"I am of opinion that if your Judge Advocate General advises that charges can be framed against Colonel Hooper steps should be taken accordingly." MOTIONS. 0 sequences to the Provost Marshal of Sir | understanding many things connected Harry Prendergast's action were a cen- with Ireland which at first sight did not sure and the loss of preferment the appear to be connected with Imperial Provost Marshal would otherwise have taxation. It was not his intention to received. Lord Dufferin shares Lord accuse any particular Party or StatesKimberley's dissatisfaction at the re- man of intentional injustice to Ireland sults of Sir Harry Prendergast's in- in the matter of Imperial taxation. He quiries. After considering all the cir- should content himself by exhibiting the cumstances, the Secretary of State has case as it stood, showing by Parliatelegraphed to the Viceroy, recommend- mentary Returns how the taxation of ing in the following terms a court Ireland had been increased, and by what martial :proportions, decade by decade, since 1841, in the face of a waning population; whilst in the case of Great Britain, notwithstanding a vast increase of population and wealth, and the natural and consequent increased charge for carrying on the Business of the State, the taxation of Great Britain had been so regulated, and the Revenue so husbanded in her favour, that the pressure of taxation had been continuously lightened, so that as the taxes increased in actual amount their pressure-whether measured by the growing wealth of the country or by their incidence in respect to each head of the populationwas less in 1871 than in 1841, 1851, or 1861; and he believed it would be equally shown that the pressure so measured was still less in 1881 for Great Britain. Before he entered on the details of this comparison, he was bound to explain wherein consisted the injustice of the disparity of taxation. Adam Smith laid down in his Treatise on The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Book V., Chapter 2) this proposition, which had never been contested IMPERIAL REVENUE (IRELAND AND RESOLUTION. SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA, in rising to call the attention of the House to the inequality of Imperial Taxation on Ireland; and to move for a "Return of the Gross Imperial Revenue of Ireland derived from taxation, and of the Population of Ireland for the years 1851, 1861, 1871, and 1881, and a like Return for Great Britain for the same years, being in both cases a continuation, in like form, of Parliamentary Paper, No. 407, of Session 1874," said, he noticed that the hon. Mem- "The subjects of every State ought to contribute towards the support of the Government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities-that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the State. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management obliged to contribute in proportion to their to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all respective interests in the State. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality, or inequality, of taxation." That maxim in the case of Ireland had been for the last 30 years grievously violated. He held in his hand the Parliamentary Return of the 7th of August, 1874, which gave the Revenue derived from taxation of Great Britain and Ireland at the decennial periods 1841, 1851, 1861, and 1871, furnished by the Treasury, by Order of this House, on his (Sir Joseph M'Kenna's) Motion. The | Adam Smith, that taxation should, as year 1811 was included in that Return in order that the House might have, in juxtaposition, the taxation of Ireland, before, as well as after, the Famine of 1846. The gross Imperial taxation of Ireland in 1841, with a population exceeding 8,000,000, was £3,907,238. The Irish people were not lightly taxed, then, but heavily taxed, having regard to actual ability. Nevertheless, 41 years after the Union, measured by population, the taxation was 9s. 6d. per head, and no more. The Imperial taxation of Ireland in 1851 did not recede as compared to 1841, although the population was reduced from 8, 175, 124 to 6,552,385. The taxation of Ireland in 1851 was £4,006,711. One should rather have expected a reduction. He founded no complaint on that, however; he merely asked hon. Members to bear in mind that 51 years after the Union the Imperial taxation of Ireland stood at £4,000,000 sterling. Owing to the decrease of population over which this taxation had to be distributed, the incidence measured per head rose from 98. 6d. in 1841 to 128. 23d. in 1851. The next decade showed more astonishing figures. Between 1851 and 1861 the Imperial taxation of Ireland was raised from £4,006,711 to £6,420,378, an awful bound, quite 60 per cent increase of the burden; but a still greater increase when measured by each head of the diminished population which had to bear it, for it showed an advance from 128. 2 d. to £1 28. 1d. per head, being about 75 per cent in the decade. Between 1861 and 1871 the Imperial taxation of Ireland increased from £6,420,000 to £7,086,593, which showed an increase of 75 per cent as compared to the amount at which it stood 20 years before; but this increase, operating on a still diminishing population, raised the incidence for each head of the population from 128. 23d. in 1851 to £1 68. 1d. in 1871, an increase in the 20 years of 120 per cent. And he ventured to say that when they obtained the Return which he now looked for, it would be shown that owing to the diminution of the population-even though the gross taxation had ceased to ascend-that the increase of taxation, as measured per head of the population, had grown still more severe. