 
 sacrifice. Sir, we had considerable difficulty about the lodger 
 franchise. I will deal candidly with the House. I brought 
 this subject before my colleagues. I do not know that any of 
 them were particularly hostile to the lodger franchise ; but of 
 course the first objection to it is that it is inconsistent with a 
 Bill which is founded on the principle of rating, because you 
 can't rate a lodger. Well, that is a very important consider- 
 ation, but it is not one which may not be overcome. I mean to 
 say that my colleagues would not have been prevented by that 
 consideration alone from entertaining the question of the lodger 
 franchise. They said this : ' We have no prejudice on the 
 subject, but it is inconsistent with our principle of rating.' 
 Several members of the present cabinet were in the cabinet 
 
572 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 which in 1859 brought forward the lodger franchise ; but they 
 said : — ' The right honourable member for South liancashire, 
 the leader of the Opposition, stated last year that the lodger 
 franchise was an insignificant affair, and that he believed it 
 would produce very small results ; and if it be an insignificant 
 affair, and if it would produce very small results, what would 
 be the use of deviating from the principle of our Bill ? ' But 
 now we find that the lodger franchise, which a few months ago 
 was a very insignificant afifair, and could produce only very 
 small results, is the great question of the day. These seven- 
 teen points or twenty- seven — I forget which ; for I may per- 
 chance have confounded what occurred here last night with 
 what took place at some of those meetings where what is called 
 ' the mob of the House of Commons ' attended, attended with 
 the right honourable gentleman — but though there were these 
 seventeen or twenty-seven points, this one is put forward as the 
 first and foremost, as the one great point on which the fate 
 of the Government is to rest ; on which a secretly prepared 
 resolution is to be moved, and on account of which we are 
 not to be allowed to go into Committee. This is the first 
 great cause and ' it must be conceded.' Sir, I dare say that the 
 lodger franchise, if we get into Committee, will be discussed 
 with great candour and calmness ; and if it is brought forward 
 in a shape that commends itself to the favour of the House, 
 I have no doubt the House will adopt it. 
 
 But, says the right honourable gentleman, iu the second 
 place — and this is most important — means must be taken to 
 prevent trafficking in the votes of the lowest class of house- 
 holders. ' Means must be adopted ! ' But what means ? I 
 should like the right honourable gentleman to be more specific 
 and to be more special on this point, as he sometimes is. Of 
 course we are all anxious to prevent this trafficking as regards 
 'the lowest class of householders' — I must be careful of the 
 words I use — I think it would be very convenient if we could 
 establish some means of controlling the conduct of the higher 
 class of householders, and if I have an opportunity of bringing 
 in our Bill for the prevention of bribery and corruption, we shall 
 make the attempt to do that ; although I am not sure, after 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, MARCH 1867. 573 
 
 what has passed to-night, that it will not be opposed by the 
 honourable member for Birmingham. But what surprises me 
 most in this afifair is the assumption of the right honourable 
 gentleman the member for South Lancashire, that all those 
 persons who are going to be introduced into the constituency 
 by this Bill are anxious to be bribed. Well, a line, a magical 
 line, is to be drawn to prevent it ; as if clever vestrymen and 
 cunning election-agents would not soon convert a 4L house- 
 holder into a 51. householder when you have got yom: precious 
 line, and so screw the figures up from year to year. But if these 
 people are what you assume, but what I do not believe them to 
 be, then the honourable member — who is, I will not say the 
 great professor of manhood suffrage, but the great counsellor of 
 those who advocate manhood suffrage — will show us that the line 
 is the only bulwark against democracy. 
 
 I remember that some years ago when the Militia was about 
 to be restored, the Government of the day, rather short-sightedly, 
 determined to establish that force on the principle of the 
 ballot ; and Lord Palmerston, who had then left them and gone 
 into Opposition, opposed it very much. The Grovernment of 
 the day, a Whig Government, of course containing many great 
 statesmen and distinguished orators, with great power in debate, 
 established with wonderful cogency of logic and fertility of 
 illustration, the absolute necessity, if there was to be a Militia, 
 of adopting the ballot. Lord Palmerston on that occasion said, 
 ' All these arguments are irresistible ; but the reasoning of 
 my noble and right honourable friends rests entirely on this 
 assumption, that the people of England cannot be trusted.' It 
 was upon that issue he took the opinion of this House, and 
 that the Government was changed. And was he, let me ask, 
 right or wrong in the view which he maintained ? Why, you 
 had a Militia established on the voluntary principle, and you 
 found that the people of England could be trusted. They 
 received their bounty money and came back in accordance 
 with their engagement every year, and no institution could be 
 more successful, notwithstanding the tone, which had been 
 
 adopted that it was impossible to establish a Militia on the 
 
 voluntary principle, because the great body of the people could 
 
574 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 not be trusted. I now say the same thing with regard to these 
 frequent remarks of the right honourable gentleman the member 
 for South Lancashire, who assumes that everybody who is about 
 to be introduced into the constituencies is already preparing to 
 be bribed ; that every gentleman who expects to be a member 
 of Parliament is ready to become a briber ; and that a scene of 
 corruption will be the consequence of this popular franchise. 
 I would remind the right honourable gentleman of the extreme 
 difl&culty, and not only. the extreme difficulty, but the immense 
 cost, of bribery under the circumstances which will follow the 
 passing of this Bill. Why, it would exhaust all those fabulous 
 resources which have recently been the subject of investigation 
 before committees, and with results with which the honourable 
 member for Birmingham seems so peculiarly to sympathise. 
 
 Let me take the fifty-seven boroughs in which the Small 
 Tenements Act is universally in force, and which furnish the 
 best test on this point. Among these boroughs there are only 
 ten which have less than 500 occupiers within their limits, the 
 average of the whole fifty-seven being 2,445 in each consti- 
 tuency. Well, those wicked vestrymen and artful election- 
 agents are to pay their rates for 2,445 men for two years, and 
 if you take the average existence of Parliaments at 3^ years, 
 you will have them paying their rates for that number for that 
 time ; and when they have paid their rates, what hold, I would 
 ask, would they have on them ? For if they consented to pay 
 their rates for three and a half or even two years, I think it 
 very likely they would turn round when the hour for action 
 c£.me, and, in consequence of the experience which they had 
 acquired, expect something further and upon a larger scale. 
 Yet this is the sort of argument — this appeal to the impossible 
 • — which is used to show that a proposal which is politic and 
 necessary ought not to be adopted. 
 
 The third menace of the right honourable gentleman was 
 of this nature : he says the distinction between different classes 
 of rate-payers must be abolished. Now, that is a very serious 
 question, and one on which a decision ought not to be pro- 
 nounced by this House in haste. I very much doubt the policy ' 
 in a country like England, and with institutions such as here 
 
PAELIAMENTAEY EEFOEM, MAECH 1867. 575 
 
 prevail, of attempting by artificial means to obtain anything 
 like a similarity of suffrage at a sacrifice of what I may venture 
 to call the natural circumstances in which we are placed. It 
 is very true that it is most desirable not to deal in a Bill like 
 the present with any privileges which happen previously to 
 exist. If, therefore, you give the franchise to new classes on 
 the condition of personally paying rates and of adequate resi- 
 dence, you must adopt provisions which are not identical with 
 those which prevail at present under the law ; but that diffi- 
 culty has been felt before. It is not the first time, as the right 
 honourable gentleman reminded us the other night, that such 
 combinations have been considered by cabinets and Govern- 
 ments of which he was a distinguished member. Provisions 
 precisely the same as those we now propose, making a distinction 
 between those already in possession of the franchise and newly- 
 enfranchised classes, were contained in the Eeform Bill intro- 
 duced by the Grovernment of Lord Aberdeen, and there were 
 also provisions specially guarding the rights and privileges of 
 old constituencies. That shows that the subject must have been 
 considered by the wise and eminent men — some of them the 
 most wise and eminent whom the country has produced this 
 century — ^who were members of that cabinet. You may depend 
 upon it that it was not idly that such regulations were framed, 
 and framed too at a time when & 61. rental was the reduction 
 suggested, instead of the great reduction which is now pro- 
 posed. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman says that I am happy in 
 remembering the mistakes of my predecessors. Now, that may 
 be a taunt or it may be a philosophic observation ; but I know 
 
 this ^to revert to the immortal subject of the lodger franchise, 
 
 which, we are told, is the great political question of the day — 
 that, in the Bill of last year, that favourite ofifspring of the 
 intellect and passion of the right honourable gentleman, it was 
 enacted that there should be a qualifying term of two years' 
 residence. What, then, becomes of all this idle rhodomontade 
 about our newfangled schemes and principles, which it is said 
 the English people cannot endure, when eight or nine months 
 ago the same principles and policy were professed, advocated 
 
576 SPEECHES OF THE EaRL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 and recommended by the right honourable gentleman himself? 
 Now, I have presumed to impress upon the House that this is 
 a most important question, and I hope it -will not decide upon 
 it with any precipitation. It is of the utmost consequence, if 
 you establish the sufifrage on the principles which we recom- 
 mend, that into it the element of residence, and adequate 
 residence, should enter. There is no other condition which 
 would give satisfaction to the people of this country generally, 
 and permit me to say that there is no condition which has been 
 more popularly received by the working classes. 
 
 We have some means, though we may not be favoured 
 with all the inspired information respecting the people which 
 hovers round the head of the honourable member for Birming- 
 ham, of becoming acquainted with the feelings and opinions 
 of the great variety of classes in this country at the present 
 moment. There is not a day on which, on this question of 
 Parliamentary Ee.form, the Grovernment are not in the receipt of, 
 I do not say hundreds, but scores upon scores of important 
 communications coming from all classes of working men, in- 
 dividually, collectively, in assembled bodies and committees ; 
 and I will frankly admit that very critical and shrewd remarks 
 are in them sometimes made on our propositions, for I do not 
 pretend that they contain nothing but eulogium. They are 
 communications which we attend to with respect, and by which 
 I hope we may profit ; but although in some of them consider- 
 able objections are urged with regard to rating — and not un- 
 naturally, because when a man is called upon to pay he thinks 
 twice before assenting to such a proposal — there is observable 
 in them this remarkable characteristic, that without exception 
 they entertain but one opinion on the question of residence. 
 They cheerfully propose the municipal term of residence as a 
 qualification for the exercise of the franchise ; so that all this 
 vaunted indignation of the right honourable gentleman is en- 
 tirely misplaced, and is indulged in in complete ignorance of 
 what the feeling of the country really is on the subject of resi- 
 dence. This is a condition which recommends itself to the 
 good sense, and is accepted by the integrity of Englishmen, 
 and we shall, I believe, make a great mistake if we deviate 
 
PARLIAMENTARY EEFOEM, MARCH 1867. 577 
 
 from this proposition in the Bill. I admit that there is at first 
 sight something invidious — though that interpretation does 
 not seem to have occurred to those to whom I have just been 
 alluding— in having one household qualification based on one 
 year, and another for a longer term ; but when you are dealing 
 with complicated transactions of this kind, and when you are 
 adding new franchises to old constituencies, there must be 
 irregularities from which some persons may draw invidious in- 
 ferences, though the people at large do not. If you make any 
 proposition in Committee with a view to remove this invidious 
 character, without destroying the fundamental condition, we 
 shall, of course, be prepared to consider it. It has been sug- 
 gested that the term with regard to the lOl. householders should 
 be increased to two years, reserving all existing rights, and the 
 suggestion may be worthy of consideration; but depend upon 
 it the House will commit a great error if it supposes that by 
 reducing the term of residence as a test of fitness for the exer- 
 cise of the franchise it will be doing that which the working 
 classes either desire or approve. 
 
 I now approach the fourth head of the irapeachment. It is 
 said that the taxing franchise and the dual vote must be aban- 
 doned. Let mie say a word first about the taxing franchise. I 
 have already touched upon the lodger franchise, and I leave that 
 respectable franchise, the savings bank franchise, and others 
 invented by Lord John Russell — who is supposed to be the 
 most learned man on the subject of franchises — I leave them with 
 the dust of almost venerable antiquity on them, and I proceed 
 to this dreadful invention of Lord Derby's G-overnment — the 
 franchise founded on direct taxation. But this, too, has not 
 the charm of originality. This, also, is a franchise proposed 
 by previous administrations. Let me call the attention of the 
 House to the circumstances under which this franchise was 
 first proposed. It was proposed first in 1852, Lord John 
 Eussell then being Prime Minister. He had to draw up a 
 Reform Bill. Generally speaking, that is an easy task to him ; 
 but on this occasion he wished to appear with some novelty, 
 and some new franchises were proposed. Being a man of a 
 constitutional temperament, he determined to have a franchise 
 VOL. I. P P 
 
578 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 founded on the greatest duty of Englishmen — that of paying 
 taxes. He thought that duty should confer a right. When a 
 minister, and especially a minister more distinguished for his 
 constitutional than his financial knowledge, projects a franchise 
 of this kind, of course he avails himself of the best information. 
 He brings to his aid the intelligent views of adepts ; he 
 broaches his idea, and has it well discussed in argument by 
 persons well versed in all the details, and it was only, of course, 
 on their advice that he adopted the scheme which was pro- 
 posed to this House, and which died an untimely death. The 
 House never pronounced against it ; but in the course of time — 
 in the course of two rather important and troubled years — there 
 was a new administration, and a new Keform Bill was intro- 
 duced. The question of the franchise founded on direct 
 taxation was again brought before the consideration of Parlia- 
 ment. Mark what happened between 1852 and 1854 on the 
 subject of direct taxation. 
 
 The question of the income-tax during those two years was 
 the question of the day. It engrossed public attention and 
 made the fate and fall of ministers. The right honourable 
 gentleman the member for South J>aneashire obtained, and 
 justly obtained, great distinction for the manner in which he 
 treated the question of the income-tax, and showed himself a 
 complete master of all its details. It was a great advantage to 
 Lord Eussell, when Lord Aberdeen deputed to him the task of 
 providing a franchise founded on taxation, that he could consult 
 the right honourable gentleman — a man transcendent on all 
 subjects, eminent for his knowledge of finance, but most re- 
 markable for his knowledge of direct taxation. Any failure 
 which Lord Russell met with in 1852 might be ascribed to 
 circumstances totally irrelevant to the merits of the Bill; they 
 could not again be anticipated, especially with the immense 
 advantage of the assistance of the right honourable gentleman, 
 who is able to take a part in the consideration of every subject. 
 I have no doubt he was consulted on every part of the Eeform 
 Bill of 1854. I believe he drew up the proviso which saved 
 the rights of the lOl. householders. It is in his style. It was, 
 I say, of immense advantage to Lord Russell, when forming a 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, MARCH 1867. 579 
 
 franchise founded on direct taxation, that he had the assistance 
 of a person of the great abiUty and strong character of the right 
 honourable gentleman, who was entire master of the subject. 
 There can be no doubt the right honourable gentleman was the 
 constructor of the franchise founded on direct taxation. Then, 
 how can we reconcile with such circumstances the language of 
 the right honourable gentleman, that this franchise will make 
 faggot votes ; that it is the most objectionable of all propositions ; 
 and, to repeat the words employed by the right honourable 
 gentleman last night, it must be abandoned ? Whether the 
 House will abandon it or not is a subject for future considera- 
 tion; but practical men who know as much about the incidence 
 of the income-tax and the subject of taxation generally as the 
 right honourable gentleman the member for South Lancashire 
 laugh at his objections and say that there is nothing in them. 
 They are perfectly surprised at the remarks which the House of 
 Commons received with the natural deference and the natural 
 credulity which it is the pleasure of the House to extend to the 
 right honourable gentleman. 
 
