5,000,000l., which was necessary for the maintenance of the national establishments and the national faith?

Mr. Henry Drummond offered to exchange this tax for any other the Chancellor pleased to name, and he wished he could muster up courage enough to tax the Manchester manufacturers. This motion would be a real test of the

honesty of the plea upon which the repeal of the Corn Laws was carried-whether it was to furnish cheap food for the people, or to get rid of so much cotton manufactures. He did not advocate the motion on the ground of justice to the landed interest; he supported it because it was of essential importance to the labouring classes to have cheap and wholesome beer. Mr. Drummond gave some entertaining details respecting the sophistications of this beverage, which, in its genuine state, he believed was a very scarce article.

Mr. Bass supported the motion. Though a Free-trader, he sympathised very strongly with the condition of the agricultural interest, and considered it to be the duty of the House, by every legitimate means, to alleviate their distress. He believed that the repeal of the malt duty would afford such alleviation, and that a repeal of the whole duty, which would be a relief of 35 per cent. to the consumer, would be attended with a very different result from the case mentioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which was only that of a diminution of the duty. He was persuaded that even a reduction of one-half of the duty would be beneficial.

Mr. M. Gibson said, the question was whether, notwithstanding

his objection to the principle of an Excise duty, and his admission of many of the evils of this tax, he conscientiously believed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could, after the House had decided upon the expenditure, remit 5,000,000l. a year. Before this remission was made, the House must effect, with a due regard to the public credit, a proportionate reduction of the expenditure. It was, therefore, his duty to vote against the motion.

Mr. Spooner disputed the soundness of Sir C. Wood's conclusion, that cheapening an article of general demand did not give an impulse to consumption, which would overturn the whole of his free-trade theory, to which the malt tax and the restrictions prescribed by the Excise laws were repugnant. The highest authorities maintained that nothing could justify Excise duties but absolute necessity, yet 9,000,000l. of Customs had been thrown away, and the malt tax retained.

Mr. Hodges, though he had on a former occasion voted for the repeal of this tax, could not do so now, when the alternative must be this tax or an increase of the income tax. He hoped, however, that if the circumstances of the exchequer permitted hereafter, the tax might be reduced, and he pleaded likewise for an abatement of the hop duty.

Mr. J. Wilson observed that, generally speaking, Excise duties were no infraction of the principles of free trade, which forbade only taxes for protection. There was nothing peculiar in the article of malt to call for the relinquishment of 5,000,000l., which would only lead to an increased importation from abroad; for the additional

10,000,000 quarters of barley could not be produced except by displacing a quantity of wheat. Malt was not so heavily taxed as other articles-it paid 57 per cent., whereas coffee paid 100 per cent., English spirits 333 per cent., tea 200 per cent., and tobacco 1200 per cent. After the finances of the year had been settled, to give up 5,000,000l. at one blow, would be a degree of recklessness of which the House would not be guilty, and a breach of faith with the public creditor.

Mr. Disraeli could not consider the proposition before the House apart from the condition of the agricultural classes, which no one denied was one of great depression. The only difference was, that on his side it was not unexpected, whereas on the other it was unexpected. He had, then, a right to ask of the Government some distinct view of what they thought would be the future condition of the agricultural classes. They had been heretofore told that the distress was transient, and that prices were rallying, but the end of the Session was approaching, and the depression was aggravated. Our taxation was derived from three sources-duties on imports, inland taxation, and local contributions. Great part of the second class of taxes, and the whole of the third, were raised from the land and its adjuncts. Could such a system continue, which diminished the means, whilst it increased the burdens of the contributors of the greatest portion of their revenue? The motion must, therefore, be considered, not upon the narrow basis of the state of the revenue, for which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was responsible, and which was no infallible test of the

prosperity of the country, but with reference to recent legislation and the condition of the agricultural classes. The House should adopt as a principle, that relief should be sought from the reduction of Excise, not Customs duties. On every ground of policy the motion should be supported, the effect of which would be to bring the House to its senses; it would terminate for ever a series of experiments, make the Government acknowledge their purpose, and strip from them that convenient veil which had too long shrouded their features.

ex

Lord John Russell said Mr. Disraeli had enunciated a dangerous principle when he alted the land into a paramount interest, and claimed an exemption for it from an amount of taxation which, if not otherwise supplied, would disable this country from fulfilling its obligations. It was satisfactory, however, to him (Lord John) to find that upon the subject of the malt tax Mr. Disraeli did not represent the sentiments of Lord Stanley, who had declared that, if a member of that House, he would oppose the remission of this tax without a substitute. He (Lord John) had never expected that the transition from one system to another could be unaccompanied by partial suffering; but when he was asked whether he considered low prices a benefit or an evil, he answered that, discussing the question as a matter of speculation, low prices might be the result of unusual circumstances, which should not be taken as a rule; but, as legislators, the Government said, be those prices high or low, they would not legislate to produce artificial prices for the food of the people. Pointing to the successful results of the free

trade policy, he inferred therefrom that the temporary depression of the agricultural interest had been more than made up by the general prosperity of the country. It was a false and injurious policy to sepa. rate the land from the other great interests of the country; the

welfare of the land was bound up with that of all the other interests, and those were the interests which the Government had consulted.

The House having divided, the motion was negatived by 247 against 123.

A

MEASURE of great importance in its bearings upon the constitution of the Church of England was introduced in this Session by the Bishop of London, for the establishment of a new tribunal for Ecclesiastical Appeals. Public opinion had of late been forcibly directed to this subject, in consequence of the recent decision in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council upon the baptismal controversy on the Appeal of Mr. Gorham-a decision which, while it quieted the apprehensions of a numerous section of members of the Church, occasioned great offence and exasperation to the High Church party. The circumstance that vital questions of doctrine might possibly depend for their adjudication upon persons, not even professing to be members of the Anglican Church, was considered as involving a risk and disadvantage to which no other communion was subjected, and as a dear price to pay for the benefits of State connection. Many and various schemes were propounded for the organization of a Church Legislature or Court of Appeal which should be exempt from

these objections; but that of the Bishop of London, now referred to, was the only one which came in a practical shape before Parliament. On moving the Second Reading of his Bill, on the 3rd of June, the Bishop began by a very earnest expression of his opinion that it was impossible to overrate the important issues depending on the adoption or rejection of the measure, involving not only the present peace, but the future integrity of the Church of England, and he might even add, the tranquillity of the empire itself. The necessity for some modification in the principles on which ecclesiastical tribunals of appeal are founded had long been seen. In 1847, he introduced a Bill to regulate criminal proceedings against clergymen, which would in point of fact have created a new ecclesiastical court: that Bill was reintroduced, as amended in Select Committee, in 1848 and 1849; and at last he brought it under the consideration of his reverend brethren in full assembly: out of the twenty-seven Bishops of England and Wales, twentyfive were present; and though they differed on the details of the Bill,