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) had adverted to the rule laid down by nearly as possible, be levied on the subjects of a State in the ratio of the incomes which they enjoyed under its protection. That principle applied in strongest force to Empires made up of several Nationalities, and where the possessions of an entire people might be measured with approximate accuracy. How that principle had been set at nought in the case of Ireland and Great Britain he expected to make very clear. In 1851 the Imperial taxation of Ireland was, as compared with that of Great Britain, as one to 12. In 1861, owing to the disproportionately increased levy of Imperial taxation in Ireland, the proportion of the Irish contribution was raised to that of one to nine. In 1871, owing to the still further increase of Imperial taxes on Ireland, the proportion was raised to that of one to eight. Since then, so far as Ireland was concerned, there had not been a vestige of relief or amelioration of any kind. A Return obtained by the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. M'Laren) in 1884, to which he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) should again have occasion to refer, would show that for the year ended March, 1883, the Imperial taxation levied off Ireland only amounted to a sum equal to 1-10th of Great Britain; but no burden had been struck off Ireland in the meantime. That country had simply broken down, and her purchasing powers had fallen away in the ratio of the diminution of the population since 1871. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) should now elucidate the unfairness of the increase of the taxation in Ireland by showing what was the course of things in Great Britain in respect to Imperial taxation within the period 1841 to 1871. The taxation of Great Britain, measured relatively to each head of the population, was-in 1841, £2 98. 94d.; in 1851, £2 78. 4d.; in 1861, £2 9s. 94d; in 1871, £2 48. 14d.-showing a decrease of 11 per cent in the incidence, as measured in respect to each head of the population, between 1841 and 1871. When the like test was applied to the taxation of the population of Ireland, it was found that it had been augmented from 98. 6d. per head in 1841 to £1 68. 24d. in 1871, an increase of 175 per cent, mark, during the very same period when the pressure of taxation was reduced 11 per cent in respect to trict of England as compared to another; and so he generalized that, because some disparity might exist between one part of England and another, nothing was to be done to mitigate the disparity of taxation between Great Britain as a whole and Ireland as a whole-not even a Commission of Inquiry or a Select Committee was necessary. Not the slightest attempt was made to show why the taxation of Ireland should be increased £3,000,000 a-year contemporaneously with a decrease of 3,000,000 of the population of the unfortunate country; and so things had gone on from bad to worse, redress appearing impossible. All that time there had been great sympathy in England with any foreign Nationality or State which rebelled against its Sovereign or Suzerain. There was slight heed for Ireland calling out in her distress whilst her people were flying from her shores. But the House, as at present constituted, would expect him (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) on this occasion not merely to point out the fiscal results, but to show how the injustice of which he complained had been carried out, and particularly to show how it was possible that a common tariff, applicable with similar duties to Great Britain and Ireland, should favour the former, and work out conspicuous injustice to Ireland. He would explain all this, not exhaustively, but, he hoped, sufficiently. The greatest source of Revenue in the United Kingdom-of the many which existed-was that which might be generalized under the head of "Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages." These were not regulated according to any scientific principle. If it were so, they would, doubtless, be taxed equally, having regard to the quantity of alcohol contained in each. The disparity of duties, however, in respect to alcohol was not of recent origin; but the nature of the disparity had been in our own times altered, and this alteration had been made so as to give England the greatest advantage, and to press with extreme and exhaustive severity on Ireland. From 1840 up to the year 1880, with a slight interval, the Malt Duties-which were, in fact, the duties on brewers' drinks, ale, porter, and beer-had been levied at the rate of 2s. 8d. a-bushel on the dry malt. There had also been a duty on hops, another ingredient of beer; but he would take each head of the population of Great | in the incidence of taxation in one disBritain. But, then, he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) had been told that the taxation for each head of the population of Great Britain still greatly exceeded the taxation in respect of each head of the population of Ireland. Yes, truly; and the taxation in respect to each head of the population of Ireland was five times as great as the taxation in respect to each head of the population of India; but that did not prove that the Indian population was not more heavily taxed than the Irish, for taxation had to be estimated, and ought to be levied, in proportion to wealth, and not in the ratio of numbers. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) had adduced the comparison of the taxation in respect to the populations of Great Britain and Ireland simply to show that in regard to Great Britain it had demonstrated progressive alleviation, and in respect to Ireland an extraordinarily progressive increase of burden. As to the relative powers of Great Britain and Ireland to sustain taxation, he should be more specific presently. There was nothing which he then adduced that had not been within the knowledge of Parliament for more than 10 years; but the legitimate arguments based thereon had been met with every form of evasion. One right hon. Gentleman, a Chancellor of the Exchequer, who now adorned the Upper House, had the temerity to say that Ireland was not taxed at all, but individuals, no doubt, were taxed who happened to reside in Ireland; but their taxation must have been just and fair, because the same tariff was applied in respect to the same articles, whether consumed in Ireland or in Great Britain, and so he disposed of all grievance, ignoring, or affecting to ignore, the fact that unless the habits of the different nations constituting the United Kingdom were identical, and their relative wealth equal, the fact of identity of impost or duty applying to the articles they all more or less consumed afforded no guarantee whatever for the equality of their taxation. Another right hon. Gentleman, who had also been translated to the same convenient haven, whilst admitting the general facts, and that a case of disparity had been made out, raised this phantom of an argnment that he doubted whether it might not be shown that great disparity existed Sir Joseph M'Kenna no further notice of that duty at present, | attributed no malignant design to anybut content himself by saying that the duty was in its result equal to a tax of 28. a-gallon on the alcoholic equivalent of every gallon of proof spirits contained in the beer. Since that time, in 1880, the Malt Duty had been repealed, and for it was substituted a duty on the brewed liquor computed according to its alcoholic strength. When the right hon. Gentleman now at the head of Her Majesty's Government (Mr. Gladstone) carried the measure for commutation of the Malt Duty into a Liquor Duty, he exposed the fact that the duty on the English national beverage of beer, porter, and ale was only 28. in respect to the alcoholic equivalent of every gallon of proof spirits contained in the brewed drink. Everyone would agree that in that case there had been an enormous disparity in the tax on alcohol where brewers' drinks constituted the chief popular beverage, as they did in England, contrasted with the duty of 10s. a-gallon on the Irish popular beverage, to which it had been raised from 28. 8d. a-gallon, the rate of duty in 1853. Now, they had to consider the effect of the increase of the Spirit Duty from 28. 8d. a-gallon to 108. agallon between 1853 and 1871. The effect of the increase of duty would be illustrated by the following fact, shown by the Return in his hand, if carefully examined. From a population reduced by 1,140,000 souls, and in spite of a reduced consumption of 1,700,000 gallons, there was extracted £2,300,000 more tax on this one article in the year 1871 than in 1851. That was a contemporaneous relief of so much to England. Every additional pound levied off the people of Ireland went as palpably in relief of English taxpayers, or in reduction of the National Debt, as if the amount had been levied off Ireland as a rate in aid or a war ransom. Some people were surprised, or affected to be surprised, for some years past that things had, so to say, broken down in Ireland, and that there had been an uprising against rent. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) was certainly not surprised, except that all that had not occurred in Ireland many years before. In no part of Europe, or of the world, so far as he knew, did so monstrous a system of fiscal injustice prevail as the fiscal system of the United Kingdom in its bearing on Ireland. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) one; he left it for those who were curious on such matters to determine whether the permanent officials of the Treasury in former years, or the Statesmen who held Her Majesty's Seals of Office, were, or had been, the real authors and inventors of the system. But see in what it had eventuated. In extracting an annual amount of Imperial taxation from Ireland, which, measured by income, would require an Income Tax of 58. 3d. in the pound to commute it, whilst to commute the whole Imperial taxation of Great Britain into an Income Tax would only require a rating fractionally in excess of 2s. 6d. on identical Schedules to those of Ireland-he could give the precise computations, but that he feared to weary the House, whose indulgence he had already trespassed upon. There had been a Return obtained a few Sessions before by the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. M'Laren), which purported to give the actual and relative contributions to Revenue by taxation of each of the three countries constituting the United Kingdom. By that Return it appeared that the Revenue raised by taxation in Ireland equalled in amount 1-10th of the sum raised by taxation in Great Britain for the year ending 31st March, 1883. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) assumed that Return to be accurate. But what did it show? That Ireland paid Imperial taxation equal to 1-10th of the amount paid by Great Britain, when, in fact, on former statements of equal authority, her fair proportion would have been 1-18th or 1-20th; and when that very Return showed that for the year it dealt withto 31st March, 1883-the taxation of Ireland, measured by the Income Tax, should have been only the 1-22nd. The proportion of the relative ability of Ireland to bear taxation, estimated as 1-20th of that of Great Britain, he might shortly state, was taken from a Treasury Return of 24th April, 1882, which showed that each penny Income Tax for Ireland yielded £95,000 only, whilst that of Great Britain was set down in the same Treasury Return as £1,946,000 for each penny, a sum 20 times larger than the penny yielded for Ireland. But whilst revolving all those computations and considerations in his mind, after a series of denials from several Chancellors of the Exchequer that there was really anything abnormal | if it had been made at Dublin, Cork, or in the incidence of Imperial taxation, Athlone. He maintained that England, after hearing, ad nauseam, that Ireland as the chief member of the Empire, and was a favoured nation, treated with more than sisterly self-sacrificing affection by Great Britain, spared somealbeit trifling-taxes which England paid, but at any rate saved something, he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) read in the columns of a morning paper a letter which he believed to be from the highest official statistical authority in the service of the Government, which letter confessed all that had been hitherto denied. This was from the letter of " Economist" (Mr. Giffen) in The Daily News of the 6th of this present month (February, 1886) "At present Ireland pays more in taxes than her fair share, comparing her resources with those of Great Britain. The figures are not quite certain; but the Irish taxpayer appears to contribute £6,700,000 a-year to the Imperial Exchequer, whereas his proper contribution ought not to be more than half of that sum." "Economist "(Mr. Giffen) then went on to say that Ireland had more than her proper proportion spent upon her. These were his words "The Imperial Exchequer thus gets out of Ireland, in the first place, about £3,200,000 more than it ought to get, and then spends upon the internal administration of Ireland the whole amount." with the strongest interest in preserving its unity and integrity, had the greatest reason to maintain that view. However, all that was somewhat beside the question, and he should not pursue it; but he might say that all he had contended for in that House and outside for the last 20 years was now practically acknowledged, and might be proclaimed without fear of refutation-namely, that the burden of Imperial taxation had been made to fall on Ireland for the last 30 years with double the weight of its incidence than on the wealthier Island. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) would now make a few observations on a case suggested or attempted to be set up in mitigation of the injustice of the proven disparity. That case might be shortly put in this form-that the extraordinary levy was in some degree compensated for by the outlay in Ireland of a much larger sum annually than what was now admitted or proved to be her fair share of the expenditure. The writer in The Statist puts this forward for what it might be worth. Well, it was literally worth nothing. The local taxation of Ireland was £4,000,000 a-year; that also was a greater levy, in proportion to the wealth of the two Islands, than the levy for local taxation of Great Britain. But the case of Ireland which he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) desired to put was this-that in 1841, when her population exceeded He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) did not com- 8,000,000, her Imperial taxes were plain of these addenda; but he might barely £4,000,000 sterling; that in 1851 remark that the chief expenditure on they were barely £4,000,000, and that the Imperial Establishments in Ireland, the injustice of the increase of £3,000,000 save for the convenience of Great Bri- of annual taxation, without the slightest tain, might as well be made elsewhere evidence that Ireland had any pecuniary -in Malta or Cyprus-except to the benefit thereby, was manifest and monextent of £1,000,000 or £1,500,000 strous. It appeared to have been the a-year. The feeding and lodging and policy of the Treasury for some years clothing of the Army, the outlay for past to make the real state of the acordnance, ships, sailors, and the like, counts between Great Britain and Irewere Imperial business; and the charges land as obscure as possible. Up to 1862 for all these things had rightly to be the Treasury had been in the habit of defrayed out of the Imperial Revenue, publishing the expenditure of Irish to which Ireland ought to contribute taxation separately from that of Great her full quota, and no more; and the Britain. Since then, however, no such amount which Ireland should con- course had been pursued, and they were tribute to the general Revenue of left to grope through the Returns of the Empire should be assessed at various Departments to make some apprecisely the same amount if the out-proximate calculations. He (Sir Joseph lay had been made at London, Malta, M'Kenna) should, however, take the Cyprus, Woolwich, or Southampton, as latest dissected Return-that for 1862Sir Joseph M Kenna And then he fairly went on to say— "The expenditure does not benefit Ireland as it ought to do; but neither does Great Britain gain." |