 I have before me some remarks on the subject in a letter 
 dated March 24, written by one whom I suppose the right 
 honourable gentleman will not hesitate for a moment to ac- 
 knowledge to be a consummate judge of the subject, and whom 
 I know personally he highly respects. I will read it : — 'I do not 
 see that the proposition for giving the payers of direct taxation 
 to the amount of 20s. a vote would offer the means for creating 
 faggot votes. In the first place, the persons bona Jide liable in 
 almost every such case would have a vote from other sources. 
 As regards the income-tax I think it is absurd to suppose that 
 a man would return his income for assessment, having none, 
 for the purpose of getting on the register. He must do it 
 annually and pay the tax, and he could not obtain it back on 
 the ground of exemption. With regard to the assessed taxes, the 
 assessment is not made until after the year in which the article 
 subject to taxation has been kept ; and will a person state in his 
 assessment paper that he had a carriage, horses, and servants 
 in the year preceding, having had none ? I do not believe it, 
 for persons of that class would not be supplied with the ordi- 
 
 p p 2 
 
580 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 nary printed tax-paper to make the return which would be 
 brought into the assessment. And how could they be assessed ? 
 The revising barrister should be empowered to require the 
 claimant to prove his bond fide liability, and a clause to 
 that effect should be inserted in the Bill.' Well," that is the 
 opinion of Sir Charles Pressley, and everybody who knows him, 
 knows him to be a man of consummate ability. Here is 
 another opinion — that of a calmer temperament, perhaps, but it 
 is well worth the consideration of the House. ■ It is the opinion 
 of Mr. Stevenson, and he says that he agrees with Sir Charles 
 Pressley in applying the remedy which he suggests. But he 
 adds that he would be disposed to doubt whether any inquisi- 
 tion into the affairs of men who are to be charged with the 
 income-tax would be necessary, for it should be remembered 
 that the assessment of men in situations are furnished by their 
 employers, and that, therefore, no extensive frauds could be 
 committed without the knowledge of their masters. 
 
 Now, I ask the House, after having these opinions from 
 such men, and remembering that Lord Aberdeen's administra- 
 tion was the author of this very franchise, and which no doubt 
 was constructed under the special advice and counsel of the 
 right honourable gentleman opposite — or, if not, he was remiss 
 in the performance of his duties — as a member of that cabinet, 
 whether such arguments as he used last night should have been 
 uttered, and particularly when we think of the respect due to 
 Lord Russell, whether they should not have been withheld. 
 There should have been more regard for the feelings of that 
 distinguished nobleman. I think the right honourable gentle- 
 man might have spared the epithets he showered on this fran- 
 chise. It is very possible that in the Committee it may be 
 improved. Well, if not, what is the use of going into Com- 
 mittee ? Some honourable gentlemen seem to think it a wise 
 thing to sneer at the action of their own Committee. These 
 are questions, if there are any, with respect to which the House 
 has the power of improving the suggestions of ministers. 
 
 I leave for a moment, until I have touched upon some 
 slighter topics, the question of the dual vote, in order to come 
 to the iifth article of impeachment, which was couched in the 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, MARCH 1867. 581 
 
 same imperative and authoritative language — ' the redistribution 
 must be enlarged.' ('Hear, hear ! ' from an honourable gentle- 
 man on the Opposition Benches.) The honourable member who 
 cheers is bound to tell us what he means by enlarging the re- 
 distribution. I will not do as the right honourable gentleman 
 did last night — I will not call upon the honourable member to 
 make his maiden speech now by way of parenthesis to my obser- 
 vations ; but I must say that, in trying to settle the most 
 difficult question of the day, we have a right to expect from the 
 honourable member, as well as from a statesman in the position 
 of the right honourable gentleman opposite, some indication of 
 their views of enlarged redistribution. That, Sir, is a very 
 important question. We, Sir, may have contracted views and 
 limited notions on the subject, but we have been frank in stating 
 them. Is the right honourable gentleman the member for 
 South Lancashire, then, to sit there, with his large process of 
 distribution, surrounded by some who think themselves his 
 followers and his friends, while he may be prepared to stab 
 them to the heart ? I say that particularly because I am told 
 there is to be a large scheme of redistribution, with which it is im- 
 possible to proceed without destroying his most intimate friends. 
 Now, Sir, we have laid down the principles on which we 
 think redistribution ought to take place. If there are any 
 gentlemen who think that any strange and new principle 
 should be introduced ; if there are advocates and distinguished 
 men who have schemes of cumulative voting and other means 
 of obtaming the opinion not only of majorities but of others, 
 but which new principle cannot be applied without a great 
 change in our whole electoral scheme ; I understand, I respect 
 those opinions, though I differ from them. But I deny that 
 any man has a right to loll on his easy seat in the House of 
 Commons, and tell us, when a practical proposition is brought 
 forward, the redistribution must be enlarged. I say the right 
 honourable gentleman ought to take the earliest opportunity of 
 informing the country what are the views on which he thinks 
 redistribution ought to take place, and calm the uneasy feeling 
 of all his adherents— uneasy feelings with which I sympathise, 
 but do not wish to share. Then we are told that the county 
 
582 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 franchise must be reduced. Well, we have reduced it; we 
 make a proposal to reduce the county franchise. The county 
 occupation franchise is at present 501. We propose it should 
 be 151., on a rating basis certainly; but everyone will admit 
 that that is a very large reduction. I have not heard that 
 any much larger reduction is proposed. At any rate, that is 
 a matter of secondary importance. It is a matter for dis- 
 cussion in Committee. Did Lord Palmerston, when he voted 
 for the Bill of the honourable member for Surrey — his speech 
 being for a lOl. qualification — did he not say he was not pledged 
 to lOl., and in Committee would propose twenty? Then, 
 as to voting-papers — it is a very interesting and important 
 question. So far as I am concerned, they will not be pressed ; 
 but it is a question on which the opinion of the House 
 ought to be taken, and I heard with pleasure last night 
 that the member for Sheffield — I say the member for Sheffield, 
 for so he should always be described — the member for Sheffield 
 did incidentally remark that of the principle of voting-papers he 
 approved. I don't say he is pledged to the application of it in 
 the Grovernment Bill, but every man of sense and experience 
 must feel that this is a very important principle, well worthy of 
 the consideration of the House of Commons. 
 
 Mr. Eoebuck : I beg to inform the right honourable gentle- 
 man that he makes a mistake. I never said any such thing. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer : I regret, Sir, that the 
 pleasing illusion has been dispelled ; but I have such confidence 
 in the intelligence and candour of the honourable and learned 
 gentleman that I will not despair that he may yet support it. 
 
 Now, Sir, let me ask the attention of the House to what the 
 member for Birmingham very properly described as, after all, 
 the great question — the borough franchise. You have been 
 trying to deal with the borough franchise for fifteen years. 
 Five Grovernments have made propositions — four Governments 
 certainly ; the fifth proposed no change, but still, at least, they 
 expressed by their policy an opinion on the subject. Five 
 Governments have attempted to deal with the borough fran- 
 chise. It has been twice attempted to be dealt with in this 
 House of Parliament. There is no figure, no combination of 
 
PAHLIAMENTAEY REFORM, MARCH 1867.. 583 
 
 figures, there are no means by which value can be ascertained, 
 that you have not had recourse to ; and now some gentlemen 
 opposite are following the old track, and believe that they have 
 arrived at a solution of all difficulties and determination of all 
 political perplexity on the subject, by taking refuge in 51. 
 rating, when everyone knows that it is as shifting as the 
 sand fora foundation on which to rest any superstructure, and 
 that all those election agents we hear of, and that all those 
 ambitious and cunning overseers that now occupy so much 
 attention, could by their power or favour convert a 31. or 
 41. into a 51. rating with the greatest ease. We have 
 taken the subject into consideration, and have thought it was 
 wise to establish the franchise on a distinct principle that 
 could not be mistaken ; and we say, if a man pays his rates, 
 and has resided a certain time, that is prima facie evidence 
 that he is a man of a regular, methodical, and dutiful course 
 of life ; and, on the whole, that is a very good test. 
 
 You must have some test in all these cases. The member 
 for Birmingham is against all tests whatever. If you see a man 
 without a coat, you would hardly say he should have the fran- 
 chise. If he had a coat, you may say that was not sufficient 
 test of his qualification. I think there are such things as tests, 
 and men on this, as on other subjects, must in some degree be 
 governed by circuinstances. The man who has a house, who is 
 rated to the poor, who pays his rates, and for two years has paid 
 his rates — these are circumstances that recommend him to our 
 minds as a man competent to fulfil a trust. But then the 
 member for Birmingham and a great many members before him 
 have said, ' Your principle may or may not be a good one ; but 
 we will assume in argument that it is a good principle ; but in 
 your application of it it may not be good. You find that prac- 
 tically you are leaving out of the enjoyment of the franchise a 
 great many men who are quite competent to exercise it and 
 deserve it, and that in consequence of legislation not, after all, 
 very old. Where we are talking of the rights of an ancient 
 constitution, and speculating on the possibility of investing men 
 with rights which may influence the destiny of our country for 
 ages to come, you come and tell us of rating Acts which, after 
 
584 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACOSSFIELD. 
 
 all, were only passed in the memory of our fathers and ourselves, 
 and these are to be the obstacles which are to prevent us from 
 establishing the franchise of Englishmen on the ancient and 
 proper basis.' But we meet that difficulty fairly and thoroughly, 
 I think ; and we say, let every man who, by the action of these 
 local or general Acts is not rated to the relief of the poor have 
 the privilege of calling upon the official person to rate him ; 
 and let him in consequence obtain the enjoyment of the 
 suffrage. 
 
 No one pretends that the principle is not sound, and that 
 the proposition is not large. The principle is this : a man 
 who is personally rated, and who has by his residence what is 
 thought in this country a fair claim to the trust of the com- 
 munity, is to have the suffrage. And if by these pecuUar Acts 
 of Parliament there are classes who are, as it were, prevented 
 from enjoying on these conditions the suffrage, we give them 
 the right, notwithstanding these Acts, of asserting their claim 
 and acquiring the franchise. Now, who can deny that that 
 principle is correct in theory ? The application of it is vast and 
 unlimited. What, then, are the objections to this ? We have 
 heard many, but I think they were summed up in the speech _ 
 we heard from the honourable and learned member for Richmond 
 (Sir Eoundell Palmer). I remember— I am sorry to say one 
 remembers too many things now — but I remember, and the 
 right honourable member for South Lancashire, who was in 
 that Parliament, remembers also, that there was a great party 
 struggle in this House (and the right honourable gentleman 
 belonged then to the same party as myself) with respect to 
 the policy pursued by Government in regard to China. A 
 reference was made to the elaborate speech of a lawyer delivered 
 during that debate by Sir James Graham, whose name is not 
 often mentioned in this House, but is never by me to be 
 mentioned without respect and affection, for he was one of the 
 most considerable men we ever had in this House. He rose in 
 his stately cynicism and exclaimed, ' Let us get out of the region 
 of Nisi Prius ; ' and when we come here to offer the franchise to 
 the people of England — notwithstanding the imputations of the 
 member for Birmingham — in a spirit of sincerity and truth ; 
 
PAELIAMENTARY REFORM, MARCH 1867. 585 
 
 when we offer to establisli it on a principle that no one can 
 controvert, and to apply it without limit— when I heard those 
 observations of the honourable and learned gentleman the 
 member for Richmond, I recollected the observation of Sir 
 James Graham, and I say we must get out of the region of 
 Nisi Prius. 
 
 But there is another spirit in which to deal with this ques- 
 tion other than that of the honourable and learned gentleman, 
 and that is the spirit of the right honourable gentleman oppo- 
 site, who takes a more statesmanlike view of this question ; for 
 though on the subject of rating he delighted and misled the 
 House at the same time, yet he touched on greater themes. 
 He said this system of yours is all inequality; this is the 
 difficulty I find in it ; this is the fatal consequence I denounce. 
 If you establish your suffrage on rating and apply it, you will not 
 find two towns in which the same suffrage will exist. There 
 are 57 towns in which the Small Tenements Act prevails ; there 
 are 92 in which it partially prevails ; and there are 27 in which 
 it does not prevail at all. And then the honourable gentleman 
 says, ' Good God, what will be the consequence of the applica- 
 tion of such a proposition as that in your Bill ? ' 
 
 Why, Sir, I always thought that what we have been com- 
 plaining of for years was the dreary monotony of the settlement 
 of 1832, and the identical character of the constituency under 
 that Act. Every time these discussions were brought on we 
 were told over and over again that what the country languished 
 for was the variety of franchise that we were deprived of by 
 the Act of 1832, and that if that had been re-introduced in any 
 of the schemes of later years, one of the great wants of the 
 country would have been supplied. It had been said, and most 
 justly said, that the remarkable characteristics of this assembly 
 — the variety of character which distinguishes it — is really owing 
 to the machinery of the small boroughs which were called into 
 existence — probably under the Plantagenets, but certainly under 
 the Tudors and Stuarts— and which have given to England that 
 varied representation of interests which India and our multi- 
 farious colonies, the settlements of two oceans and two hemi- 
 spheres, demanded. And I say of these poor-rate local Acts, 
 
586 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD, 
 
 which have been so criticised ; these Small Tenement Acts which 
 prevail, we are given to understand, with a power as secret and 
 inscrutable as that of the Jesuits, that they have absolutely 
 given us that variety which the country requires, and which I 
 believe is a most admirable quality. 
 
 Why, how does it work ? There are twenty-seven boroughs 
 under this system in which almost household suffrage prevails. 
 What is the harm of that ? Have you not been year after year 
 deploring that you have no longer members for Preston and such 
 places elected by household suffrage ? — that we have no longer 
 a system which produces among us a Hunt or a Cobbett? 
 Among the twenty-seven towns in which the Small Tenements 
 Act prevails, you have this large constituency. There is a dozen 
 of these twenty-seven boroughs having the most considerable 
 constituencies in England. There are Stockport, Bradford, and 
 half a dozen others. (Mr. Grladstone : Stoke.) That is one of 
 the greatest arguments I have heard in favour of it, for the right 
 honourable gentleman the other night took advantage of the 
 position he had in the debate, and he appealed to my honourable . 
 friend the member for Stoke, who, in consequence, delivered a 
 fiery invective against our Bill. I won't stop to consider what 
 would be his relative position if this 51. rating were adopted in 
 his borough instead of our proposal. It would make a difference 
 of only a very few thousands. There would be a difference of be- 
 tween 15,000 and 9,000. But everyone knows that my honour- 
 able friend is perfectly superior to any political accidents of this 
 kind. The honourable member is member for the Potteries, 
 and in my opinion he will always represent the Potteries, 
 because they are filled by a very intelligent population, who 
 like men of social standing and refined taste in the arts, and 
 who are not insensible to the charms of the rich and grotesque 
 rhetoric which distinguishes him. 
 
