shall abolish the distinction between horses kept for pleasure and profit, so as to make all persons pay the same duty for the same kind of carriage. The first item we take is stage-carriages and omnibusses, which pay a duty, if they hold more than eight persons, of 31. 88. They also pay d. a mile. We propose to abolish these duties, and to leave the stage-carriage to pay the duty like any other carriage. Then, on horses we propose to lower the duty. At present the trade-horse pays 10s. 6d., the gentleman's horse 17. 18. I do not speak of race-horses, which are too high game for me to fly at. Now, as the horse is the principal means of locomotion, and will continue to be so until he is superseded by velocipedes, I think we can best promote the free circulation of her Majesty's subjects by reducing the duty from 17. 18. to 10s. 6d., race-horses excepted. I now come to another subject of great interest to this House-that of hackney-carriages, or, if I may use the word, cabs. There is no industry which is so much oppressed as that of hackney-carriages; the tax is most monstrous: every cab pays a licence duty of 17., and a shilling for every day-that is to say, a cab working the seven days pays 197. 58. per annum; those working six days pay 167. 138. Of course, as cabs are so heavily taxed, and are limited in their demands upon the public, they take it out in badness; the vehicles are rickety and the horses are bad. But it is not these poor people who are to blame, but the Legislature. I need say no more to show the justice of altering the duties on cabs. We propose entirely to repeal them. The effect of it will be, that the fourwheeled cab will have to pay the duty of 27. 2s. per annum, and, if two horses are employed, there will be a guinea more, making 37. 38. instead of 197. 5s. The hansom-cab will only pay 15s., as a sacrifice to the uniformity we have set up, not as an idol to worship, but in order to facilitate the general working of the system. At present the cabs are looked after by the police at an expenditure of 12,000%. a year. Now, we have given up by these reductions 111,000l. a year; therefore, I hope my right honourable friend (the Home Secretary) will bring in a Bill by which he will get 27. for a cab and 37. for an omnibus, and thus meet the 12,0007. At all events, having washed my hands of the 111,0007., I wash my hands of the payment of 12,000l. a year. Then there is the duty on post-horses. It is 57. on every horse, and rises in a very complicated manner in an ascending scale. This duty, which was very justifiable at first, was imposed at a time when it fell almost exclusively on the rich. But a change has come, and it is no longer paid by the rich, but by the class who employ flies, composed mainly of tourists. This tax is most injurious to a great interest-that is, the railway interest, which has made every one's fortunes but its own. Millions have been spent on railways, and yet you cannot use them because of this duty of 57. I have known a cab three times set up and three times set down by this duty. Many stations remain perfectly inaccessible except for those who have their own carriages. The railways will find this reduction a most essential benefit, and the public

1869.] Mr. Lowe's mode of dealing with Assessed & Locomotion Taxes. [125 will find the use of their railways greatly facilitated. I have now gone through the items of reduction, with the exception of one. That is a small matter of 73,000l., but one to which I attach great importance the abolition of tea licences. It will facilitate the consumption of tea by the poorer classes, as it will bring it nearer to their homes. There is always a public-house close by, but the grocer's is often at some distance. The effect of all these reductions is this-I am now speaking of those assessed taxes and taxes on locomotion-the amount derived from these sources at present is 1,533,000l. After the reductions the amount will be 1,113,000%.—that is to say, a reduction of 420,000l. Add that to the fire duty, the insurance duty, the corn duty, and the penny reduction from the Income-tax. The whole amount of the revenue dealt with is 14,053,0007., the amount will be, after these remissions, 10,993,000Z.; the net remissions will be 3,060,000l.; and the amount of the remissions that will fall upon the present year is 2,940,000l."

