tended."1 If there had been little difference in substance between the resolutions of Mr. Villiers and the amendment of Disraeli, there was equally little difference between the alternative of Palmerston and either of the proposals for which he substituted it. The Government, however, thought itself able to accept from Palmerston a proposition which it could not accept from Mr. Villiers; and the omission of the "odious epithets" gave it an excuse for doing so. The followers of Peel were equally ready to accept from Palmerston a declaration which they did not choose to accept from Disraeli. Thus everything tended to the settlement of an artificial which are controversy by the adoption of Palmerston's expedient. Mr. Villiers' resolutions were rejected, and Palmerston's alternative adopted by a large majority.2 adopted. With Palmerston's help, Disraeli had gotten a victory; but it was a victory which would have ruined the career of any other politician. The man who had won his reputation by his persistent attacks on Peel, and who had risen to ascendency by his uncompromising defence of protection, had flung aside his old opinions and betrayed his old friends for the sake of securing a few more days of office. It was the striking circumstance of Disraeli's career, however, that the public accepted at his hands with a laugh changes which it would have met in any other statesman with a reproof. For the moment the defeat of Mr. Villiers strengthened the position of the Government. It is possible that, if it had discharged any necessary business, and adjourned Parliament, it might have secured some more months of office. But, with a fatal confidence in his own powers, Disraeli had undertaken at once to produce his Budget; and accordingly, a week after the victory, he rose to explain the of December manner in which he proposed to conciliate his old supporters without deceiving his new friends. It has passed 1 Hansard, vol. cxxiii. p. 458. The Budget 1852. Ibid., p. 696. 2 Mr. Villiers' resolutions were rejected by 336 votes to 256. Palmerston's were adopted by 468 votes to 53. Ibid., p. 701. consisted of Conservatives who were still true to the cause which their leader had thrown over. VOL. V. 2 G into a tradition to say that the speech in which he explained his plan was one remarkable for its ability. Men of genius -and Disraeli ranks in genius above all his political contemporaries can always make able and effective speeches; and the dullest subject in the hands of a pedant can be invested with the interest of a romance when it is entrusted to a man of paris. For more than five hours Disraeli interested the House, and almost succeeded in persuading his audience that his scheme was as wise as it was specious. But the eloquence of genius, when it is divorced from knowledge, has this disadvantage. Its effects are less permanent than those of the solid arguments of its commonplace opponents. Splendour and effect have their triumph on the day, while sober reason succeeds on the morrow. According to Disraeli, the era of unrestricted competition had begun. Protection was an obsolete doctrine which it was hardly worth while discussing. Free trade, in the manner in which it had hitherto been devised, was an imperfect system, which it was necessary to complete. The legislation of 1846, 1848, and 1849 had dealt with corn, sugar, and ships. Yet the farmers who grew corn, the colonists who grew sugar, the merchants who owned ships, were fettered with restrictions. These restrictions the great prophet of protection, who had now become the prophet of unrestricted competition, undertook to remove. The shipping interest was harassed by various regulations respecting pilotage, insurance, and other matters. It was burdened with heavy taxation for lighting the coasts. Disraeli offered to transfer £100,000 of this taxation to the Consolidated Fund, and to relieve the shipping interest to the same extent. So far for ships: next as to sugar. It was impossible to inaugurate the new era of unrestricted competition without dealing with the grievances of the West Indies. Unfortunately for Disraeli, facts, which had falsified all his predictions respecting corn, had destroyed all his arguments respecting sugar. The admission of foreign sugar to the markets, instead of destroying the West Indian trade, had been followed by a large increase in the trade in colonial sugar. The colonies, which sent only 4,094,000 cwt. of sugar to England in the first ten months of 1851, consigned 5,373,000 cwt. of sugar to England in the first ten months of 1852, while the supplies of foreign refined sugar fell from 268,000 cwt. in November 1851 to 243,000 cwt. in November 1852, and the supplies of foreign unrefined sugar decreased in a still greater proportion. The writer who had declared that the colonies "were already overwhelmed" by slave-grown sugar, who had preserved the famous boast of Bentinck, that he had "saved the colonies" and rung "the knell of free trade" by carrying in a Select Committee a differential duty of 10s. in favour of colonial sugar, had to protest that, call him traitor, call him renegade, he could not recommend "a differential duty to prop up a prostrate industry which is actually commanding the metropolitan market." 