 Well now, Sir, let me ask the House to consider what is the 
 result of our proposal respecting the borough franchise ? Our 
 proposal — I must repeat it again, even at the risk of wearying 
 the House — is that every householder who is rated to the poor, 
 and personally pays his rates, and who has occupied his house 
 for two years, shall possess the franchise. I never wished, in 
 
PARLIAMENTARY EJEFOEM, MARQH 1867. 587 
 
 arguing ttis question, to restrain its meri'ts to the question of 
 the exact numbers that may be admitted under it to the enjoy- 
 ment of the suffrage. I think that on lliat subject an immense 
 mistake has been made. It is a mistake to suppose that your 
 numbers make democracy. So long as you have fitness and 
 variety, it is impossible that democracy can prevail. In our 
 proposal we believe that these two elements do prevail. Now, 
 Sir, recurring to a point to which I alluded when I first rose 
 to answer the honourable member for Birmingham, I men- 
 tioned the other night that by our scheme 240,000 persons, in 
 round numbers, would be qualified to enjoy the franchise, and 
 I thought that it was the duty of statesmen and politicians in 
 the proposal of laws to look to those who were qualified, and 
 not to those who would vote. 
 
 I think, with great deference, that the House has rather 
 erred in trying to calculate the state of the poll. But this is a 
 practical assembly, and I adopted its tone, and I argued the 
 case in the way in which the House, and especially the right 
 honourable gentleman (Mr. Grladstone), appeared to wish it to 
 be considered. The right honourable gentleman tells us that 
 my 240,000 qualified persons would only prove to be 120,000 
 persons who could possibly go to the poll. I believe, however, 
 he did not subject even them to the constitutional conditions 
 of our Bill — that they should be personally rated, and that they 
 should reside for two years. (Mr. Gladstone: I have,) We 
 must have some opposition to our Bill, but it should be an 
 opposition on some definite ground. Is it a Eadical, or is it a 
 Conservative Bill ? You must oppose it on one ground or the 
 other. You cannot blow hot and cold upon it. I brought it 
 forward, not as a Eadical, but as a Conservative measure. I 
 brought it forward as a Conservative, but as a popular Bill ; and 
 if the word had not been objected to the other night, I would 
 say I defy any person to show me any measure which the 
 House has passed of a more popular, and at the same time of a 
 more conservative character. I admit that these 1 20,000 may 
 be the most that are specifically admitted to the exercise of 
 the franchise by our proposals. We never considered the 
 numbers, but we looked to the principle. We looked to the 
 
\ 
 
 V 
 
 588 SPEECHES. OF THE EA.EL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 means by which we kiight unite competency and fitness with 
 variety of character, to form the constitution of the country. 
 If we have to reduce the 240,000 by one half, the same rule 
 must be applied to the 4^0,000 compound-householders, who, 
 according to the honourable member for Birmingham, are ex- 
 cluded by this Bill. I never understood that the honourable 
 member for Birmingham was ready to enfranchise all these 
 persons. On the contrary, no man has ever impressed upon 
 society more strenuously that there are a great many people to 
 whom he would not give the power of voting. Following, then, 
 the principle to which I have just referred, those 460,000 com- 
 pound-householders will be reduced to 230,000. If you apply 
 the constitutional conditions upon which we ask the House to 
 pronounce an opinion, that number will be still further reduced. 
 Upon these constitutional conditions the House ought to give 
 an opinion. Are they or are they not of opinion that a man 
 who is to be entrusted with the suffrage should be rated to the 
 poor, should pay his own rates, and have, moreover, a two years' 
 residence in the place where he is so rated ? 
 
 I cannot apprehend that the number that will be admitted 
 within the pale of the Constitution, as it is called, by the 
 scheme which we propose, will be so great as to cause any 
 distrust or alarm. I believe that those who will obtain the fran- 
 chise, and who are not compound- householders, will not exceed 
 the number which the right honourable gentleman the member 
 for South Lancashire has estimated as the immediate conse- 
 quence of our Bill. But it must be remembered that our Bill 
 is not framed, as was the one of last session, to enfranchise a 
 specific number of persons. We do not attempt that. We lay 
 down a principle, and let that principle work ; but if you ask 
 us what will be the result of its working, we say — although we 
 do not wish to found oiu' policy upon it — that we do not appre- 
 hend the number that will be admitted to the enjoyment of the 
 franchise will exceed the number contemplated by the Bill of 
 last session. But there is this difference between our propo- 
 sition and the proposition made by the right honourable gen- 
 tleman. The proposition of the right honourable gentleman 
 was founded upon a state of things which was liable to be 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, MARCH I867. 589 
 
 changed the next year, when the question might possibly have 
 to be raised again, while the proposition that we make is 
 founded upon a principle that is not liable to alteration. With 
 regard to the dual vote, I frankly confess, when I consider how 
 limited may be the number enfranchised by our scheme, that I 
 am not prepared to recommend a proposition which was ori- 
 ginally intended to protect the middle classes against an in- 
 vasion of their political power. That proposition as to the dual 
 vote was not merely brought forward as a check and a counter- 
 poise. No such mere vulgar idea entered our minds. It is 
 all very well for gentlemen to sneer. Nothing is easier than 
 that ; but you must recollect that for a number of years the 
 attention of some of the most eminent men, and of some of the 
 profoundest thinkers, has been given to the subject of Parlia- 
 mentary representation ; and that by many of them it has been 
 held that it is impossible to disturb the balance of political 
 power as it now exists, without departing from the old system 
 of apportioning one vote to each individual. We cannot, how- 
 ever, be blind to what has recently occurred. We believed 
 that men of great mark and standing were prepared to support 
 this view ; and possibly, even now, before we have finished 
 with this Bill, we shall find more than one honourable member 
 rising to propose a still broader and stronger principle than the 
 one involved in the dual vote. The question is a profound 
 one, and one that has commanded and will command great 
 attention. But this is essentially a practical assembly, and it 
 is the business of Her Majesty's Grovernment to bring forward, 
 and, if possible, to pass a measure of Reform. We must also 
 defer to the wishes of our supporters. What encouragement 
 have we received from this side of the House upon this point ? 
 Do honourable gentlemen mean to say that we must dis- 
 regard the opinions of our friends ? Why, Sir, we are not pre- 
 pared to disregard even the opinions of our foes. If there be any 
 one question upon which the opinion of the House has been 
 expressed more clearly than upon another, it has been upon 
 this. And most certainly we have received no encouragement. 
 From first to last no one has spoken a single word in its favour. 
 I had hoped that some stray philosopher would have risen to 
 
590 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 say something in its behalf, and to have . lent dignity to our 
 forlorn position. I had hoped that the noble viscount the 
 member for Stamford (Viscount Cranbourne) would have given 
 it his support, but even he denounced it. 
 
 Viscount Cranbourne : I beg the right honourable gentle- 
 man's pardon : I distinctly stated that I thought the proposal 
 just. 
 
 At any rate the noble viscount said he believed it to be 
 impracticable — would do no good. How can one fight against 
 such difficulties ? I am prepared to fight against the greatest 
 difficulties. But we stand here as practical men, with a duty 
 to fulfil, and that is to pass a Bill for the Amendment of the 
 Eepresentation of the People, and it would therefore have been 
 worse than idle to persist against such opposition. 
 
 One word before I conclude. I hear much of the struggle 
 of parties in this House, and I hear much of combinations that 
 may occur, and courses that may be taken, which may effect 
 the fate of this Bill. All I can say on the part of my colleagues 
 and myself is that we have no other wish at the present moment 
 than with the co-operation of this House to bring the question 
 of Parliamentary Eeform to a settlement. I know the Parlia- 
 mentary incredulity with which many will receive avowals 
 that we are only influenced in the course we are taking by 
 a sense of duty ; but I do assure the House — if they need 
 such assurances after what we have gone through, after the 
 sacrifices we have made, after having surrendered our political 
 connection with men whom we more than regarded — I can 
 assure them no other principle animates us but a conviction 
 that we ought not to desert our posts until this question has 
 been settled. Rest assured that it is not for the weal of Eng- 
 land that this settlement should be delayed. You may think 
 that the horizon is not disturbed at the present juncture. You 
 may think that surrounding circumstances may be favourable 
 to dilatory action. Some of you may think in the excitement of 
 the moment that ambition may be gratified, and that the 
 country may look favourably upon those who prevent the 
 passing of this Bill. Do not believe it. There is a deep re- 
 sponsibility with regard to this question resting, not on the 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, MARCH 1867. 591 
 
 Grovemment merely, but upon the whole House of Commons. 
 We are prepared, as I think I have shown, to act in all sincerity 
 in this miatter. Act with us cordially and candidly : assist us to 
 carry this measure. We will not shrink from deferring to your 
 suggestions so long as they are consistent with the main 
 object of this Bill, which we have never concealed from you, and 
 which is to preserve the representative character of the House 
 of Commons. Act with us, I say, cordially and candidly: you 
 will find on our side complete reciprocity of feeling. Pass the 
 Bill and then change the ministry if you like. 
 
592 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 DEBATE ON ME. GLADSTONE'S AMENDMENT, 
 April 12, 1867. 
 
 [On the above date Mr. Gladstone moved an amendment which 
 was intended to confer the franchise on the householder who com- 
 pounded for his rates as well as on the householder who paid them. 
 The compound-householder, it may be remembered, was one of the 
 most important and prominent personages who figured in the course 
 of these debates. It was the original object of the Bill to establish a 
 hon& fide rate-paying franchise, it being considered that personal 
 payment of rates aiforded some trustworthy guarantee for the respect- 
 ability and responsibility of the payer. The Opposition endeavoured 
 to make out that the distinction between the two classes was illu- 
 sory, and that to limit the privilege to the direct payer of rates was 
 to levy 'a fine upon the franchise.' The answer to this was that the 
 increase of rent charged to the compounding landlord was moi-e in 
 amount than the rate, so that the non-compounder got his vote more 
 cheaply than if he had compounded. This debate was the first real 
 trial of strength between the Government and the Opposition, and 
 when after the division the paper was handed to Mr. Whitmore, the 
 Conservative whip, a burst of cheering broke out from the Conserva- 
 tive benches such as no one who heard it is ever likely to forget. 
 It was redoubled, per cuneos geminatus, when the numbers were read 
 out — for Mr. Gladstone's amendment 289., against it 310. And 
 none rushed to shake hands with the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 more enthusiastically than those Tory country gentlemen whom he 
 was absurdly said to have betrayed. It was of this occasion that 
 Lady Beaconsfield loved to tell how her husband, refusing an invita- 
 tion to supper pressed upon him by the members of the Carlton, 
 hurried home to the ' best of wives ' and ate half the raised pie and 
 finished the bottle of champagne which she had prepai-ed for his 
 reception. The question of the compound-householder was after- 
 wards settled by abolishing composition, with the warm approval of 
 Mr. Henley, who made an excellent speech on the subject, May 17.] 
 
DEBATE ON MR. GLADSTONE'S AMENDMENT, APRIL 1867. 533 
 
 THE Chancellor of the Exchequer said — Mr. Dodson, Sir, 
 although we are in Committee on the Bill for the Eepre- 
 sentation of the People, there really are two policies before the 
 House to-night on the most important portion of that measure. 
 Although we are formally called upon to amend the Bill I had 
 the honour to introduce, we are really considering in respect of 
 the borough franchise a contrary policy and a counter-proposi- 
 tion. The right honourable gentleman the member for South 
 Lancashire proposes to draw what has been happily and truly 
 described as a hard-and-fast line, below which no one can enjoy 
 the privilege of the franchise. On the other hand, we have pro- 
 posed a measure under which every inhabitant of a house subject 
 to certain conditions, which are in harmony with the habits and 
 manners of the country, and which I think are approved of by 
 the rational discrimination of the people, may possess the fran- 
 chise. Instead of drawing a hard line, we have said to all 
 payers of rates who are not now enfranchised, ' We will take 
 care that you shall have an opportunity of acquiring and en- 
 joying the right of voting.' These are the two schemes for 
 the settlement of the borough franchise before the Committe* 
 to-night, for it would have been worse than idle to limit our 
 'discussion to the few and scanty words that will be formally 
 put by Mx. Dodson, for the decision of the Committee. We 
 must take the bundle of amendments suddenly put upon the 
 table by the right honourable gentleman opposite as descriptive 
 of the whole scheme, and the scheme is that which was indi- 
 cated in the instruction relinquished by the honourable and 
 learned member for Exeter. Now, Sir, to the proposition we 
 have made for establishing the borough franchise upon a rated 
 household franchise, to be enjoyed by the occupier on personally 
 paying the rate, the right honourable gentleman has offered 
 two main objections — the first of which is that the principle of 
 rating is new-fangled and alien. Sir, I had thought that the 
 principle of rating was one which was consecrated by the man- 
 ners and customs of the country from ancient times, and to a 
 remote period in connection with the enjoyment of civil and 
 political rights. It is recognised by the common law and the 
 statute law of past generations, and in the age in which we live 
 VOL. I. Q Q 
 
594 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 it has been part and portion of one of the most famous laws 
 connected with our political history — the Eeform Act of 1832. 
 In many subsequent Acts, and in many public documents of 
 great authenticity which have been brought forward by able 
 statesmen, this principle, now described as alien and new- 
 fangled, has been adopted and sanctioned as the basis of im- 
 portant arrangements, and Parliament has always welcomed 
 and sanctioned these propositions and these arrangements. I 
 was somewhat surprised, therefore, to hear it spoken of as new- 
 fangled and alien. But the second objection is that it is too 
 exclusive. Sir, that objection is scarcely consistent with many 
 observations subsequently made by the right honourable gentle- 
 man, with many inferences he afterwards drew, and many con- 
 clusions which were cheered by his friends — all pointing to this, 
 that the measure was of a very revolutionary and dangerous 
 character. But, according to the right honourable gentleman, 
 the principal objection to that measure is that its character 
 is too exclusive. Now, I humbly think that in settling the basis 
 of our borough franchise the House has not to consider what 
 the operation of the principle we establish may immediately be— 
 whether it be too exclusive or too expansive — but whether it 
 is a just principle, and whether it will in practice generally 
 and ultimately bring about a satisfactory state of things. 
 