Mr. Lowe continued, "I stated that the payment for the Abyssinian War and the surplus of last year have nearly established an equilibrium, there being a surplus of 32,000l. in favour of the revenue. If it be the pleasure of the House to agree to the proposal of the Government with regard to this change in the manner of collecting the taxes, and thus acquire the sum of 3,350,0007., this will be the result:First, I must add to the 3,350,000l. the sum of 32,000l.; then I must deduct from that sum 2,940,0007.-the remission that will take effect during the present year; and when I have made that deduction, the result will be a surplus of 442,000l. One drawback there is undoubtedly in this scheme. We shall have more money than is desirable in one quarter of the year, and less money in the other quarters. That is a considerable mischief; but it seems to be childish to say that we should go to great expense and incur great inconvenience in the collection of the revenue, merely in order that we may preserve the balance of payments in the different quarters of the year. When the revenue is due it should be collected, and we should avoid the vexation of having it collected in these miserable payments. It is a great administrative reform that we propose, and if the House does not choose to accept that reform, we must make other provision to meet our position. We think we cannot leave it as it is; but if the House thinks that the present state of things can be maintained, they have only to intimate it, and we will attend to that intimation. We have done the best we can to make the most of it. Supposing that the House does accept the proposal that we make, just see what will be the result. We shall have paid off in one year 4,600,0007. of unforeseen obligations that no one had any idea of six months ago. We shall have established the nucleus of a thoroughly sound and proper system for the collection of our taxes that will not only yield much larger funds to the revenue, but will be also infinitely easier and less troublesome to the tax-payer. And we shall, in addition to this, have removed one

of the most crying social evils in this country-the enormous obstacles placed in the way of locomotion. We shall not only have reduced a tax, but we shall have set men at liberty, the present evil being, that not only is the tax exorbitant in amount, but that it implies that a man cannot use his property as he thinks proper. I want to go from a railway station to a town, and there is no fly to take me, but there is a man with a gig, and the man dare not take me in that gig for fear of the Excise. That is a waste of the national capital, and of the national resources. It is apparent that from the moment we established our great lines of railway, we ought to bring up our system of locomotion to that standard, and enable it to feed the railways. I look upon that as an enormous benefit and blessing, and one that is not to be measured by the amount of 400,0007., or whatever the remission may be. It will give an impetus to the country, of which it is impossible to say enough. "Good wine needs no bush," and, therefore, I need say nothing of the remission of the penny income-tax. It seems to point to a better state of things-though I would not be too sanguinewhen the income-tax was not so much as it is now. I need not dilate on the benefits that must arise from the remission of the fire duty. I need not say a word more to gentlemen anxious to reduce the burdens on the poor about the remission of the corntax. I can only express my hope that I have been fortunate enough to make, on the part of the Government, a proposition to the House that they will think it their duty to accept; for if they cannot make up their minds to accept it, there is no resource but to go without the remissions, and keep on the penny income-tax, and make provision in some other way to strengthen the balances in the Exchequer. I have one word to say about the floating debt. There is a floating debt of 2,300,0007. in Exchequer Bonds that fall due this year. It would not be wise to ask the House, after paying 4,600,000l. for the Abyssinian War, to go farther in the way of paying debts this year; it would be too heavy at present; but I have 600,0007. in reserve for next year. And I cannot help thinking that the great remission we are making will find its way into the Exchequer in some form, and render it unnecessary to take any direct measure to strengthen our balances and enable us to meet our floating debt when due. There is a floating debt of 5,500,000l. in Exchequer Bills, so that the whole floating debt amounts to about 8,000,0007., the smallest one within the memory of any living

Mr. Lowe concluded a speech of nearly two hours and a half by claiming for his Budget that, besides offering a great administrative reform, it secured, by a sort of parliamentary magic, an unexpected surplus which might be the means of making many useful remissions, and that it would be accompanied with but little inconvenience.

