fact that the rating of houses and lands in Ireland was made under the Poor Law, or Griffith's valuation, and, the rating in England was presumed to be taken at a fuller value, and, making other trivial allowances, he would adopt the conclusion that the rateable incomes of Great Britain under all the Schedules would indicate the relative ability of one Island to the other at that time as about 1 to 12. There was no rational theory to sustain an assumption that Ireland relatively to Great Britain was better able to bear taxes in 1853 than what the Returns of 1861 would denote; but, if such was the fact, so much the worse for those who argued in favour of the taxation scheme of 1853. It sufficed for him (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) to show that the taxation of Ireland in 1841 and 1851, being already as 1 to 12 of Great Britain, no fresh taxation should have been laid in 1853 on the poorer country, and he had explained that if Parliament were to have measured the taxation to be levied in Ireland by the Schedules prepared for the purposes of the Income Tax, the total contribution of Ireland to Revenue would have been laid down at a thirteenth of that of Great Britain. What excuse, therefore-what plausible pretext-what cogent reason was there for imposing upon unfortunate Ireland in the year 1853 a fresh burden destined to grow weightier and weightier year by year? He might answer that in truth there was, to his thinking, neither cogent reason, rational excuse, nor plausible pretext for doing what was then done; but that which stood in place of reason, excuse, and pretext was this sophism that indentity of imposts was equivalent to equality of taxation, and this corollary that indentity of imposts was to be established as speedily as possible. He gave the right hon. Gentleman now at the head of Her Majesty's Government credit for believing he was doing no injustice; but he was at best legislating in the dark, for there was then no Income Tax Schedule for Ireland to demonstrate the injustice of the scheme. What that scheme was, and how it was followed up, it was his (Sir Joseph McKenna's) duty to review by the clear and unsparing light of events. When the present Premier, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the 18th April, 1853 -that day 29 years-introduced his Budget to Parliament, he had, from several points of view, a gratifying statement to make; but the case had, nevertheless, a shady side, and there was a spectre which it was his business to lay or banish somehow from the feast he was about to spread before an admiring Parliament and an appreciative British public. The spectre, which would have scared anyone else, rose before him in this way. There had been a grim Famine in Ireland in 1846-7. It was no portion of his (Sir Joseph M'Kenna's) present duty to review that terrible chapter of Irish history, some of the details of which would never vanish from his memory. But, as one of the results of that Famine, there were certain debts due by the famine-stricken districts to the Treasury, the greater portion of which a Committee of the House of Lords had already recommended to be treated on distinctly equitable grounds as Imperial Expenditure, and discharged from being a debt of the districts. They were called, in official language, "Consolidated Annuities," and the charge to extinguish them amounted to £260,000 a-year. As was natural under these circumstances, those who were made liable to repay were very fretful, and appealed to the good feeling and justice of Parliament to have them treated in accordance with the recommendation of the Lords' Committee. How this appeal was responded to hon. Members should hear, and how the Chancellor of the Exchequer improved the occasion by an apparent remission of the Famine Debt, whilst he added burdens to Ireland of fresh taxation to an immensely greater extent, laying the foundation or opening up the way for still further levies in the future, until it had come to pass that the drain from Ireland, povertystricken as she was, was ratably more than double the amount drawn from the more prosperous inhabitants of Great Britain. What he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) described was carried out in this way. The Chancellor of the Exchequer made his statement with that matchless power of exposition which not only persuaded the majority of his audience that whatever he said was right, but actually appeared to have the same effect on his own mind. The Income of the year just closed was £53,000,000, the Expenditure something over £50,000,000, the Surplus £2,460,000. What would he do with it? Well, that was a simple ques- | of a gallon of proof spirits, in the form of tion, and the right hon. Gentleman pre- beer or other brewers' drinks, levied in ferred to deal with complex problems; so he set his audience to think upon this one. He proposed to lower his nets again into the waters and make a fresh haul, then to compute what that would amount to before he unfolded what distribution he would make of the loaves and fishes he had already available, and of the further draughts he expected to bring to land. He then made his computations, which had been since all realized, as well as some things consequential which did not appear to have occurred to the mind of the right hon. Gentleman at the time. Well, this was what he said he would do, and didabolish the Duty on Soap, reduce the Duty on Tea, the Stamp Duty, the Advertisement Duty, and the Duties on about 130 articles in the Customs Tariff. The Consolidated Annuities he would remit in toto. Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present, SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA, resuming, said, all these, except the last-mentioned, were bona fide remissions and reductions; but the remission of the Consolidated Annuities was quite of another character. This was the policy towards Ireland which the Government pursued. It was a portion of the Budget Scheme to continue the Income Tax for Great Britain. They now determined to extend it for the first time to Ireland; as also to increase the Irish Spirit Duties 8d. agallon. The amount of these increases far exceeded-even at that time nearly trebled the amount of the remission, although that was not quite apparent at the time. At this point, he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) would shortly observe that he had no objection to an Income Tax for Ireland, nor to a high Spirit Duty. As taxes had to be raised, there were no fairer subjects for impost than income and alcohol; but he maintained that it was monstrously unjust to spare or only lightly tax alcohol in the form which suited English habits, taste, diet, and climate, and to tax more than five-fold alcohol in the form which suited Irish people. But that was what had been done; and he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) prayed attention to these facts. Before 1853 the tax on the alcoholic equivalent the Malt Duty and in the Hop Duty, tice of the tax was generally felt and acknowledged in Ireland. Now, if that were the case, such a feeling ought to have manifested itself where the Consolidated Annuities were particularly oppressive, and where the Income Tax would be scarcely felt; but what was the fact? particular where the Consolidated Annuities Why, it was from those portions of Ireland in pressed heaviest, and the Income Tax would be felt the lightest, that petitions and remonstrances against the proposal were poured into that House. All the counties in the South and West of Ireland had pronounced against the impost. The attempt to gull the people of Ireland into an approval of the tax by saying that the present proposition was a good bargain, because they would have to pay £460,000 instead of £260,000, to which they were at present was, if he might say so in Parliamentary lanliable, was worse than a financial juggle-it guage, an Exchequer swindle. The trick was so stale, the juggle so plain, and the real object so unconcealed, he could only express his wonder being gulled by it."[3 Hansard, cxxvii. at any man representing an Irish constituency 530-1.] He defect incidental to all schemes of taxa- | jauntiest he had ever heard-said that the justion, except to Income Tax per se; what was complained of was the monstrous inequality brought about in their own time by an innovation made in 1853, which, under the pretence of making some sort of concession by forgiving a comparatively small debt, cast new burdens on the Irish people, already taxed to the full level of Great Britain. This question of the disparity of the incidence of Imperial taxation on Ireland was last brought under the notice of this House by the hon. Member for County Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) in the last Parliament. On that occasion the House heard a characteristic critique from a right hon. Member once himself Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Lowe), and now a noble Lord. His line of argument was peculiar and characteristic; he regarded Ireland and Great Britain as geographical expressions merely, and they were not taxed at all; and then he went on to say it was true that individuals happening to reside in these countries were taxed, but they were taxed quite equally, and on the same identical tariff, and there was an end of it-that settled itargument was exhausted-all was fair. Such absurdities as were here involved scarcely deserved notice, save to exemplify the shifts to which people were driven who had to struggle to defend the innovation of 1853. According to that argument France and Tunis were merely geographical expressions; and if Tunis were incorporated with France, and if there was a heavy tax laid on the date crop and a light one on grapes, it would be quite fair as between the French and the Tunisians, provided the heavy tax on dates applied to dates grown by Frenchmen in Tunis or in France, and the light tax on grapes applied to grapes grown by Tunisians in either country. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) had really thought that Esop's fable of the Fox and the Stork had long since put boyhood as well as manhood on its guard against such shallow sophistry. The legislation of 1853 on this subject did not take place without some earnest protest from an Irish Member. Mr. John Francis Maguire, then Member for Dungarvan, and afterwards Member for Cork City, was reported to have said— "The right hon. Gentleman in the course of his speech-which for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to make was, he thought, one of the So spoke John Francis Maguire in that House one day in May, 1853. thought he had mastered the subject and understood the scope and nature of the transaction, but he had not penetrated far into the future; for, in place of this being the laying on of an impost of £460,000 a-year in lieu of £260,000 remitted, the transaction was ab initio an immensely worse one for Ireland than Mr. Maguire believed it to be when he denounced it-for its author then announced a principle which had been unsparingly applied ever since, under which there had been raised by taxation of Ireland for the last 20 years-not to go farther back-about £3,000,000 a-year more than her previous normal contribution, being at least £3,000,000 a-year more than her quota, if the entire Revenue of the United Kingdom were raised by an identical Income Tax for England, Ireland, and Scotland. There was no test nor analysis of the wealth of Great Britain and Ireland that would not disclose the extraordinarily unfair disparity which existed between the taxation of the people of the two Islands. The latest Return of the comparative population and taxation of Great Britain and Ireland at the decennial epochs was that issued in August, 1874, which dealt with the financial years 1841, 1851, 1861-2, and 1871-2. It was too soon to expect the Return for 1881-2; but there had been no change to affect the case based on the four com pleted decennial Returns. The respective totals of the incomes of £100 and upwards for Great Britain and Ireland were, in the year 1871-2-for Great Britain, £455,750,000; for Ireland, £26,500,000. The total Revenue raised by taxation was, from Great Britain, £57,534,683, which was the merest fraction in excess of 2s. 6d. in the pound on the total incomes; and the Revenue raised from Ireland in the same year was £7,086,593, which equalled 58. 3d. in the pound, on the total of Irish incomes under all Schedules. What wonder was it that, under these circumstances, an agricultural people would be unable to pay fair rents, not to speak of rack rents? One independent English Member at least expressed in April, 1853, his objection to heaping new taxes on Ireland before she had recovered from the effects of a desolating Famine which had reduced her population from 8,000,000 to 5,500,000 between 1841 and 1851. Sir Francis Baring, on 28th April, 1853, showed that "The relief given to Great Britain by the immediate operation of the Budget of that year would be £1,443,000, and the taxes imposednew and peculiar to Great Britain-£403,000, making the amount less to be paid by England £1,040,000. He submitted for the fair consideration of his fellow-countrymen, whether it was quite fair, when they would be immediately receiving a relief of £1,040,000, to place a new Income Tax on Ireland, and a whole amount of additional taxation of £413,000."-[3 Hansard, cxxvi. 732.] He had said that the increase of the Duty on Irish Spirits had no connection with a temperance policy, for it singled out the soberest population to mulet them most heavily. The Irish people were in 1853, and were now, the most moderate of the three nations in their consumption of alcohol. The alcohol consumed in beer, spirits, and wine for each unit of the population of England for the year ended 31st of March, 1877, was slightly in excess of four gallons and three quarts. HOUSE OF COMMONS, Wednesday, 19th April, 1882. MINUTES.]-NEW WRIT ISSUED-For Somer- SUPPLY- considered in Committee Resolution * Select Committee. Electric Lighting * [122], nominated. Considered as amended-Army (Annual) * [105] ORDERS OF THE DAY. 1500 POOR LAW GUARDIANS (IRELAND) (Mr. Leahy, Mr. Gray, Mr. O'Sullivan.) SECOND READING. Order for Second Reading read. MR. LEAHY, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, the Bill would introduce two useful changes in the system of electing Poor Law Guardians in Ireland. In the first place, it proposed that the elections of Poor Law Guardians should be every three years, instead of annually, as at present. This was most desirable, as it was very inconvenient to have an annual election, from the excitement that took place. Besides, the expense of electing these officers would be greatly diminished by allowing them to hold office for three years. In the second