which was necessary to enable them to make up their minds on the subject; the hon. Gentleman refused to give it, and he did not know how those gentlemen were to act otherwise than by deciding against the party refusing to give that information. If anything had occurred painful to the hon. Gentleman's feelings, or anything which he thought not consistent with perfect equity, he, for one, could not see that any blame attached to the parties. The difficulty would not have arisen if he had shown a little less of that British virtue which led him to resist with more than ordinary firmness what he considered an improper intrusion on his private affairs. He understood the hon. Gentleman had at last appealed to the Special Commissioners, who were quite free from prejudice; and even should their decision be unfavourable to him, he hoped the hon. Gentleman would not be disposed to resist it.

Mr. Fielden, in explanation, said, if the right hon. Gentleman had spoken from information as to what had taken place, he must tell himit was incorrect. He had answered any question put to him, he had given all the information he could, he had offered his books for examination; but the first intimation he had of the decision was the levy made on his goods. If the right hon. Gentleman would allow him to meet the Commissioners face to face, or give him a Committee, if he did not make out a case for inquiry satisfactory to every reasonable man, he would give up the question.

Mr. Hawes hoped the discouragement the Chancellor of the Exchequer had attempted to cast on the British virtue" of offering a decided opposition to an arbitrary measure, would not prevent any person who felt injured by the Income Tax from stating his case, and offering it all the opposition in his power. He had always opposed the tax; he thought it a dangerous basis for a large amount of taxation-one founded on a most unjust principle, which could not be carried out into practice without causing complaints. The right hon. Gentleman said, there was not much public opposition to it when imposed; but he left out of consideration the fact that when it was proposed, it was accompanied by certain other offers. He knew the value of the admission; those offers were accepted by certain great interests; they took the In

come Tax and accepted the repeal of duties on the importation of certain raw materials. A bargain was struck; large and important interests accepted the Income Tax; he did not; many others did not. not. The only point the right hon. Gentleman had made in reply to the hon. Member for Oldham was, that he ought to have appealed to the Special Commissioners ; the hon. Member had so appealed, and he did not believe they would do anything but confirm the decision come to by the other Commissioners. They had ample power to act on any appeal brought before them; but this House could not call them to account. If it could, the facts the inquiry would elicit, would oblige them to give up the tax. The course the Commissioners had taken had inflicted great hardship on the hon. Gentleman, and at last it seemed that they altered the assessment from 24,000l. to 12,000l. without stating any reason for such a monstrous reduction. The hon. Gentleman refused to return any profit, and offered to produce the balance-sheet of the concern, by which the profits were divided between his partners and himself. They assessed him at 24,000l. a year, and then, at their own will and pleasure, reduced it to 12,000l. That he thought a case for inquiry. What ground had they for giving up 12,000l. a year? If the assessment of 24,000l. was right, they were bound to adhere to it. He admitted the right hon. Gentleman was always ready to give advice, but he could do nothing to give any relief. They were bound by the Act of Parliament, giving the most arbitrary powers of interfering with the profits of trade. The right hon. Gentleman said, the difference arose as to the mode in which the profits of trade should be computed. That difference would exist in every concern in the kingdom. In all cases it was difficult to say what should be carried to the account as profit. All the hon. Member said, was, that his loss should be deducted from the profit, and if they did not allow this, the Act was more iniquitous than he thought it was. They were bound to take the Act itself into consideration; it gave private individuals an arbitrary power, and it required many Amendments. The Boards of Commissioners ought to be constituted in a different manner; it never could be endured that individuals should sit in judgment on the pecuniary affairs of their neighbours. Let the power be

given to some known and responsible authority. His hon. Friend did not care whether his affairs were made public or not; but others had not the same credit. His hon. Friend offered his books for inspection why did not the Commissioners examine them? They refused to ascertain from his books what his profits were; they refused to take the balance-sheet which settled the amount of profits between the parties; it was an unquestionable document, and they were bound to receive it. If his hon. Friend was wrong, the public had a right to the tax on 12,000l. more. The hon. gentleman's case had been thought important enough to be introduced by a recent writer on political economy into his work, as an illustration of his argument on this system of taxation. It was a case of deep, individual, and public interest, and it had received no answer, except a general sermon on the necessity of obeying the law, and a sneer at what the right hon. Gentleman called British virtue.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, he had not entered into the details of what passed before the Commissioners. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had no more power to call for particular returns from the Commissioners than the hon. Gentleman himself.

Mr. Hawes said, the objection to giving publicity to private affairs did not apply in cases where the party himself stated that he did not care about it.