 Now, Sir, if this be the objection made to our scheme of 
 establishing the franchise upon personal payment of rates, 
 there are also objections offered to the scheme of the right 
 honourable gentleman, which is founded upon a hard limita- 
 tion ; and the great objection to that hard line which the 
 right honourable gentleman has proposed is that it really offers 
 us no settlement of the question. Although I listened with 
 great attention to the speeches made in support of it, I did not 
 hear one argument to show that the principle of adopting a 
 figure — which we will assume from the other amendments of 
 the right honourable gentleman to be 51. — would give any 
 security for a settlement, nor has any reason been offered us why, 
 if adopted, it should not immediately be disturbed, and why 
 agitation should not be immediately fomented in order to 
 again alter the settlement come to. That is the point whidi 
 
DEBATE ON MR. GLADSTONE'S AMENDMENT, APRIL 1867. 595 
 
 has been evaded throughout this discussion, and it is the most 
 important point we have to consider. It may be convenient in 
 explaining the reasons which induced us to offer the plan we 
 have submitted to the consideration of the Committee, to 
 recall their attention to what occurred in 1859, In that year 
 we had to consider the question of Parliamentary Eeform, and 
 of course the borough franchise, which was one of the most 
 important portions of the scheme, engaged our deepest atten- 
 tion. The result of our consideration of the subject was that 
 it was impossible with any prospect of satisfaction to disturb the 
 lOl. franchise established in 1832, and which now prevails; for 
 that if we came to a rental of 81., or a rating of 71. or of Ql., 
 there was no standpoint upon which we could rely, and that 
 useless agitation for a fmrther change must be the only conse- 
 quence. And in that state of things it was absolutely neces- 
 sary to leave the matter untouched (I am speaking of 1859), 
 or to proceed to the point at which we should probably deal 
 with it, something after the fashion of our present proposition. 
 We took adequate means to ascertain the opinion of the 
 country, and we were convinced that any attempt which would 
 considerably diminish the borough franchise would meet with 
 determined opposition from the borough constituencies, and 
 therefore we felt that the only course to pursue was to recom- 
 mend to Parliament not to deal with the borough franchise, 
 but we endeavoured to obtain our end by bringing in a portion 
 of the working classes by other means. But what happened 
 under these circumstances ? We met with very great opposi- 
 tion to the policy which we recommended, and which subse- 
 quent years proved to be accurate and sound. The right 
 honourable gentleman the member for Calne was one of the 
 most busy managers in organising a party for reducing the 
 franchise, and a resolution was passed which destroyed our 
 Grovemment, but which inflicted, I believe, more damage on 
 the Liberal party than almost any step which they have taken. 
 Then the right honourable gentleman the member for 
 
 Calne who was not at the time a right honourable gentleman, 
 
 but who immediately became one — was promoted to a high 
 post in the Grovemment. 
 
 Q Q 2 
 
596 SPEECHES OF THE EAKL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 llr. Lowe : I beg the right honourable gentleman's pardon. 
 I was a right honourable then. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer : The right honourable 
 gentleman will, I believe, not contradict me when I say that he 
 was at the time of which I am speaking at once preferred to a 
 high post in the Grovernment. 
 
 Mr. Lowe : I was Vice-President of the Board of Trade in 
 the former Liberal Grovernment, and Vice-President of the 
 Council of Education in the next. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer: I maybe permitted to 
 explain to the Committee why it is I have made the observations 
 which have just fallen from me. We do not impute any im- 
 proper conduct to the right honourable gentleman for the part 
 he took on that occasion. It never entered our minds that 
 because the right honourable gentleman opposed our Bill and 
 supported a policy then, which he has since denounced, and 
 afterwards obtained a high post, that he was in any way in- 
 fluenced by improper motives. But the other evening, when 
 my right honourable friend the Secretary for India ' expressed 
 in a manner worthy the integrity of his character, and with 
 a sincerity which no one could have doubted, the motives by 
 which his conduct on this question had been dictated, the 
 right honourable gentleman the member for Calne jumped up 
 and imputed my right honourable friend's change of opinion to 
 preferment to high ofBce, and therefore I am justly right in re- 
 minding the right honourable gentleman, who is a ready critic, 
 and not well disposed to bear criticism, that he ought to cast 
 some reminiscences over his own past career. 
 
 But to return to the subject more immediately under dis- 
 cussion. It is sometimes said that in the proposal which we 
 make with a view to the settlement of the borough franchise, 
 that we are interfering with, or rather, that we are not doing 
 justice to the compound householders, who, according to the 
 speech of the right honourable gentleman the member for South 
 Lancashire, are the creation of the civilisation of the age. Now, 
 I will not enter into any controversy on that subject. It was 
 not only the right honourable gentleman the member for South 
 ' Sir Stafford Northoote. 
 
DEBATE ON MR. GLADSTONE'S AMENDMENT, APRIL 1867. 597 
 
 Lancashire, but the honourable member for Birmingham, -who 
 thus described the rating Acts which have produced such 
 anomalous results. There are, however, other views^ entertained 
 of those Acts than that they are the result of the civilisation of 
 the age. There axe some who think that jobbing vestries, rapa- 
 cious landlords and indigent tenants, may have given rise to the 
 necessity for such legislation. We all know very well that 
 those Acts were passed at a period which was not particularly 
 distinguished for public spirit. Even the Small Tenements 
 Act, which is the most recent of them, would, in the opinion of 
 many, probably not have passed in the age in which we live. 
 And I cannot believe, when we are laying down, on principles 
 which I hope may prove permanent, the foundation of so high 
 a privilege as that of electoral right, that we are to be scared 
 from the constitutional course before us, or from taking a part 
 that we approve of by the shadow and phantom of those rating 
 Acts. I cannot help thinking that if we legislate in the spirit 
 which Her Majesty's Grovernment recommend, and if this Bill 
 is allowed to pass into law, many of the inconveniences which 
 you now foresee will, as a necessary consequence, disappear. 
 The men to whom the measure will open the franchise will, it 
 seems to me, be actuated by higher motives than those for 
 which you give them credit, will adapt themselves to the altered 
 circumstances with which they will have to deal, and will not 
 allow their rights to depend on any mere accidental arrangement. 
 If our principles be sound, those men will assert their sway, 
 and will overcome those difficulties in their path on which you 
 now so much dwell. What we have attempted in the new 
 clause which we have laid on the table will very much soften 
 and mitigate, even by the confession of the right honourable 
 gentleman opposite himself, those difficulties. And if our 
 proposals be inconvenient in their character, and would tend to 
 unjust consequences, would not similar inconveniences, I would 
 ask, be experienced by that multitude which would be admitted 
 under the fixed hard line which the right honourable gentle- 
 man himself proposes ? Surely under that 51. line there would 
 be many more thousands of compound-householders by whom 
 great inconvenience would have been endured than could be by 
 
598 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 possibility inconvenienced by our arrangement. Throughout 
 this discussion, that view of the case has been omitted. Two 
 things are always assumed : — that under the 51. line no one 
 who might fairly aspire to the franchise would be excluded from 
 its exercise, and that with all the openings which we offer to the 
 compound-householders, not one of them will avail himself of the 
 privilege placed within his reach. Can anyone really believe that 
 that would be the case ? Under our Bill you will get all those 
 men whom you say you wish to get on the register. If there 
 be men who take no interest in the acquisition of political pri- 
 vileges, of course they will not exert themselves to obtain them, 
 and it is not desirable that they should, because persons without 
 any decided character, or entirely engrossed in the lowest 
 pursuits of life, with no wish . to improve their condition, are 
 not those who would reflect credit on the electoral body. That, 
 however, is not, in my opinion, a just description of the ma- 
 jority of our countrymen, and if you do keep out many men 
 who may not qualify themselves for the franchise under the 
 constitutional conditions which we propose, who may be indi- 
 gent, of a wandering character, or wanting in all those civil 
 virtues of industry and order which you are anxious to promote, 
 what harm will be done ? Your object is to obtain the worthy, 
 and if the unworthy are alone excluded we can do no harm. 
 
 Then it is said — what are these securities ? You cannot for 
 a moment hope that they will continue to exist. There will be 
 a great agitation against them ; what, then, will be your posi- 
 tion ? It really is a mistake to call those checks securities ; 
 and if you want to know what is to preserve and guard those 
 securities I will tell you why they will not be impugned. If 
 you want to keep those securities, as you call them, in vigorous 
 existence, you will be able best to do so by means of the people 
 who, by submitting to the conditions which we impose in order 
 to acquire the privileges which we throw open to them, will 
 constitute their most effectual safeguard. When they find that 
 by the personal payment of rates and by residence in a town 
 for a certain time they can secure for themselves the franchise, 
 they will be disposed to look with extreme jealousy on those 
 who do not conform to those conditions, and who do not lead 
 
DEBATE ON MR. GLADSTONE'S AMENDMENT, APRIL 1867. 599 
 
 those regular lives, being placed in the same position. What 
 has happened since the rate-paying clauses of the Eeform Bill 
 of 1832 received the sanction of Parliament? Agitation 
 against them has prevailed. Demagogues have made use of 
 those clauses as a subject on which to excite the country. 
 There have been organised operations in certain towns against 
 those clauses. They have, nevertheless, not been aboHshed, 
 because the common sense of the great majority of the people 
 who pay rates under those conditions has resolved to maintain 
 them, inasmuch as they are barriers against those who may 
 otherwise, without pains, attempt to share their privileges. 
 Therefore, Sir, I think that that charge against what are called 
 the securities is perfectly fallacious, that it is formed in igno- 
 rance of our countrymen, and that there is no foundation for 
 any apprehension that if the franchise is granted on these con- 
 ditions, these conditions will not be observed and guarded, and 
 will not be observed and guarded by the very persons who, 
 by submitting to those conditions, obtain the privileges which 
 they prize. Then the honourable and learned gentleman the 
 member for Exeter made some remarkable observations with 
 regard to this particular topic. He told us that no one could 
 be a stronger advocate than "he was for household suffrage ; but 
 the misfortune was that the country was not yet prepared for 
 it, and, having thus favoured us with the moral of his political 
 creed, he indulged in a criticism upon this measure, and said, 
 'These restrictions which you are proposing will ultimately 
 break down, and then you will have household suffrage.' But 
 how inconsistent is the criticism with the creed. The honour- 
 able and learned gentleman looks upon household suffrage as the 
 perfection of policy, and regrets that the country is not yet pre- 
 pared for such a measure ; and surely, therefore, when a scheme 
 is brought forward which for a certain time prevents household 
 suffrage coming into operation in consequence of restrictions 
 which in time will cease and break down, the honourable and 
 learned gentleman ought to congratulate us upon our wise and 
 consummate policy in framing a temporary arrangement which 
 will allow the country to enjoy in a certain degree household 
 suffrage till it is prepared for it to the full extent. 
 
600 SPEECHES OP THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD, 
 
 Well, Sir, there was one observation made by my noble 
 friend the member for Stamford (Viscount Cranboume) which 
 certainly was severe upon the measure we propose ; but it ap- 
 peared to me that my noble friend proved too much. The 
 arguments employed by my noble friend were certainly very 
 good arguments against the Bill ; but they were no less argu- 
 ments against all constitiitional government. My noble friend 
 said, ' You are increasing the suffrage, you are lowering the 
 franchise, you are conferring power on the multitude. We 
 know what will happen. You will have electioneering agents 
 and a number of political combinations who will avail them- 
 selves of the materials you have supplied them with, and the 
 consequences to society will be most dangerous. You will have 
 agitating leaders and all kinds of confederacies.' It is aU very 
 true. Demagogues and agitators are very unpleasant, and 
 leagues and registers may be very inconvenient, but they are 
 incident to a free and constitutional country, and you must put 
 up with these inconveniences or do without many important 
 advantages. The arguments of my noble friend, therefore, are 
 not, I think, so much directed against this Bill as against any 
 scheme which would extend political privileges to any portion 
 of the nation. 
 
 Now, Sir, I shall not notice some remarks made by the 
 honourable gentleman the member for Stoke-upon-Trent, 
 because he evidently expected that I was going to make a very 
 elaborate reply to what he said. I assure him that I listened 
 with the greatest pleasure to the invectives which he delivered 
 against myself. His style is greatly ornamental to discussion, 
 but it requires practice. And so far as my honourable friend 
 displayed his talents to-night, I listened with the greatest satis- 
 faction. All his exhibitions in this House are distinguished by 
 a prudery which charms me, and when he talks of Asian 
 mysteries I may, perhaps, by way of reply, remark that there 
 is a Batavian grace about his exhibition which takes the sting 
 out of what he has said. Now, Sir, perhaps I may be allowed 
 to put before the House what I believe to be an impartial 
 account of the relation of the Government to the House with 
 respect to their Eeform Bill. First of all, then, I would notice 
 
DEBATE ON ME. GLADSTONE'S AMENDMENT, APKIL 1867. 601 
 
 our relations with the right honourable gentleman opposite 
 (Mr. Grladstone). Now the right honourable gentleman oppo- 
 site is a candidate for power, and no man has a greater right to 
 be a candidate for power. The right honourable gentleman is 
 an opponent with whom any man may be proud to have to con- 
 tend. I know nothing more legitimate than the ambition of 
 such a man, and I am sure I bear the right honourable gentle- 
 man no ill-will, or as little ill-will as a man can bear, for the 
 efforts which he may make to change his position and to cross 
 from one side of the House to the other. But I am sure the 
 right honourable gentleman will not be offended if I, without 
 passion, but, I am sure, clearly express to the House what I 
 believe to be his position with regard to the Grovemment and 
 this question. I can quite understand how the right honour- 
 able gentleman should be so very emulous to deal with this 
 important question with which Her Majesty's Government have 
 felt it their duty to grapple ; but the right honourable gentle- 
 man seems to forget, what he ought to remember. The right 
 honourable gentleman has had his innings. He has dealt with 
 the subject of Parliamentary Keform very recently, and in this 
 House — in this House elected under the auspices of a Grovem- 
 ment of which he was a member — and he introduced a measure 
 with the advantage, which we have never had, of being supported 
 by a large majority. I do not begrudge the right honourable 
 gentleman those advantages, but I may still remind him of 
 them, and I say under these circumstances, we have a right 
 that there should be no great eagerness to make party 
 attacks. I cannot but view the amendments proposed by the 
 right honourable gentleman in this light. They are not 
 amendments to our Bill. They are counter propositions. 
 Now, some remarks were made with reference to a letter, the 
 character of which was evidently entirely misunderstood by the 
 honourable gentleman who made those remarks. The letter 
 was not addressed to the House of Commons, but to those with 
 whom I am accustomed to act in public life. It was exactly 
 such a letter as honourable gentlemen on both sides of the 
 House are constantly in the habit of receiving. It may be 
 described as a monosyllabic word, the instrument with which 
 
602 SPEECHES OF THE EA.RL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 the races of Nemea have been won. The right honourable gentle^ 
 man suddenly placed upon the paper a declaration of war to the 
 knife, and it was thought desirable that our Mends should be 
 addressed, not in the usual hand, but in my own, because it 
 was thought that that fact would, perhaps, induce them to read 
 the letter they received. I acknowledge the right honourable 
 gentleman's position and talents — that he is perfectly justified 
 in attacking the Grovemment; but do not let us misunderstand 
 the motive or the conduct of the right honourable gentleman. 
 Nothing can be more legitimate. It is a party attack ; and the 
 endeavour to parry it as a party attack is in accordance with 
 the tactics which were understood to be adopted in the House 
 on this subject. But as regards the House of Commons, gener- 
 ally speaking, I wish on the part of Her Majesty's Grovemment, 
 whatever may be the decision to-night, whatever may be the 
 consequences of this division, to say that in dealing with this 
 question Her Majesty's Grovemment have never for a moment 
 swerved from those sentiments which, with the fuU conciKrence 
 and desire of my colleagues, I have often expressed in this 
 House — namely, that we are most anxious to co-operate with 
 the House in bringing this question of Parliamentary Eeform to 
 a satisfactory settlement, and although we could not swerve with 
 respect to the borough franchise from those principles which we 
 regarded as vital — namely, personal payment of rates and 
 residence — still, with regard to almost every other point 
 which has been mentioned in our discussion, we are most 
 anxious, in Committee, after a fair deliberation, and after an 
 interchange of opinion, to adopt that course which the House 
 in its wisdom ma-y think most expedient and desirable. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman and the honourable mem- 
 ber for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) have expressed some astonish- 
 ment at the course which the Grovemment were pursuing, after 
 the concessions they had made. Now, Sir, I and my colleagues 
 are conscious of the heavy task we have undertaken, and how 
 much we must depend upon the assistance of the House in 
 order to bring it to a happy conclusion ; but I confess that I 
 really am at a loss to understand whg,t are the concessions 
 which the right honourable gentleman and his friends have 
 
