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    THE LORDS AND THE PAPER DUTY.

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    offended were Sir Charles Wood and Mr . Wilson . The more faults he pointed out in their projects , the more their haste in fixing them on India became reprehensible . We notice with regret , because Sir C . Trevelyan was appointed by Lord Stanley , and Mr . Wilson by Sir C . Woo © ., that a disposition prevails to make a mere party question of this important matter . It concerns the people of England much more than the outs and the ins . The ( xovemment of India was transferred from the Company to the Parliament and people that they might check a misrule , ' which had led to mutiny and dishonoured the nation . But on the very first important question

    that occurs after the transfer , the people and Parliament are actually shut out from all interference by the hasty despotism of Mr . Wilson * nd Sir Charles Wood . The gentleman , too , who , acting in the spirit and intention of the act of transfer , has sought to * nake this important question known and interesting to the public , is thrust aside with more arrogance than Louis Napoleon would , after a warning , suppress a truth-speaking journal . Thoroughly convinced that despotism , by whomsoever exercised , is inimical to the welfare of states , the people will regret the substitution of the spiteful despotism of Wilson and Wood even for the tardy timid-misrule of the Company . The bureaucracy may defend the maintenance of a military

    subordination amongst its members , which is much admired in France and Germany , though new in England ; but the nation is insulted and injured— -the freedom of discussion is violated by the summary dismissal of Sir C . Trevelyan for publishing an excellent criticism oh the project of a rival . A false analogy seems to lead some minds to an erroneous conclusion . When a gentleman accepts a seat in the Cabinet , he is bound to speak and vote with his colleagues . When a man accepts a commission in the army , he is bound to obey his-commanding officer . But when Sir Charles Trevbylan accepted the governorship " of Madras , he did not bind himself to keep silende on every project of the Government . To-confound . his openly published criticism with the disobedience of a military man , or the defection of a Cabinet

    minister , is , consequently , a mistake . Sir Charles was bound to criticise Mr . Wilson's project , and only acquiesce in it after it had become law . t _ ~ - As long as official subordination is rigidly ^ maintained , ministers should avoid all appointments which may lead to insubordination . They must have known that these two officials did not draw cordially together at the Treasury , and it was therefore wrong to place them iu high offices , where there must be antagonism . , They ought to have foreseen that Sir Charles Trevelyan , priding himself on his knowledge of Tndia , and , regarded by others as an authority on its finances , could not be

    ^^ lUpleasefl-to ^ ee-Mr ^ Wi ^ i ^ aN ^ hrust . o-v . er _ hinainto ^ n ^ ffice-that he might justly aspire to . He could not be expected cordially - ^ -certainly not humbly and blindly , like a poor dependant—to subserve Mr , Wilson's purposes . Ministers , being themselves very ignorant on Indian finance , were probably willing to cast the burden on Mr . Wilson , and readily availed themselves of his eager ambition to bear it . They , then , are much to blame for having placed these gentlemen in their relative positions . Whatever be the merit , too , of Mr . Wilson ' s project , which ,

    after all , is nothing better than the crude and vulgar taxation of England applied to India , condemned at Calcutta and Manchester , as well ' as at Madras , he first made a sneering attack on Madras officials . Sir Charles Trevelyax , in fine , is punished for the want of knowledge and discrimination in our martinet ministers , and for not haying been moro discreet than Mr . Wilson . The important question of Indian finance is for the moment lost in the morp important matter that ministers have dismissed a long-tried servant to stifle discussion nnd carry sordid measures in a despotic manner .

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    of recitative and airs , when happily Mr . Horsman provided an evening ' s entertainment , entitled " A Night with the Times ; " and , immediately afterwards , Lord Derby undertook to reappear in his old character of Prince Rupert , and give us the spectacle of a dashing but ill-considered charge . Violent collision may be unpleasant and undesirable , but without some friction we get neither light nor heat , and we rejoice to see our venerable peers

    come out with matches , tinder-box , flint , and steel , and do their part towards converting the paper question into a cheerful blaze . Hereditary wisdom is apt to grow rusty in repose , and there was nothing so likely to give it an effectual airing as a revival of the good old discussions about the privileges of the Commons and the functions of supply . The people have always been and must be gainers by such disputes , and , therefore , at the outset , we thank the " Lords " for bringing so good a quarrel upon the scene .