Mr. Bernal had understood the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer on a former occasion to state that some mode of relief would be afforded the hon. Member. He did not complain of any breach of promise; but that was the impression left on his mind by that discussion. The hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) at the time the tax was proposed had foreseen this difficulty, and proposed a clause giving some department of the Government a jurisdiction in such cases. At present there were two courts of appeal the local Board and the Board at Somerset House. His hon. Friend had appealed to the local Board; he might have been to blame in doing that, when it was composed of persons among whom he had taken a very decided part in politics. If they wished to diminish the unpopularity of the tax, they must take some means of meeting such cases. The measure was hurried through the House; the

clause proposed by his hon. Friend (Mr. Hume) was rejected, all Amendments were disregarded, and now it was highly necessary the Act should be reconsidered. They would have an opportunity of doing so during the recess, and he hoped the Government would avail themselves of it. They should appoint some permanent Board with power to do something to mitigate such evils as those stated in the case of which the hon. Member for Oldham had so properly and justly complained.

Mr. Hume was glad the case had been brought forward; he was an advocate of direct taxation, but he wished it to be levied with as little trouble to the subject as possible. When the Bill was before the House he pointed out the anomaly of giving the power to levy a taxation of 4,000,000l. or 5,000,000l. to persons who were not responsible either to the House of Commons or to the Government, and whom they would have doing as they pleased. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the Government had no power; there was an evil done, and there was no remedy. He implored the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) to correct the evil; in another Session there would be time to do it. He had formerly objected to the manner in which the Land Tax Commissioners were appointed; they were recommended by the county Members, and were appointed from political reasons. The constitution of the Income Tax Commissioners was also subject to great inconvenience; they elected the superior Commissioners; he asked the Government to take away this power, and make them responsible to the House. Under the representation that the Act must be passed as a whole, and that it was only for a short time, the Government rejected every Amendment, and did everything in their power to make the tax not only unpopular, but unjust. When the grossest cases of oppression occurred in the Tower Hamlets ward, and when they were complained of, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said he could not help it.

But it was the Government who made the law; the Government were the parties to blame for the evils, and they ought to correct them. In the case of the hon. Member for Oldham, the Com. missioners appeared to have acted with the extreme of rigour, and in a manner which could only be explained by the

Sir R. Peel said, when the Income Tax was under consideration in 1842, of course the question arose who should be the parties entrusted with certain powers under the Act. The question appeared to resolve itself into one or other of two alternatives-either that the Government should have these powers, or that parties themselves interested in the just administration of the law should exercise them. As there was great jealousy of the Executive Government having a right to inquire into the affairs of individuals, which would give it a great influence, Parliament determined to act on the presumption that this power might be abused, and therefore thought it better to adhere to the principle of the former law, and gave the power of inspecting private affairs to private individuals. On the whole, Parliament affirmed that principle. Under what circumstances did the Government select the Land Tax Commissioners for the purpose of the Income Tax Act? Why, two years before, the Act appointing those Commissioners had been by the late Government renewed and altered. The present Government were asked to make a new selection of Commissioners for the purposes of the Income Tax Act, but they thought it much better to adhere to the Act as it stood, and so preclude the possibility of any suspicion as to their motives. He was ready to admit that it was objectionable that the private affairs of individuals should be made known to others

who might be their rivals in trade; but in order to meet that objection, the Special Commissioners had been appointed, before whom persons could go who did not wish to go before the regular Commissioners. If the hon. Member had really reason to believe that the Commissioners were actuated by personal motives, he could have gone before the Special Commissioners, and so have avoided altogether the interference of his neighbours or of his political opponents. It would cause him very great regret to find that the hon. Member for Oldham had any just cause to complain of the operation of the Act; but at the same time he must observe that, considering the large amount that had been collected under the tax, the proportion of comVOL. LXXXII. {Series Third

Mr. Brotherton complained of the manner in which the Land Tax Commissioners were nominated. As it was, if a borough Member wished to nominate one, he could not do so without the consent of the county Member, and with him he had no chance if he was of different politics. With respect to the case before the House, the reason why the firm returned "no profits," was, that their humanity would not allow them to stop their works, and the consequence was that there was a vast accumulation of stock. They had had no less than 600,000 pieces of cloth on hand which were unsaleable.

Captain Pechell hoped the Government would take into consideration the cases of those persons having incomes under 1507, a year, who had been surcharged, but who had never had the excess returned to them.

Mr. Fielden said, he had no wish to divide the House, but he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would grant him the correspondence between the Commissioners of the Court of Appeal and the Board of Stamps and Taxes.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that the correspondence was extra-official, and he could not produce it.

The other Returns were then ordered.

Question being again put,
ACCIDENTS ON RAILWAYS.] On the

Mr. Bernal wished to call the attention of

the Government to a subject of considerable importance. They were aware through the newspapers that accidents had occurred

lately on two or three of the leading railroads. Of course, there were casualties of the kind which were altogether beyond human control; but it did appear, that in the case of the accident on the South Eastern Railway there had been a want of care. A respectable surgeon, who was a passenger, and who attended on some of the unfortunate sufferers, expressly impugned the care and discretion of those managing the railway, in putting an engine behind the train. There had also been an accident to the mail train of the Birmingham Railway, where there had not been a sacrifice of human life, but certainly a great deal of injury to the limbs of the passengers. He was not able to suggest a mode by which these things could be checked, but at the same he thought that some good 2 R