DEBATE ON MR. GLADSTONE'S AMENDMENT, APRIL 1867. 603. 
 
 made us. I have been accused one night of giving up every- 
 thing, and on the next of never having given up anything at 
 all. I know very well that there was an important point— not 
 a fundamental principle, but still an important point— in our 
 original plan which I relinquished at the general desire of both 
 sides of the House, and particularly at the desire of my own 
 friends — there is no doubt about that ; but that was a conces- 
 sion from the Government. However, I am sure we shall be 
 most grateful for any concessions which we may receive ; but, 
 at the present time, we are not conscious that such gifts have 
 been bestowed on us. Now, whatever the course of this division, 
 I wish the House thoroughly to understand what have been 
 from the first and are now the feelings of the Grovemment with 
 respect to this Bill. As far as the borough franchise is con- 
 cerned, I must repeat, at the risk of wearying the House, what 
 I have said from the first, that the franchise in our plan is 
 founded upon principles from which we cannot swerve. And the 
 House has always in its discussions accepted that ; nor is it a 
 novelty when we say that personal payment of rates and resi- 
 dence are the only conditions upon which we consent to this 
 arrangement of the borough franchise. But I have in my 
 mind no other point of this description at present. It would 
 require a considerable amount of time to form an opinion on 
 the immense number and great variety of amendments, sugges- 
 tions, and propositions upon the paper at the present moment ; 
 but if I and my colleagues had an opportimity, we would con- 
 sider all these amendments and propositions which honourable 
 gentlemen have placed upon the paper dming the holidays 
 with a most anxious desire to change, and modify, and adapt 
 them to any praotical course which may be consistent with the 
 general principle of our m.easure, and we are perfectly prepared 
 to meet the House in that spirit. We have been told that the 
 lodger franchise has been conceded. The right honourable 
 gentleman says I have pledged myself to introduce a lodger 
 franchise, but really I am obliged to correct him, because I 
 have not pledged myself, and for a very good reason. I believe 
 that to introduce such a lodger franchise as would satisfy the 
 House and the country is one of the most difficult things in 
 
604 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 the world. All I did say was, and I was careful in saying it, 
 that if a sensible and well-considered proposition were brought 
 forward we would candidly meet it, and I am sure that if it 
 were established in argument it would be adopted by the House. 
 But I have had a great many communications upon the ques- 
 tion of the lodger franchise, and every day I find more difficulty 
 in the subject — I find it a very difficult subject. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman who makes so much of the 
 lodger franchise must himself be conscious, after being re- 
 minded of his language last year, when he was so very strong 
 in his expressions, and informed the House that it was a small 
 matter which chiefly concerned the middle classes — the right 
 honourable gentleman must himself feel, on reflection, that the 
 matter is not so easy as he has stated. I have received many 
 deputations of late, and among them has been one from a 
 society which is very much under the patronage of the honour- 
 able member for Birmingham — the Reform League. The 
 members of that deputation spoke to me upon the subject of 
 the lodger franchise, and so far as I can recollect — though my 
 noble friend (Lord Stanley), who was with me, will correct me 
 if I am in error — I distinctly understood from them that they 
 wanted a lodger franchise. But when I asked what residence 
 and value should be the qualification, they looked upon the 
 observation as an insult ; so that was not at all encouraging. 
 Many honourable gentlemen are as well informed as I am on 
 this matter ; but I say this is very valuable information to the 
 minister or member who is projecting a lodger franchise, which 
 is peculiarly for the working-classes, and especially for the 
 working-classes in London. If value and rating are not to be 
 admitted as qualifications to a lodger franchise, because they 
 would be an insult, I hardly hope we shall be able to carry a 
 lodger franchise such as would meet with the views of all. But 
 let the proposition be made ; let it be brought forward by any 
 gentleman who is thoroughly master of the subject, and can 
 bring it fairly before the House, and he will find from me a 
 kind reception for the lodger franchise, and I shall be very glad 
 if he can succeed in bringing forward a proposition satisfactory 
 to the country and the House. 
 
DEBATE ON ME. GLADSTONE'S AMENDMENT, APRIL 1867. G05 
 
 Tiien witli regard to the county franchise and other points 
 upon which questions have been put to me across the House — 
 I object to settling matters of that kind by question and answer 
 across the House, without the advantage of discussion. Take 
 the question of the compounders ; gentlemen rise and ask, do 
 you mean to do this or that ? I must answer that the question 
 of the compound-householder is one of great difficulty which 
 requires much debating ; and the speeches which have been 
 delivered to-night must have convinced the House that it is a 
 question which demanded complete discussion in Committee. 
 Again, I have been asked what we mean to do with the propo- 
 sition of voting-papers ; I reply, that we wish to consult the 
 feeling of the House of Commons upon that matter; and if 
 the House thinks fairly of this and other points, I shall, with 
 the consent of my colleagues, redeem the pledge which I gave, 
 and give those points the consideration they deserve. But, 
 above all, let us have fair discussion and deliberation ; that is 
 the spirit in which Her Majesty's Government wish to treat 
 this question with regard to the House. It is a disagreeable 
 thing to distinguish between the House generally and the 
 right honourable gentleman opposite, to whom I always wish, 
 as the head of a party, to pay every honour; but this is a 
 subject of a peculiar character ; it has gone through peculiar 
 phases already during the course of this year, and it is my duty 
 to distinguish between the House generally and the right 
 honourable gentleman, though he is the leader of the party, 
 because between the House and the Government upon this 
 question of Parliamentary reform there was an understanding 
 that we were mutually to co-operate, and by mutual confidence 
 and co-operation to bring about, if we could, a fair measure of 
 reform. That is the undertaking which I on the part of my 
 colleagues am perfectly ready to fulfil, and to none of the 
 suggestions which honourable gentlemen opposite have put 
 upon the paper will we refuse the most ample consideration. 
 We will give them all the consideration they deserve, with the 
 anxious desire to adapt and so modify them as to chime in with 
 the principles of our Bill. But, when the right honourable 
 gentleman comes forward suddenly with a counter proposition 
 
606 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEAC'ONSFIELD. 
 
 to the main proposals of the Grovernment, it is impossible for 
 me to close my eyes to the nature of that movement ; I must 
 say to the right honourable gentleman that I cannot in any 
 way agree to the propositions he has made ; they would entirely 
 alter and would completely supersede the policy which we 
 recommend the House to adopt ; and therefore I trust the 
 right honourable gentleman will clearly understand that in the 
 distinction which I have made I have not done it merely in 
 the heat of debate, for I feel in no heat at this moment. I 
 think, on the eve of an important division, that there should 
 be a clear and honest understanding between the Grovernment 
 and the House of Commons upon this matter of the Eeform 
 Bill. We have acted entirely in conformity with our repre- 
 sentations to the House ; we believe we have experienced from 
 honourable gentlemen true candour and generous consideration, 
 and we are anxious at this moment cordially to co-operate with 
 the House of Commons to settle this question. 
 
607 
 
 THIRD READING, REFORM BILL, 1867.' 
 
 [As a contribution to tlie history of Reform, and especially the 
 history of the Reform Bill passed in 1867, this speech is perhaps the 
 most instructive of all which the author of it delivered. He shows 
 that the principle adopted by Lord Derby's Government had been 
 long in contemplation by Conservative statesmen ; that when the 
 lOZ. franchise was once abandoned, no safe resting-place could be 
 found between that and a rating suffrage.] 
 
 SIE, the debate of this evening commenced with what may 
 be described as two very violent speeches — that is, speeches 
 very abusive of the measure before the House, and very abusive 
 of the ministers who have introduced it. I am more anxious 
 to vindicate the measure than to defend the Government. 
 But it necessarily happens in questions of this character, which 
 have occupied the attention of Parliament for a long term of 
 years, that it is practically impossible to distinguish the 
 measure from the ministry in any observations upon it. So 
 much depends upon personal character and engagements, and 
 upon the necessity of the time and the temper of the country, 
 when a minister is called upon definitively to act, that it is per- 
 haps impossible to separate in the remarks which I have to 
 offer to the House a consideration of the conduct of the 
 Grovemment from the nature of the Bill which we now ask 
 leave to read a third time. It is very easy for the noble lord 
 the member for Stamford, while he treats of a question which 
 has occupied the attention of Parliament for more than fifteen 
 years, to quote some ambiguous expression which was used 
 
 » This speech is reprinted from Hansard's Debates by permission of Mr. 
 Eansaxd. 
 
608 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 early in that period of fifteen years by Lord Derby, and then 
 to cite some small passage in a speech made by myself in the 
 year 1866. But I think that honourable gentlemen on both 
 sides of the House will admit that to arrive at a just judgment 
 of the conduct of public men, and of the character of the mea- 
 sures they propose, it is necessary to take larger and fuller 
 views. Measures of this importance, and the conduct of those 
 who may recommend them, are not to be decided by the quota- 
 tion of a speech made in 1852, or of the remarks made in 
 1866. Now, Sir, I accept the challenge made by the noble 
 lord. I will take that very term which he has himself fixed 
 upon as the test of our conduct and our policy. I will throw 
 my vision back over those fifteen years — to that very term 
 of 1852, when we were called upon to undertake the responsi- 
 bility of administration. 
 
 The question of Parliamentary Reform was becoming very 
 rife in 1849 and 1850 and 1851. If I recoUect right, it occu- 
 pied the attention of Parliament when it first met in 1852, 
 when we were sitting in Opposition, and therefore when we 
 acceded to office, and to office for the first time, in the year 
 1852, although the question was not one which upon reflection 
 men who were responsible for the conduct of affairs would 
 ' have deemed necessary to treat, yet it was one upon which it 
 was absolutely necessary that a cabinet should have some 
 definite conclusions ; and upon which it was quite certain the 
 moment they acceded to office they would be called to express 
 their opinion. It happened in that wise, for I think that 
 within a month after we acceded to office Mr. Hume brought 
 forward, as he was accustomed to do, the whole question of 
 Parliamentary Reform in a very comprehensive manner ; re- 
 ferring, not only to the franchise, but to the redistribution of 
 seats, and many other matters connected with it. The cabinet 
 had to meet and to decide upon the spirit in which they 
 would encounter the motion of Mr. Hume, and I was the organ 
 to express their opinions on the subject. The opinions I ex- 
 pressed upon that occasion from this very place were such as 
 do not justify the remarks of the right honourable gentleman. 
 They may not be fresh in the recollection- of the House, but I 
 
KEFOEM BILL, 1867. 609' 
 
 will say only that upon that occasion, with the full authority of 
 a unanimous Cabinet, expressing the opinion of Lord Derby's 
 Grovemment with regard ,to the question of Parliamentary 
 Eeform, I expressed our opinion that if the subject were again 
 opened — and its immediate re-opening we deprecated — the 
 fault which had been committed in 1832 in neglecting to give 
 a due share of the representation to the working classes ought 
 to be remedied. That was in the year 1852, when, with the 
 full authority of the Cabinet, I said that no measure of Parlia- 
 mentary Eeform could be deemed satisfactory which did not 
 remedy the great fault of the settlement of 1832. And I then 
 contended, as I have done since, that before the settlement of 
 1832 franchises existed which were peculiar to the working 
 classes, and that although the precise character of those fran- 
 chises could not, perhaps, have been entirely defended, they 
 should certainly not have been destroyed without the invention 
 of fresh franchises more adapted to the times in which we live, 
 and to the requirements of the classes concerned. 
 
 Therefore, it is quite clear that in 1852 our opinions upon 
 Parliamentary Eeform — for many of the members of that cabinet 
 are members of the present^ — were such that the expressions 
 of the right honourable gentleman opposite and the noble lord 
 cannot for a moment be justified. 
 
 And, what Sir, occmrred afterwards ? When we were in 
 Opposition for several years this question was constantly brought 
 under the consideration of Parliament, and it continued to b& 
 patronised and encouraged by the then ministers of the Crown, 
 who yet would not deal with it until the very last year of their 
 existence as a cabinet ; and then, after an ofificial life of some 
 six or seven years, they did introduce the subject to the con- 
 sideration of Parliament, and left a Bill upon the table when 
 they resigned their seals of office. It therefore became neces- 
 sary for us in 1858 to consider the subject, and we did not-j 
 conceal from ourselves for a moment the difficulties in treating 
 it that we should have to encounter. But such was the situa- 
 tion of the question, such the state of the country with regard 
 to it such even the private counsel and encouragement of the- 
 most influential of our predecessors in office, that we engaged 
 
 VOL. I. K R 
 
610 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 to consider the question, and to bring forward some measure 
 which we hoped might remove the difficulties that stood in 
 the way of general legislation, and to disembarrass political 
 life. We had then to consider the great question of the 
 borough franchise. It was proposed upon that occasion in the 
 cabinet of Lord Derby, that the borough franchise should be 
 founded upon the principle of household sufifrage. It is very 
 true that that proposition was not adopted, but it was not 
 opposed, so far as I can charge my memory, on any political 
 ground ; it was not adopted by many members of the cabinet, 
 because they believed that if a scheme of that kind were brought 
 forward it would receive no support, generally speaking, in the 
 country. That opinion of Lord Derby's Government I may 
 say was ultimately formed on no mean knowledge ; elaborate 
 machinery was had recourse to in order to obtain the informa- 
 tion necessary to form an accurate opinion on the subject, and 
 the general tenor of the information which reached us certainly 
 forced us to the conclusion that there was an insuperable ob- 
 jection on the part of the constituencies at that time against 
 any reduction of the borough franchise whatever. That that 
 was a true conclusion, and that the information which led to 
 that conclusion was correct, there can be no doubt, for although 
 we were forced to quit office by a resolution declaring that a 
 reduction of the borough franchise was expedient, those who 
 succeeded us failed in carrying any measure of that kind, and 
 remained in office for years without at all departing from their 
 inaction. 
 