3 Tardily convinced, therefore, of the folly of his old methods, but forced to do something in redemption of his old pledges, Disraeli proposed to conciliate the colonists by allowing them to refine sugar in bond for the home markets. It was supposed that foreign sugar contained a larger proportion of saccharine matter than colonial sugar. It was asserted, therefore, that the payment of duty on the raw commodity favoured the foreign producer; and it was urged that equality would be established if the sugar were refined in bond and the duty paid on the raw commodity. Such an arrangement had already been effected in the case of sugar intended for exportation.* Its extension to sugar intended for home consumption had been recommended by Bentinck, and Bentinck's proposal had occupied just three lines in the political biography. Something, however, had to be done for the colonists; protection was impossible; and, instead of it, Disraeli offered the 2 Ibid., p. 388. 1 Lord G. Bentinck, p. 316. 3 Hansard, vol. cxxiii. p. 850. By the 3 and 4 William IV., c. 61. Life of Lord G. Bentinck, eighth edition, p. 395. It is characteristic of Disraeli, that he had paid so little attention to a proposal which was to become the basis of his policy, that these three lines are hopelessly inaccurate. smallest of concessions-to allow them to refine sugar in bond. There was nothing in these proposals calculated to excite enthusiasm. The relief to merchants and colonists was too small to attract support. There was still, however, the great landed interest to deal with, and Disraeli had fought the battle of the landowner as no man had ever fought it before. In 1846 and 1847 he had resisted free trade; in 1849, 1850, and 1851 he had advocated the remission of local burdens. "Reciprocity being impossible," as the editor of his "Speeches" afterwards put it, "the next best thing was to obtain compensation for the landed interest." He had the opportunity in December 1852 of carrying out his own proposals. Though protection was already abandoned, there was no obvious reason to prevent his redeeming the pledges which he had given to the agriculturist. But facts had acted unkindly towards Disraeli. The prosperity which had followed free trade had reduced the burden of the poor-rate, and the arguments which had been based on a high expenditure had been weakened or destroyed by a low one. To the consternation of his friends, to the amusement and delight of his opponents, Disraeli withdrew all his former recommendations, with the solitary excuse that he had "greater subjects to consider than the triumph of obsolete opinions." But, just as he had been forced to do something for shipowner and colonist, so he felt constrained. to extend some boon to the farmers whom he had betrayed. Instead of repeating his old remedy, which was open to the fatal objection that it relieved the landowner alone, he offered to reduce the malt-tax by one-half, and to repeal the old warduty on hops. He threw out, at the same time, a bait for the rest of the community, by proposing gradually to reduce the duty on tea from 25. 24d. to Is. a pound. The proposals which were thus made involved an immediate 1 Lord Beaconsfield's Speeches, vol. i. p. 208. 2 The expenditure on the poor fell from £6,180,000 in 1848 to £4.962,000 in 1851. Hansard, vol. cxxiii. p. 858. 3 Ibid. Mr. Kebbel has had the wisdom to omit the first and damaging half of the December speech from Lord Beaconsfield's collected speeches. loss of revenue of £3,700,000. But, in addition to these changes, Disraeli suggested another alteration. The incometax, which had been temporarily renewed for a year in 1851, and which had been continued in 1852, expired in 1853, and Disraeli determined, on again renewing it, to alter its application. It had hitherto been assumed that the profits of the farmer were equivalent to one-half the rental of the farm. Disraeli decided that the farmer should in future pay a tax on one-third instead of on one-half of his rent. But this was not the only boon which he offered to him. Permanent incomes and life incomes had hitherto been charged on the same basis. Disraeli proposed that incomes derived from the rent of land and from funded property should continue to pay at the full rate of 7d. on each pound, while the incomes derived from farming, from trade, and from salaries should pay at the reduced rate of 51d. In compensation for the loss caused by these exemptions, he extended the tax to funded property and salaries in Ireland, to all industrial incomes of £100, and to all incomes arising from property of £50 a year. The income-tax in the form thus proposed would-Disraeli imagined-produce about the same sum as the tax in its previous shape had yielded. But it was still incumbent on him to provide for the serious loss occasioned by the remission of one-half of the malt-tax, the war-duty on hops, and the gradual reduction of the tea-duties. Half of the necessary amount he proposed to obtain from the surplus with which the prosperity. of the country provided him; the other half he sought to procure by applying to income the repayment of the advances to local authorities which had previously been used for the redemption of debt; by extending the house-tax to £10 householders, and by raising its rate from 9d. to 1s. 6d. 1 Malt-Duty (one-half) Tea (first instalment of 4 d.) • £2,500,000 ço0,000 £3,700,000 It was intended to reduce the duty on tea at once to Is. 1od. per lb., and subsequently by 2d. annually till the amount was Is. Hansard, vol. cxxiii. pp. 873, 879. |