place, the Bill proposed to substitute the ballot for the existing method of elecHouse adjourned at a quarter that it was, on all hands, acknowledged tion by voting papers. He contended that the ballot was the better way of taking the sense of the electors, and he could not see why the system should not be applied to elections of Guardians as Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present, after Eight o'clock. it was in every Parliamentary and Mu- | should not be adopted." The hon. Memnicipal contest. There were very many ber for Oldham, who was Chairman of serious evils connected with the present that Committee, would not, he thought, system of sending out voting papers to feel any objection to his saying that the be delivered and collected by the police Report in its present condition was a at the houses of the electors. Without somewhat limp document. It acknowmaking any insinuations against the ledged the weakness of the present syspolice, it was undoubted that in many tem, it rejected the proposition to adopt cases these voting papers were tampered voting by ballot, but suggested nothing with. If the ballot system was adopted, instead. The fact was, the Report, it would do away with all this irre- which at first read admirably, was so gularity. He did not see that there cut up before adoption that its conwas anything proposed by this Bill to clusions were an absurdity. In 1878 he which anybody could make any serious showed, in instancing various abuses, objection; and he was therefore at a loss that tenants, especially in the rural disto know what the hon. Member for tricts, were subjected to the grossest inLondonderry (Mr. Lewis), who had put timidation by bailiffs and agents, comdown a Notice in opposition to it, could pelling them to vote for the landlord's advance to justify the action he had candidates. It might be alleged now taken. It was not necessary to make that things had greatly changed since any lengthened observations in support then, and that the same amount of inof so simple a measure, and he would timidation was not likely to be practised therefore merely move its second read-in future. It might even be shown that ing. MR. GRAY, in seconding the Motion for the second reading, said, that four years ago he had the honour of introducing this Bill. On that occasion, in 1878, there was a tolerably exhaustive discussion on the subject. The Bill was not then read a second time; but it was not met by a direct negative, as was now proposed. By a Motion tantamount to the Previous Question, the House decided that as a Select Committee had been appointed on the Motion of the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Hibbert), now Secretary to the English Local Government Board, it would be undesirable to read the Bill a second time. The subject was fully investigated by that Committee, and he had had the honour of being one of its Members. It might be urged that the Committee reported against the introduction of the system of voting by ballot for Poor Law Guardians generally; but any Member who took the trouble to read the entire of the Report, and to examine the evidence given before the Committee, must see that the conclusion arrived at was somewhat inconsequential. The objections to the present system were set forth in full detail in that Report; yet, after stating the various irregularities, the intimidations, the tamperings with voting papers, the delays and confusions which frequently arise under the present system, it said "We therefore recommend that the system of voting by ballot intimidation was not confined to the landlords, that it was practised by representatives of popular interests, and by clergymen of various denominations. But he was equally opposed to all intimidation, desiring that every man should be able to vote according to his conscience. It was also shown to the Committee that those who desired to tamper with voting papers followed the policeman from house to house, asking the voters-many of whom were ignorant persons-to allow them to fill up the voting papers, and invalidating them very often by either filling them wrongly or deliberately making some slight error. The manner in which ballot papers were marked was now widely known in Ireland, and many people had an idea that these voting papers should be marked in the same way. He knew a Queen's Counsel in Dublin, who assumed that he ought to mark the voting paper he received for the election of Poor Law Guardians in a manner similar to the way he marked the ballot paper for a Member of Parliament. But this was sufficient to invalidate a voting paper; and anyone who desired to invalidate it, had only to suggest to the elector that he should put a cross opposite to the name of the person he desired to see elected. So rigid were the rules, that if a voter, instead of waiting for the policeman to call, brought the voting paper to the Returning Officer, the vote was invalidated. If he |