 But there is another feature in the policy of the Govern- 
 ment of 1859 with regard to this question which I have a right 
 to refer to, and, indeed, am bound to refer to, in vindication of 
 the conduct of the Government. Whatever difference of 
 opinion might have existed in the cabinet of Lord Derby in 
 1859 on the question of establishing the borough franchise 
 on the principle of rated household suffrage, there was no 
 difference upon one point ; the cabinet was unanimous, after 
 the utmost deliberation and with the advantage of very large 
 information upon the subject, that if we attempted to reduce 
 the borough qualification which then existed we must have 
 
EEFORM BILL, 1867. 611 
 
 recourse to household suffrage, whatever might be the condition. 
 Upon that conclusion we acted, and I am at a loss to discover 
 in the conduct of public men who have acted in the way I 
 have described any foundation for the somewhat frantic attacks 
 which have been made upon us by the right honourable gentle- 
 man opposite, and for the bitter, though more temperately 
 expressed, criticisms of the noble lord the member for Stam- 
 ford. As probably the majority of the present House sat in 
 the late Parliament, the House is well acquainted with the 
 fortunes of the question of Parliamentary Eeform during the 
 years which followed the retirement of Lord Derby in 1859. 
 
 The questioa was unsuccessfully treated by the most 
 powerful and popular minister this country has possessed for 
 many years — by one, indeed, who at various times after 1859 
 apparently occupied a commanding position with reference to 
 any question with which he proposed to deal ; and it has so 
 happened that every leading statesman of the day, every party 
 representing any important section of power and opinion in the 
 country who approached^this subject have all of them equally 
 failed. Lord Eussell failed, Lord Aberdeen failed, Lord 
 . Palmerston failed. Lord Derby failed, and we were called upon 
 to reconsider the question when we came into office after a 
 fresh failure by Lord Eussell. It is said that we have brought 
 forward a measure stronger than the one we opposed. If that 
 be the case, it is no argument against our measure if it be one 
 adapted to the requirements of the times. But, Sir, we who 
 "believe that there should be no reduction of the borough fran- 
 chise other than what we propose, because there can be no 
 sound resting-place between it and the present qualification, 
 were perfectly justified in hesitating to accept a reduction of 
 the franchise which might have disturbed the machinery of the 
 State, and have resulted in consequences far more perilous than 
 we believe can ensue from the measure we ask you to adopt. 
 There had been for a considerable time a much-favoured plan 
 before the public, and the object, or rather, I should say, the 
 consequence, of this plan, which may be described as a moderate 
 reduction of the borough franchise, was the enfranchisement of 
 a certain favoured portion of the working classes, who are 
 
 B B 2 
 
612 SPEECHES OF THE EAKL OE BEACONSPIELD. 
 
 always treated in this House and everywhere else publicly in 
 terms of great eulogium, who are 
 
 Fed by soft dedication all day long, 
 
 and assured that they are very much superior to every other 
 portion of the working classes. These were to be invested with 
 the franchise on the implied condition that they were to form a 
 certain Prsetorian guard, and prevent every other portion of 
 the working classes of this country from acquiring the privilege, 
 and thus those other portions would be shut out from what 
 is called the pale of the Constitution. This proposal, in different 
 states and different degrees, was constantly before Parliament. 
 We were greatly opposed to it, since we believed it was a 
 dangerous policy, and we saw greater peril to the institutions 
 of the country in admitting a small and favoured section 
 of that kind into the political arena than in appealing to 
 the sympathies of the great body of the people. The 
 working classes will now probably have a more extensive 
 sympathy with our political institutions, which, if they are in 
 a healthy state, ought to enlist popular feeling because they 
 should be embodiments of the popular requirements of the 
 country. 
 
 It appeared to us that if this great change were made in the 
 constitutional body there would be a better chance of arriving- 
 at the more patriotic and national feelings of the country than 
 by admitting only a favoured section, who, in consideration of 
 the manner in which they were treated, and the spirit in which 
 they were addressed, together with the peculiar qualities which 
 were ascribed to them, would regard themselves as marked out, 
 as it were, from the rest of their brethren and the country, and 
 as raised up to be critics rather than supporters of the Consti- 
 tution. These were our views, and we retain the conviction 
 that guided us in 1859, and from which if we have deviated^ 
 it was only for a moment, and because we thought that on this 
 question it was impossible to come to any solution except in 
 the spirit of compromise and mutual concession. We still 
 adhered to the policy of 1859, and believed if you reduced 
 the borough qualification — and some reduction was now in- 
 
EEFOEM BILL, 1867. 613 
 
 evitable — there was no resting-place until you came to a rating 
 laouseliold suffrage. 
 
 Well, Sir, under these circumstances we acceded to power 
 last year, and we found it was absolutely necessary to deal with 
 this question ; we came into power unpledged, and I have 
 heard with some astonishment reproaches in regard to our 
 change of opinion. I am not here to defend, to -vindicate, or 
 even to mitigate every expression I may have used on this 
 subject during the course of many years, but I can appeal to 
 the general tenor of the policy we have recommended. I have 
 always said that the question of Parliamentary Eeform was one 
 which it was quite open to the Conservative party to deal with. 
 I have said so in this House, and on the hustings, in the 
 presence of my countrymen, a hundred times. I have always 
 said, and I say so now, that when you come to a settlement of 
 this question, you cannot be bound to any particular scheme, as 
 if you were settling the duties on sugar, but dealing with the 
 question on great constitutional principles, and which I hope 
 to show have not been deviated from, you must deal with it 
 also with a due regard to the spirit of the time and the reqiure- 
 jnents of the country. I will not dwell upon the excitement 
 which then prevailed in the country, for I can say most 
 sincerely that, without treating that excitement with contempt, 
 or in any spirit analogous to contempt, we considered this 
 question only with reference to the fair requirements of the 
 country. But having to deal with this question, and being in 
 office with a large majority against us, and finding that 
 ministers of all colours of party and poUtics, with great majori- 
 ties, had failed to deal with it successfully, and beheving that 
 another failure would be fatal not merely to the Conservative 
 party, but most dangerous to the country, we resolved to settle 
 it if we could. Having accepted office unpledged, what was the 
 course we adopted ? BeUeving that it was a matter of the first 
 ' State necessity that the question should be settled ; knowing 
 the majority was against us, and knowing the difficulties we 
 had to deal with, being in a minority — and even with a majority 
 our predecessors had not succeeded— after due deliberation we 
 were of opinion that the only mode of arriving at a settlement 
 
614 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 was to take the House into council with us, and by our united' 
 efforts, and the frank communication of ideas, to attain a satis- 
 factory solution. 
 
 I am in the recollection of the House : I ask whether that is 
 not a faithful account of the situation ? It was in harmony 
 with these views that I placed resolutions on the table. It is 
 very true that at that time — in the month of March or February 
 it may be — you derided those resolutions and ridiculed the 
 appeal ; but reflection proved the policy was just, and you have 
 adopted it. We have pursued the course which we felt to be 
 the only one to bring this question to a happy termination, 
 and your own good sense, or reflection, has convinced you that 
 the original sneers were not well founded. You have all co- 
 operated with us, and it is by that frank and cordial co-opera- 
 tion that we have arrived at the third reading. The noble 
 lord the member for Stamford says that the Bill is no longer 
 our Bill — that it has been enormously changed in consequence 
 of our having accepted the ten conditions of the right honour- 
 able gentleman the member for South Lancashire, which he 
 also informed the House the right honourable gentleman had 
 so imperiously dictated. At the time there was some com- 
 plaint of the imperious dictation of the right honourable gentle- 
 man ; but it did not come from me : I can pardon those in 
 Opposition who are incHned to be imperious, but I have no 
 fault to find with the conditions that the right honourable 
 gentleman insisted upon, and which the noble lord says I ob- 
 sequiously observed. 
 
 What were those conditions ? Let me recall them to the 
 House. In the first place, the right honourable gentleman 
 insisted — imperiously insisted — that the dual vote should be 
 given up. He declared his implacably hostility to the dual 
 vote, and the noble lord says the dual vote was thereupon given 
 up. It so happened, however, that the dual vote was given up 
 one fortnight before those conditions were so imperiously in- 
 sisted upon by the right honourable gentleman, and it was 
 given up in consequence of the unanimous reprobation of that 
 political device by the Conservative party : not a single gentle- 
 man on our side of the House was in favour of it. That opinion 
 
EEFORM BILL, 1867. 615 
 
 was expressed in writing and in this House by the right 
 honourable member for Oxfordshire ; and, I will not say in con- 
 sequence of his imperious dictation, but because he expressed 
 the unanimous feeling of our friends, we took the earliest oppor- 
 tunity of signifying that the dual vote should not be insisted 
 on. Then the noble lord says we gave up one of the bristling 
 securities of the Bill — that of the two years' residence. Well, 
 we did not give that up obsequiously, because we divided the 
 House upon it, and were defeated by a large majority. Some 
 of our friends voted against us, a great many left the House, 
 and the rest supported us under protest ; so that we had no 
 very great Conservative encouragement to stand up for these 
 securities that we are told bristled round our measure. I think 
 the noble lord and the right honourable gentlemen have mis- 
 taken the character and spirit of the Conservative party when 
 they describe the Grovemm.ent as leading the party, when, as I 
 believe, the party on this question has always been in advance 
 of the Government. There is not a security that we have pro- 
 posed that has not been objected to by the Conservative party. 
 I would recall to the recollection of the House a celebrated 
 meeting which took place in halls supposed to be devoted to 
 the conservation of the institutions of the country, at which 
 
 resolutions were absolutely passed ' (Mr. Sandford : No, No !) 
 
 Well, passed with very little opposition. (INIr. Sandford : No 
 No!) Well, were they not passed at all ? (No!) Then am I 
 to understand that the assembly broke up in confusion with a 
 unanimous reprobation of the policy of Her Majesty's Grovern- 
 ment on this particular point of securities ? 
 
 What was the next important condition imperiously dictated 
 and obsequiously accepted ? It was the great reduction of the 
 county franchise. Now, what happened about the county 
 franchise? We proposed a 151. rating franchise. An honour- 
 able gentleman opposite proposed lOl. I was prepared to 
 
 ' A meeting was held at the Carlton Club immediately after the introduc- 
 tion of the first Bill (the Ten Minutes' Bill), when a motion in favour of house- 
 hold franchise was proposed by Mr. Graves, the member for Liverpool, and 
 seconded by Mr. Laird, the member for Birkenhead. No resolution was 
 carried, but the feeling shown was so strongly in favour of the policy after- 
 wards adopted that it determined the conduct of the Government. 
 
^16 SPEECHES OE THE EARL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 vindicate the policy of the Grovermnent. A meeting of county 
 gentlemen then took place, at which resolutions were certainly 
 passed, because they were forwarded to me. The Grovemment 
 were entreated by that meeting to accept the county franchise 
 at a lower rate than we proposed. Is not this increased evidence 
 that, instead of hurrying the party into this abyss of danger, it 
 was with very great difficulty that we could keep them back ? 
 Then comes the great case of the compound-householder, and 
 the noble lord said that the right honourable gentleman (Mr. 
 Gladstone) declared that there should be no difference between 
 the compounder and non-compounder, and that I immediately 
 and obsequiously gave that point up. But there is some very 
 great mistake here. It is very true that the right honourable 
 gentleman did object to the plans which we originally proposed 
 with respect to the compounder ; but when these terrible con- 
 ditions were so imperiously dictated, the right honourable 
 gentleman did not want the existing arrangements of this Bill 
 to be adopted, but wished us to adopt the line of a 51. rating, 
 which in our opinion would have entirely emasculated the Bill 
 and destroyed its principle. 
 
 I have gone through the principal points referred to, be- 
 cause, to make up the ten conditions, the noble lord was obliged 
 to go to the fancy franchises. We gave up the fancy fran- 
 chises, because the lodger franchise had been accepted by the 
 House, and it was quite unnecessary to have the fancy fran- 
 chises when the lodger franchise was adopted. Was there any 
 great deviation of principle, or anything astounding in our 
 accepting the lodger franchise which was one of the proposi- 
 tions contained in the Bill we otuselves brought forward in 
 1859 ? Therefore, I think I have shown the noble lord that 
 for that portentous statement of his, which seemed so to alarm 
 the House — how this Bill had been enormously changed 
 through the imperious dictation of the right honourable member 
 for South Lancashire, and my obsequious yielding — there is 
 very little foundation. And when I find that on the measure 
 which I am now asking you to read the third time, there were 
 twenty-six considerable divisions, in eighteen of which the 
 right honourable member for South Lancashire voted against 
 
EEFOEM BILL, 18«7. 617 
 
 the G-overnment, I fail to discover any evidence of that success- 
 "ful though imperious dictation of which we have heard so much. 
 And, Sir, I think it cannot be said that this was a measure 
 which bristled with securities and precautions that have been 
 .given up at the bidding of our opponents. That a great many 
 of them have been given up I shall not deny ; but they have 
 been given up not always or in the greatest degree at the 
 bidding of our opponents, and some of them have been given 
 up to the general feeling of the House. Now, Sir, the noble 
 lord says that by yielding to these ten same conditions, I have 
 virtually altered the whole character of the Bill. Now, is that 
 true ? Is the whole character of the Bill altered ? I contend 
 on the contrary, that the Bill, though adapted of course to the 
 requirements of the year in which we are legislating, is at the 
 same time in harmony with the general policy which we have 
 always maintained. This is a question which cannot be settled 
 by a jeer or a laugh, but by facts, and by facts and results which 
 many of you deprecate and deplore at this moment, and in con- 
 sequence of which you tell us that you mean to reopen the 
 agitation — a thing which I defy you to do. 
 
 I begin with what the honourable gentleman who smiles so 
 •serenely may regard as the most difficult question for us — 
 namely, that of the borough franchise — and I say that, if we 
 could not maintain the lOl. borough franchise, which members 
 of the Liberal party seem now much to deplore, but which they 
 opposed in 1859, it was perfectly in harmony with the general 
 expression of our opinions, and certainly with our policy as a 
 party, that we should accept such a franchise as we are now 
 recommending to you by this BiU. You declined, the House of 
 Commons declined, and especially the Liberal party declined, 
 to take their stand upon the lOl. franchise. You will not 
 •deny that ; you will not carp at that. Well, but has there 
 been no question since that time between the lOl. franchise, 
 upon the merits of which the right honourable gentleman the 
 member for Calne is always dilating, saying it has existed— as 
 he told us to-night in a kind of rhetorical crescendo, which 
 becomes more and more surprising — for at least 200 years ; has 
 there, I say, been do question, since the Grovernment of 1859, 
 
618 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 between retaining the 10^. borough franchise and accepting- 
 household suffrage ? Have you not had the alternative offered 
 of a multitude of schemes ? Have you not heard of a franchise 
 to be fixed at 81., 71., 61., and all sorts of pounds ? 
 