The boldness and ingenuity of this scheme made a lively impression upon the House. Mr. Lowe's statement indeed contained

all the elements of a dramatic surprise, for without any appearance of design he led his hearers to the brink of despair, and then suddenly disclosed to them a way out of all their embarrassments, and when they were wound up to expect an increase of their burdens he tendered to them a substantial relief. This happy result was presented to them in the shape of a valuable administrative reform, which most of his hearers were well able to appreciate, an increased simplicity and convenience in the collection of imposts, and a permanent diminution in the amount. Of course it would be chimerical to suppose that such advantages could be obtained without some equivalent being paid for them, and this equivalent consisted in requiring the anticipated payment of certain taxes heretofore payable at a later date. By exacting these at the commencement of the year, and so bringing the produce within the current financial year, instead of the year following, Mr. Lowe reckoned on obtaining a surplus revenue for the twelve months between April 1869 and April 1870; when there would otherwise have been a deficit. The effect was similar to that which an individual, for example, a landowner, would experience, who, having been accustomed to receive within each year an income compounded of the rents of the latter half of the preceding year, and of the former half of the current year, should induce his tenants to agree to a new mode of collection, under which the whole rents of each year would be paid within that period, the back rent of the previous year being at the commencement of the new system paid as well as its own proper rent within the first year after the change. He would then for the first year, but of course for that year only, receive three half-year's rents in twelve months. In the same way Mr. Lowe proposed to deal with the tax-payer, tempting him, by the offer of sundry remissions and reductions in his burdens, to consent to pay up in the course of the year 1870 assessed and other taxes which would otherwise have been spread over a period of eighteen months. Of course the scheme which worked this consequence did not escape criticism, and it was predicted that such an accumulation of burdens laid upon one year would be sure to excite much discontent, when the pressure came to be felt. But the general benefits offered by the Budget were so striking and obvious that in the minds of the majority of the public they appeared to outweigh such objections, and as the benefit was to a partial extent immediate, and the pressure of the burdens many months distant, there was a general disposition to regard Mr. Lowe's scheme with favour. As is usually the case, it was but superficially discussed when first proposed, few members being willing to commit themselves to an opinion at that stage. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Ward Hunt, made a few remarks in defence of his own management of the finances, professed himself entirely favourable to the conversion of assessed taxes into licence duties, and claimed to be in some sort the parent of the idea. To compel people to pay all their direct taxes in one instalment would, he thought,

be a hardship, and the proposal ought not to be pushed on until the country had had the fullest opportunity of considering it. As to the remissions of taxation, Mr. Hunt observed that they had very much the appearance of generosity at the expense of posterity.

In the debate which followed, approbation was expressed in general terms by several members, among others by Mr. Rathbone, Mr. Candlish, Mr. Neville Grenville, and Mr. Goldney; Mr. Fowler and Mr. Norwood thought that the interests of consumers of the working class had not been sufficiently considered. Mr. Cross described Mr. Lowe's method of creating a surplus as little better than discounting a bill at nine months. The usual formal resolutions were then agreed to.

On a subsequent day the general merits of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's scheme and the policy of his proposed reductions of taxation were more carefully investigated. On the proposition for abolishing the 1s. duty on corn, flour, &c., much difference of opinion prevailed.

Mr. Corrance remarked that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had failed to produce any kind of reason or argument to show that this remission would go into the pockets of the consumers, or would benefit the commercial classes, but he gladly accepted it because it sealed the doom of the malt-tax.

Mr. Barnett also was of opinion that the bakers alone would benefit by the remission of the duty.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in answer to questions put by various members, stated that the machinery for registering the quantity of corn imported would not be disturbed by the remission of the duty; and that the remission would commence, not from the passing of this resolution, but of the clause in the Bill about to be brought in.

Mr. Crawford suggested that a precise day should be fixed for the remission to take effect. A general discussion on the merits of the Budget then took place.

Mr. Hunt examined it in detail. Commencing with the income-tax, he argued that in reality a penny was added and not a penny taken off, and this was not for the purpose of paying off the Abyssinian War, but for the sake of the other alterations proposed. He repeated that these remissions were made at the expense of posterity, and he contended that, taking the income-tax at the peace rate of 4d., the surplus of 1870-71 would not suffice by 400,000Z. On the inconvenience of collecting so large a portion of the revenue at one time Mr. Hunt insisted very earnestly, pointing out that the balances would be starved at one time and enormously swelled at another, by which the Government would obtain an improper control of the money-market. He objected, too, to the hardship inflicted on the tax-payer by this unnecessary concentration of his payments.