    The facts of the present case are very simple . The Commons have changed the incidence of a million and a half of taxation . They have agreed to relieve literature and industiy from the paper duty , and replace the sum thus lost by another impost . The Lords threaten to reject the Paper Duty Eepeal Bill , and leave the rest of the Budget untouched . The consequence would be that through the act of the hereditary and non-representative part of the Legislature , a heavy tax would be imposed upon the community . That the Lords will persevere we can scarcely expect , although their so doing would give great impulse to parliamentary reform by forcing the country to a

    reconsideration of the fundamental principles of the constitution . The rights and powers of the House of Peers in these questions have often formed the subject of dispute , but the growing importance of the Commons after the Great Revolution left the peers noalternative but that of prudentially giving way . In ancient times the Commons appear as the conceding , and the Lords as the consenting , power in the grant of money supplies to the Sovereign ; and in the first parliament ofCharles the First the Commons began to omit the name of the Lords in the preamble of bills of supply , and treated them as entirely their own . The

    IT is very dangerous for any portion of the Constitution to become a bore ; and yet , while the House of Commons wns nightly proving itself to be one of the most tedious ever remembered , the Lords , with the exception of nil occasional flash of Eugnacious patriotism from the venerable Lyndiiuust , eontriuted nothing to public " profit , and very little to notional reoverition . Here nml there appeared some small matters of interest : —it was curious , if not edifying , to compute how many M . P . ' s

    . mugh-discussion ^ iitJ ^ e . jnosiUearjie 4 jsuppQ . vtcrs , 01 the peers have admitted that they cannot increase the rates , since that would amount to originating a charge upon the people . Under the present circumstances the Lords would virtually originate taxation , if they continued to add the paper duties to the taxation which the Commons have appointed in their stead . As the matter stands , the constitutional doctrine is that the Lords may reject , but may not alter bills of supply ; but they would find , in practice , that they would not be permitted to exercise any such power except iu rare emergencies . The Peers possess great wealth , but that is no peculiar property of their class .

    Many Commoners are great landholders , and scores of merchants and manufacturers are more wealthy than the average of the Peers . As citizens , the Peers have a claim to representation , and a fair share of the power of voting taxes , but they cannot take their stand upon common rights until they nre prepared to give up their peculiar privileges . The House of Commons is , to aii unfortunate extent , filled with their relatives and nominees . They virtually choose nearly all the members of a Cabinet , ns very few Commoners are permitted to hold great offices of State . They cause court patronage to be corruptly distributed for their own benefit , and members of their order or of their families are gazetted to colonelcies or still higher commands in the army , in consideration , of no better services than playing the flunkey in royal pulaccs ;

    nnd they . possess an indefinite power of obstructing the wish of the people by rejecting beneficial measures , that tend to n greater diffusion of the advantages of property than is consistent with the interests of a privileged class . Thus their position doinnnds constant care , nnd the exercise of moderation to avoid collisions that must end in their loss of authority or prestige . If the House of Commons had proposed , in lieu of the paper duties , to levy u tux upon the inheritance of titles , which might not bo a bad measure , we could not have wondered that they should object to the proposal ; but when they kick against the repeal of a tivx on a particular branch of manufacture , we arc compelled to look for other than fiscal or directly personal reasons for conduct so strange , and we believe the explanation will be found in the determination of certain peers to resist the growth of

    were mere taps for the publicans' beer barrels , ready to be . turned on at any moment , and pour forth whatever sort of rhetorical brew the lords of the . mash-tub might be pleased to desire ; and then , in " another place , " a downger diplomat occasionally turned his hmul to heavy comedy and ponderous farcu . Still we wanted something more exciting , and felt inclined to contract with E . T . Smith to get up a new legislature , with brilliant cenio eftcots , and n well-contrived - libretto with duo admixtures

    . pi the side Lords found themselves obliged to confess that the power of originating supplies was entirely vested in . the Commons , but it was some time before they gave up the ^ aim tp alter money clauses which had passed the- Lower House . In 1661 the Lords attempted to originate taxation by sending to the Commons a bill for paving the streets of Westminster , which the Commons rejected as contrary to their privileges , and passed another , which the Lords amended and the Commons again rejected . A little later , in 1671 , the Commons passed a resolution " that in all aids given to the King by the Commons , the rate or tax ought not to be altered by the Lords . " This led to

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    464 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ Mat 19 , I 860 .

    The Lords And The Paper Duty.

    THE LORDS AND THE PAPER DUTY .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 19, 1860, page 464, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2348/page/4/