 The question, therefore, for us practically to consider was — 
 whether we were to accept this settlement of the borough fran- 
 chise, we will say at 51., or whether we should adhere to the 
 conviction at which we had arrived in 1859 — namely, that if 
 you reduced the qualification there was no safe resting-place 
 until you came to a household rating franchise ? The noble 
 lord says that immense dangers are to arise to this country 
 because we have departed from the lOl. franchise. (Viscount 
 Cranbourne : No !) Well^ it was something like that, or because- 
 you have reduced the franchise. The noble lord is candid 
 enough to see that if you had reduced it after what occurred iih 
 1859, as you ought according to your pledges to have done, you 
 would have had to reduce it again by this time. It is not 
 likely that such a settlement of the difficulty would have been 
 so statesmanlike that you could have allayed discontent or 
 satisfied any great political demands by reducing the electoral 
 qualification by 40s. or so. Then the question would arise — is 
 there a greater danger from the number who would be admitted 
 by a rating household franchise than from admitting the 
 hundreds of thousands — the right honourable gentleman the 
 member for South Lancashfre calculated them at 300,000 — who' 
 would come in under a 51. franchise ? I think that the danger 
 would be less, that the feeling of the large number would be 
 more national, than by only admitting what I call the PrsetorianL 
 guard, a sort of class set aside, invested with peculiar privileges,, 
 looking with suspicion on their superiors, and with disdain on 
 those beneath them, with no friendly feeUngs towards the in- 
 stitutions of their country and with great confidence in them- 
 selves. I think you would have a better chance of touching 
 the popular heart, of evoking the national sentiment by 
 embracing the great body of those men who occupy houses and 
 fulfil the duties of citizenship by the payment of rates, than by 
 the more limited and, in our opinion, more dangerous proposal. 
 
 So much for the franchise. I say that if we could not carry 
 
EEFOEM BILL, 1867. 619- 
 
 out our policy of 1859, the logical conclusion was that in; 
 settling the question we should make the proposition which 
 you, after due consideration, have accepted, and which I hope 
 you will to-night pass. Let us look at the other divisions of 
 the subject. I will not test by little points the question of 
 whether we have carried substantially the policy which we re- 
 commended. I say look to the distribution of seats. I am 
 perfectly satisfied on the part of Her Majesty's Grovernment 
 with the distribution of seats which the House in its wisdom 
 has sanctioned. I think it is a wise and prudent distribution 
 of seats. I believe that upon reflection it will satisfy the 
 country. It has been modified in one instance, to a certain 
 degree, in favour of views which in principle we do not oppose ; : 
 but we have succeeded in limiting the application of that 
 principle ; and, on the whole, the policy which is embodied in 
 the distribution of seats, which by reading this BUI a third time 
 I hope you are going to adopt, is the poUcy of redistribution 
 which on the part of the Conservative party I have now for 
 nearly twenty years impressed on this House. And what is 
 that policy? That you should completely disfranchise no- 
 single place ; that it would be most unwise without necessity 
 to disfi^anchise any centre of representation ; that you should 
 take the smaller boroughs with two members each and find', 
 the degree of representation which you wanted to supply in 
 their surplus and superfluity of representation. You have acted 
 upon that principle. But, above all, year after year I have 
 endeavoured to impress on this House the absolute necessity of 
 your doing justice to those vast, I may almost say, unrepre- 
 sented millions, but certainly most inadequately represented 
 millions, who are congregated in your counties. You may 
 depreciate what you have agreed to, but in my opinion you 
 have agreed to a very great measiu'e. At any rate it is the 
 first, and it is a very considerable, attempt to do justice in 
 regard to the representation of the counties. 
 
 Then although I am the last person in any way to under- 
 rate the value of the assistance which Her Majesty's Grovern- 
 ment have received from the House in the management of this- 
 measure ; although I believe there is no other example in the- 
 
'620 SPEECHES OF THE EAEL OF BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 annals of Parliament when there has been such a fair inter- 
 change of ideas between the two sides of the House, and when, 
 notwithstanding some bitter words and burning sentiments 
 which we have occasionally listened to — and especially to-night 
 — there has been, on the whole, a greater absence of party 
 feeling and party management than has ever been exhibited in 
 the conduct of a great measure; although personally I am 
 deeply grateful to many honourable gentlemen opposite for the 
 advice and aid I have received from them, yet I am bound to 
 say that in the carrying of this measure with all that assis- 
 tance, and with an unaffected desire on our part to defer to 
 the wishes of the House wherever possible, I do think the Bill 
 embodies the chief principles of the policy that we have pro- 
 fessed, and which we have always advocated. 
 
 Well, but there is a right honourable gentleman who has 
 to-night told us that he is no prophet, but who for half an hour 
 indulged in a series of the most doleful vaticinations that were 
 ever listened to. He says that everything is ruined, and he 
 begins with the House of Lords. Such a singular catalogue of 
 political catastrophes, and such a programme of the injurious 
 consequences of this legislation, were never heard of. The right 
 honourable gentleman says, ' There is the House of Lords ; it 
 is not of the slightest use now, and what do you think will 
 happen to it when this Bill passes ? ' That was his argument. 
 Well, my opinion is, if the House of Lords is at present in the 
 position which the right honourable gentleman describes — and 
 I am far from admitting it — then the passing of the Bill can 
 do the House of Lords no harm, and it is very likely may do it 
 a great deal of good. I think the increase of sympathy between 
 the great body of the people and their natiu:al leaders will be 
 more likely to incite the House of Lords to action and to 
 increased efforts to deserve and secure the gratitude and good 
 feeling of the nation. ' But,' says the right honourable gentle- 
 man, ' what is most terrible about the business of carrying this 
 Bill is the treachery by which it has been accomplished.' 
 Wliat I want to know from the right honourable gentleman is, 
 when did the treachery begin ? The right honourable gentlei- 
 :man thinks that a measure of Parliamentary Eeform is an act 
 
EEFOEM BILL, 1867. 621 
 
 of treachery, in consequence of what took place last year, when 
 those who now bring it forward were in frequent council and 
 co-operation with those who then and now oppose it. I can 
 only say, for myself, that I hear of these mysterious councils 
 for the first time. But if a compact was entered into last year, 
 when we were in Opposition, that no measure of Parliamentary 
 Eeform should pass, or any proposal with that object be made 
 by us — if such a proposal is an act of treason, then the noble 
 lord the member for Stamford and his friends are as guilty of 
 treachery as we who sit on these benches. Eeally I should 
 have supposed that the right honourable gentleman would have 
 weighed his words a little more; that when he talks of 
 treachery he would have tried to define what he means, and 
 that he would have drawn some hard and straight line to tell 
 us where this treachery commenced. The right honourable 
 gentleman, however, throws no light on the subject. He made a 
 speech to-night which reminded me of the production of some 
 inspired schoolboy, all about the battles of Chaeronea and of 
 Hastings. I think he said that the people of England should 
 be educated, but that the quality of the education was a matter 
 of no consequence as compared with the quantity. Now, the 
 right honourable gentleman seems to be in doubt as to what 
 may be his lot in the new Parliament, and what I should 
 recommend him to be — if he will permit me to give him advice 
 
 is the- schoolmaster abroad. I should think that with his 
 
 great power of classical and historical illustration the right 
 honourable gentleman might soon be able to clear the minds 
 of the new constituency of all 'perilous stuff,' and thus render 
 them as soundly Conservative as he himself could desire. 
 
 I must, however, remind the right honourable gentleman 
 when he tells us of the victims at Chaeronea, to whom he likens 
 himself, that they died for their country, and died expressing 
 their proud exultation that their blood should be shed in so 
 sacred a cause. But this victim of Chseronea takes the earUest 
 opportunity, not of expressing his glory in his achievements 
 and his sacrifice, but of absolutely announcing the conditions 
 on which he is ready to join with those who have brought upon 
 him so disgraceful a discomfiture. He has laid before us a 
 
€22 SPEECHES OE THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 programme to-night of all the revolutionary measures which 
 he detests, but which in consequence of the passing of this 
 Bill he is now prepared to adopt. The right honourable gen- 
 man concluded his attack upon us by accusing us of treachery, 
 and by informing us that he is going to support all those 
 measures which he has hitherto opposed in this House — 
 though I believe he advocated them elsewhere — and that he 
 will recur, I suppose, to those Australian politics which ren- 
 dered him iirst so famous. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman told us that in the course 
 we are pursuing there is infamy. The expression is strong ; 
 but I never quarrel with that sort of thing, nor do I like on 
 that account to disturb an honourable gentleman in his speech, 
 particularly when he happens to be approaching his peroration. 
 Our conduct, however, according to him, is infamous — that is 
 his statement — because in office we are supporting measures of 
 Parliamentary Eeform which we disapprove, and to which we 
 have hitherto been opposed. Well, if we disapprove the BiU 
 which we are recommending the House to accept and sanction 
 to-night, our conduct certainly would be objectionable. If we, 
 from the bottom of our hearts do not believe that the measure 
 which we are now requesting you to pass is on the whole the 
 wisest and best that could be passed under the circumstances, 
 I would even admit that our conduct was infamous. But I 
 want to know what the right honom-able gentleman thinks of 
 tis own conduct when, having assisted in turning out the 
 (xovemment of Lord Derby in 1859, because they would not 
 reduce the borough franchise, he — if I am not much mistaken, 
 liaving been one of the most active managers in that intrigue 
 — the right honourable gentleman accepted office in 1860 under 
 the Government of Lord Palmerston, who, of course, brought 
 forward a measure of Parliamentary Eeform ' which, it would 
 appear, the right honourable gentleman also disapproved of, and 
 more than disapproved, inasmuch as, although a member of 
 the Grovernment, he privately and successfully solicited his 
 
 ' Proposing the reduction of the borough franchise to a 61. rental- 
 qualification. J 
 
EEFOEM BILL, 1867. 623 
 
 ^political opponents to defeat it. And yet this is the right 
 honourable gentleman who talks of infamy ! 
 
 Sir, the prognostications of evil uttered by the noble lord 
 I can respect, because I know that they are sincere ; the warn- 
 ings and prophecies of the right honourable gentleman I treat 
 in another spirit. For my part, I do not believe that the 
 country is in danger. I think England is safe in the race of 
 men who inhabit her ; that she is safe in something much 
 more precious than her accumulated capital — her accumulated 
 experience; she 'is safe in her national character, in her fame, 
 in the traditions of a thousand years, and in that glorious 
 Mature which I believe awaits her. 
 
624 SPEECHES OE THE EARL OF BEACONSEIELD. 
 
 HOUSEHOLD FEANCHISE (COUNTIES) BILL. 
 May 13, 1874.1 
 
 8 IE, I am sorry that any observations that I have made any- 
 where should be displeasing to the honourable gentleman 
 who brought forward this question, and still more am I sorry 
 that I had not the advantage of listening to his speech 
 to-day. The fact is, that as it was the second reading of a Bill 
 that he had himself introduced, I, perhaps rashly, inferred 
 that he would not address the House so early in the day, and 
 therefore I was not in my place as soon as I ought to have 
 been. But I can assiire the honourable gentleman, however 
 I may have been reported — and, as I have once before said, a 
 good deal has happened since those observations were made — 
 I clearly .remember that the feelings under which I made them 
 were not such as they have been interpreted to be by the 
 honourable gentleman and by others. I do not for a moment 
 wish to challenge the right of an independent member of the 
 House to deal with any question, and certainly not with a 
 question even of the importance of organic reform of the 
 Constitution. I know well from my experience of this House 
 that there are very few questions which ultimately greatly in- 
 terest the country which have not been, and which are not, first 
 introduced by members not connected with the G-overnment. 
 But in the particular instance which I had in my mind on the 
 occasion of making the observation referred to, I wished to 
 express my disapprobation of an independent member bringing 
 forward a great question of organic reform in our Parliamentary 
 Constitution behind a Grovemment who were themselves 
 
 ' This speech is reprinted from]^Hansard's J)ebate» by permisBion of Mr. 
 Hansard. 
 
HOUSEHOLD FEANCHISE (COUNTIES) BILL, MAY 1874. 625 
 
 pledged to its principle. Under these circumstanoes I confess — 
 although. I may not have used the not very happy epithet 
 referred to — I did express my entire disapprobation of such 
 conduct ; because I think that, if the party was in the con- 
 dition we have heard, it was the duty of the Grovemment of 
 the country themselves to deal with the question. Now, Sir, 
 what has surprised me most in the coiurse of the remarks I have 
 listened to closely, is that on the question of the conceding of 
 political privileges to classes of our fellow-subjects, the ex- 
 pediency of such a course has been advocated on the plea that 
 they are the rights of man. The right of certain classes to 
 the franchise has been put forward by some speakers as the 
 basis of our legislation. And I must say that many others 
 who have addressed the House have really in the drift of their 
 observations, although with some caution, assumed a position 
 which in my mind I should have thought honourable gentle- 
 men on both sides of the House would regard, not only as 
 perilous, but as one which would not, and could not, commend 
 itself to the acceptance of Parliament. The distribution of 
 political power in the community is an affair of convention, and 
 not an affair of moral or abstract right, and it is only in this 
 sense that we can deal with it. 
 
 Now, as regards the classes which the honourable gentleman 
 by his Bill seeks to invest with the franchise, I have no hesita- 
 tion in giving my opinion. I have no doubt that the rated 
 householder in the county is just as competent to exercise 
 the franchise with advantage to the country as the rated 
 householder in the towns. I have not the sHghtest doubt 
 whatever that he possesses all those virtues which generally 
 characterise the British people. And I have as little doubt 
 that if he possessed the franchise he would exercise it with 
 the same prudence and the same benefit to the community as 
 the rated householder in the town. But we must remember 
 that the classes who would receive the franchise if this Bill of 
 the honourable gentleman were passed are not made up of the 
 simple materials which some Speakers in this debate have 
 chosen to assume. I was struck very much by an observation 
 of the honourable and gallant gentleman the member for the 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 s s 
 
626 SPEECHES OE THE EABL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 county of Gralway (Captain Nolan), wtio said there was this 
 difference between England and Ireland in respect of this 
 question, that in regard to England this was a question of ad- 
 mitting the labouring classes to the suffrage, while in Ireland 
 it was a question of allowing various classes — small proprietors 
 and others — to regain the suffrage : but he assumed that the 
 question before us was merely the question whether the labour- 
 ing classes in England should possess the franchise, and some 
 honourable gentlemen — representatives of English constituen- 
 cies, who ought to be better informed on the matter than the 
 honourable and gallant member for Galway, have likewise 
 mistaken the question. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman who has just addressed us 
 with so much passionate fervour (JNIr. W. E, Forster) said we 
 were bound to admit the agricultural labourer to the franchise — 
 a matter, according to the right honourable gentleman, of vital 
 importance. Unless we admit the agricultural labour to the 
 franchise, he asks, how are we to legislate upon that important 
 question, the relations between master and servant, which he 
 says is a most pressing question, and must occupy our atten- 
 tion next session? Then, he asks, without admitting the 
 agricultural labourer to the franchise how are we to deal with 
 the liquor laws ? And, said the right honourable gentleman, 
 looking forward with severe scrutiny, unless you enfranchise the 
 agricultural labourer how are we to deal with the laws affecting 
 the tenure of land ? What inference, Sir, am I to draw from 
 these important observations coming from so important a 
 quarter ? Why that an immediate dissolution is contemplated. 
 If the agricultural labourers are to send members to the House 
 of Commons to influence our decisions on those questions, it 
 must be plain that the right honourable gentleman and his 
 friends have been trained so to manceuvre their forces as to 
 bring about an immediate dissolution, by which we can alone 
 obtain the verdict from the new eonstitutencies. Now, Sir, the 
 classes who would be enfranchised by the Bill of the right 
 honourable gentleman are really of a very various character. 
 I speak with some confidence as to the facts, because it has 
 been my duty to examine very much into these details, and I 
 
HOUSEHOLD FRANCHISE (COUNTIES) BILL, MAY 1874. 627 
 
 tave very little hesitation, in saying that if the Bill were passed 
 the majority of those it would admit would not be of the 
 labom-ing classes. The honourable gentleman will be sur- 
 prise4 to hear that, as I shall show, the number of' the agricul- 
 tural classes would not by any means amount to a moiety of 
 those who would be admitted. It is just as well that we should 
 have clear and accurate ideas on this question. 
 
 Now, a word as to the agricultural labourers. It is said — 
 although honourable members opposite appear to have arrived 
 somewhat rapijily at a conclusion on a matter as to which it is 
 difficidt to form an accurate opinion — that the agricultural 
 labourers demand the franchise. Well, the agricultural 
 labourer throughout Great Britain is certainly not an identic 
 animal. He differs in every county, and he differs in the same 
 county very materially. The condition of those who are labour- 
 ing on the land in the northern parts of England is one of 
 great comfort, and, I may say, of great prosperity. The condi- 
 tion of the agricultural labourer in some of the southern parts 
 is certainly very different. It forms a painful contrast, but 
 that condition, I am bound to say, has greatly improved since 
 the time when the agricultural community expressed their 
 opinion — although the right honourable gentleman the mem- 
 ber for Bradford says they have now done so for the first time 
 — I mean the time of the Swing riots, forty years ago, just on 
 the eve of great political changes in the country. The agricul- 
 tural labourer, if you contrast his condition in 1830 or 1832 
 with the present time, even in the worst parts of the southern 
 counties of England has immensely improved. The average 
 increase during the last forty years in the rate of wages, even 
 in the most — having been criticised for my epithets, I will not 
 say ' degraded ' part of the country population, but where they 
 enjoy less the comforts of life, has certainly been 15 percent. — 
 some say more : their toil has been greatly diminished by the 
 introduction of machinery; and we cannot deny that— although 
 there is room for improvement which I hope will be accom- 
 plished—their abodes are infinitely better. Well, Sir, I am 
 _glad to hear the agricultural labourer spoken of now with such 
 j-espect by honourable gentlemen opposite. I remember the 
 
 s s 2 
 
628 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 time when the tone was different. The right honourable 
 gentleman the member for Bradford has in the handsomest 
 manner confessed that the agricultural labourer is not a serf; 
 but I remember that until very recently we were always 
 told that he was, and it is to me a subject of considerable satis- 
 faction to hear his virtues at last acknowledged by honourable 
 gentlemen opposite. But in making these observations it does 
 not at all follow that because there is a movement in that class 
 at present — a movement which I for one look upon with no 
 distrust and no fear, and which I believe will ultimately, and 
 I hope will speedily, end in a change in their condition very 
 advantageous to the country — it does not, I say, at all follow 
 that we should immediately, without thought, without the 
 slightest reference to many weighty considerations which I will 
 endeavour briefly to lay before the House — that we should— 
 above all in a moment of excitement — whatever may be the 
 ■cause, however just it may be, when there exist a variety of 
 circumstances, hopeful, I trust, for their eventual benefit, but 
 not conducive to calm reflection and cool judgment — I do not 
 think there is a priina facie case for suddenly advancing them 
 to and investing them with the franchise. 
 
 Sir, there is one excellent feature in this movement among 
 the peasantry of England, and it is this : the stir that is being 
 made among them — I am throwing aside particular instances 
 of exaggeration and artificial agitation which, I think, may be 
 traced to speculative individuals, who will always have a hand 
 in anything like a popular movement — but, generally speaking, 
 the stir in the agricultural community does not, in this instance, 
 arise from any sense of oppression. It is not sense of oppres- 
 sion which has made them discontented with their lot ; on the 
 contrary, although they may not, taking them altogether, have 
 risen as rapidly as the other working classes, but perhaps more 
 regularly, still their condition has always been one of progres- 
 sive improvement. But they feel that they live in a time 
 when great advances are made in all classes, and they are not 
 satisfied that they have advanced sufficiently. But you never 
 find — generally speaking — that they impute their condition to 
 any oppression on the part of their employers. This is appa- 
 
HOUSEHOLD FEANCHISE (COUNTIES) BILL, MAY 1874. 629 
 
 rent from the absence of any acts of violence— they are ready 
 to argue their case. They argue it often with great fallacy, 
 and they often decide upon a course which will end in their 
 disappointment. But as far as the great body of the labouring 
 population is concerned, they are as little influenced by em- 
 bittered feelings as probably has ever been known in a great 
 popular movement. 
 
 Now, Sir, my great objection to the Bill of the right honour- 
 able gentleman is this : that there is no case in which large 
 classes of otu- fellow-subjects have been invested with the fran- 
 chise without a general distribution of power in consequence 
 being considered. That is a point which has been most entirely 
 evaded throughout this debate, and has only been noticed by 
 the right honourable gentleman the ^member for Bradford to 
 show that he was aware of the difficulty. The right honourable 
 gentleman with great skill, having announced to the House that 
 he knew of the rock ahead, said there was nothing in it, and 
 avoided it altogether. In fact, the only illustration iipon which 
 the right honourable gentleman founded his belief that there 
 was nothing in the objection, that you cannot invest large 
 bodies of the people of this country with electoral privileges 
 without considering and reviewing the redistribution of political 
 power, was a quotation from his own poll-book, in which he 
 informed us that 3,000 original electors had been turned by me 
 into 20,000, and that I had not added members to Bradford. 
 Now, let us look at the case in a little more business-Uke 
 manner. I may remind honourable members that in the year 
 1866 the House came to a most deliberate — I may say, to a most 
 solemn — decision, in one of the fullest Houses I recollect, that 
 any enfranchisement of large classes of the country must be 
 accompanied by a redistribution of seats. That decision was 
 come to in an important division, for it vfrtually changed the 
 Government. Well, in 1867 the then Government brought 
 forward a Eeform Bill which greatly increased the numbers of 
 the constituency. Did they attempt to do that without revising 
 and considering the subject of that redistribution of political 
 power ? There were at that time 45 seats at the disposal 
 of the Government, obtained by the disfranchisement of small 
 
€30 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELB. 
 
 boroughs — the total disfranchisement of some, and the partial 
 disfranchisement of the rest. Of the 45 seats, 25 were allotted to 
 counties, and the rest to boroughs, including one to a university. 
 Therefore, the right honourable gentleman will see that we 
 acted entirely in unison with the principle laid down in the 
 resolution ; and we did it in this way because it was argued 
 that a man who had a vote as a rated householder in Bradford, 
 if he passed the boundary of his borough, might meet another 
 rated householder who had no vote ; and that was an anomaly. 
 We found that unless we revised and redistributed the Parlia- 
 mentary seats, all those anomalies would be greatly aggravated, 
 by adding great numbers to the constituencies. 
 
 Let me mention to the House the addition to be made to 
 the number of electors in England and Wales. I have no data 
 before me for a similar calculation for Scotland and Ireland, 
 though I have details on other points. The boroughs for 
 England and Wales contain 1,800,000 inhabited houses, pro- 
 viding for the register 1,250,000 voters: that is, the voters are 
 to houses as 25 to 36. The counties contain 2,500,000 houses, 
 providing at present 720,000 voters, after deducting 80,000 for 
 qualifications within the boroughs. Assuming that the county 
 householders would come upon the register in the same ratio as 
 borough householders now come, the county voters, under the 
 Bill of the honourable gentleman, would number 1,740,000, 
 while the borough voters would remain at the number 
 1,250,000 : that is to say, household suffrage would add 
 1,000,000 to county voters, and cause county voters to exceed 
 borough voters by 500,000. And now, as the result, 1,740,000 
 county voters would return 187 members to Parliament, while 
 1,250,000 borough voters would return 297 members. Is it 
 possible, as the right honourable gentleman says, ' to be deaf 
 and blind ' to facts and circumstances like these ? Is it possible 
 for any man with the responsibility, I will not say of a minister, 
 but of a member of Parliament, to propose to legislate in that 
 harumscarum way, on the ground that they are anomalies, 
 because a rated householder out of Bradford has not a' vote, and 
 a rated householder in Bradford has a vote ? And is he to 
 remedy that anomaly by producing the exaggerated and aggra- 
 
HOUSEHOLD FRANCHISE (COUNTIES) BILL, MAY 1874. 631 
 
 Abated national anomaly which I have pointed out ? I do not 
 mean to say there is no remedy except by resorting to abso- 
 lutely equal electoral districts. I do not want to put the cas'e 
 on that extreme position. ' Est modus in rebus,' and we must 
 remember that in all these questions great difficulties can be 
 avoided by an assembly which has such past experience of 
 practical politics as the House of Commons. 
 
 But no one can deny that the consequence of adopting the 
 recommendation of the honourable member for the Border 
 Burghs, and enfranchising these classes, is that practically we 
 must look also to the redistribution of seats at the same time. 
 No one can deny that in so doing we must move in the direction 
 of electoral districts. Why, all omr late legislation for the last 
 forty years with respect to Parliamentary Eeform and the dis- 
 tribution of seats has been leading to electoral districts, and 
 although I, for one, should think it a great misfortune if we 
 entirely destroyed all local influences and distinctions ; although 
 I believe if we did we should very much weaken the spirit and 
 character of the country ; and although I hold that we ought to 
 cling as much as possible to maintaining those local influences 
 and distinctions ; still it is impossible not to see that if you do 
 reconsider and redistribute political power in deference to 
 these views, you must to a great extent be approaching elec- 
 toral districts. I will take the whole population of the United 
 Kingdom at 31,450,000. Now, divide that into equal electoral 
 districts ; it m.ay never be divided into equal electoral districts, 
 but we must recollect that there is a constant tendency to that. 
 You would have one representative for each 48,000 of your 
 population. What would be the effect of that upon particular 
 constituencies ? If the country were divided into equal, or 
 anything approaching equal, electoral districts, the result would 
 be this : in England and Wales 147 boroughs out of a total of 
 ,198 would lose their right to special representation, as con- 
 taining fewer than 48,000 inhabitants. Among them would be 
 Carlisle, I am sorry to say Gloucester, the city of Oxford, Cam- 
 bridge, Chester, Tynemouth, Coventry, Chatham, Exeter, and 
 Northampton. In addition to the above 147 borough con- 
 stituencies, four counties in England and Wales would cease to 
 
632 SPEECHES OF THE EARL OE BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 be specially represented. In Scotland, out of a total of 22 
 boroughs, 13 would lose special representation, including Perth 
 and Stirling; while in Ireland, out of a total of 31 boroughs, 
 27 would be disfranchised, including Derry and Waterford. 
 Now, we are approaching the possibility of such consequences 
 as these arising from our dealing with the numbers in con- 
 stituencies, and I think it is weU for honourable gentlemen to 
 pause and reflect a little on the possible results of such a pro- 
 posal. These results, as I have shown, would be that 147 
 boroughs in England and Wales, 13 in Scotland, and 27 in 
 Ireland— that is, 187 constituencies in the United Kingdom, 
 out of a total of 420 — would be disfranchised. If you go to 
 that excess, you must see that, in making a movement of this 
 kind without considering those collateral conditions and ar- 
 rangements which are inseparably connected with it, you are 
 striking a blow, and a fatal blow, at the borough constitution of 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 Now, Sir, I am not prepared to take that step. I believe 
 our system of borough representation is one which, on the 
 whole, has been very favourable to the enlightenment and the 
 liberties of England and of the kingdom generally, and I cannot 
 say that I think this is a policy which could in any way be 
 encouraged. I never have been an upholder of small or close 
 boroughs. I entirely agree in the opinions expressed by Mr. 
 Pitt at the beginning of this century. A long time has elapsed 
 since they were uttered ; but they were worthy of the man 
 who had that great reach of mind which distinguished Mr. Pitt, 
 He was prevented, unfortunately, from carrying out the policy 
 he wished to pursue ; but I hope we have been able in the 
 course of the last forty years to remedy this in a very great 
 degree. Therefore, I am not myself in favour of small close 
 boroughs, and as to those young gentlemen who wish for intro- 
 duction into public life, there are many ways in which they 
 can be introduced without being coddled and nursed in hot- 
 houses of that kind. At the same time I should be very 
 sorry to see the class of boroughs with 20,000 or 25,000 of 
 population all erased from the Parliamentary map, and I must 
 add, after the most able speech made to-day by my honourable 
 
HOUSEHOLD FRANCHISE (COUNTIES) BILL, HIAY 1874. 633 
 
 friend the member for Stafford (Mr. Salt), in proposing the 
 amendment, that I should be very sorry even to see the borough 
 of Stafford disfranchised. But we must prepare ourselves 
 for this if we are about to effect such immense changes in the 
 representation of this country as would produce this conse- 
 quence, that nearly 2,000,000 of voters would be represented 
 by 187 members, and only 1,250,000 by nearly 300 members. 
 It is quite clear that the moment you have passed an en- 
 franchisement of this kind. We must be prepared to have our 
 time entirely occupied in efforts to reassert the balance of the 
 Constitution and obtain some tolerable representation of the 
 people of England, which we shall otherwise have completely 
 destroyed. There is no doubt that through that variety of 
 representation which is so much admired and appreciated the 
 boroughs of England have greatly benefitted. 
 
 Sir, these are the main reasons why I am entirely opposed to 
 the motion of the honourable member for the Border Burghs. I 
 agree with several honourable gentlemen who have spoken in 
 this debate in thinking that it is an unwise thing for a State 
 always to be speculating on organic change, especially in a 
 country like this, an old country, a country influenced greatly 
 by tradition, a country which respects authority from habit, 
 a country which expects in the distribution of political power 
 that it should be invested as much as possible with a venerable 
 character. Nor can I shut my eyes to the fact that in this matter 
 of organic change and in the redistribution of political power 
 our course of late years has been very rapid and decisive. I look 
 forward to the consequences of those measures — whether they 
 be those for which I and my colleagues were responsible, or those 
 for which right honourable gentlemen opposite were responsible — 
 with little alarm, with unshaken confidence in the good sense of 
 the people of England. But we must remember that they have 
 had a great meal to digest, and I am not quite sure that they have 
 yet entirely assimilated the nutrition which has been profusely 
 supplied to them. "We should not now, in a most unnecessary 
 manner, disturb the political conscience of the country when, as 
 i think, the public mind is not intent upon change, and when 
 the very class on whose position the right honourable gentle- 
 
634 SPEECHES OF THE EABL OF BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 man the member for Bradford has m.ost rested his argument 
 and his appeal — namely, agricultm^al labonrers — are only a 
 portion, and not the largest portion, of those interested in 
 this question. The mind of that class is occupied, not with 
 political change, but rather with the elevation of their social 
 condition ; and when the disposition of the country is favour- 
 able, beyond any preceding time that I can recall, to a success- 
 ful consideration of the social wants of the great body of the 
 people, I think it would be most unwise to encourage this 
 fever for organic change, and that it would be most expedient 
 for the House of Commons by their vote to-day to give a 
 decided negative to the motion of the honourable gentleman. 
 
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