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involved a very trivial charge on the Clubs, was an unpopular proposal: it affected an influential class, and it was assail being untenable, on the ground upon which Mr. Gladstone had relied in proposing it. He had treated the clubs as establishments for the sale of wines and liquors; whereas it was answered, with much plausibility, that such a view of these social institutions was altogether fallacious; that, in fact, the transaction which it was proposed to tax was merely an arrangement by which an association of gentlemen purchased jointly out of a common fund the wines required for their own consumption. Either the force of this reasoning or the demonstrations of hostile action prevailed, and the licence duty on Clubs was withdrawn.

The Budget, however, as originally announced, had contained another proposition of a more startling character, affecting a large class of vested rights and powerful institutions, and involving considerations of a very serious nature. All the Income Tax Acts enacted since 1842 had contained clauses exempting funds invested for eleemosynary purposes from liability to the tax. The Government now proposed to remove this exemption. The ground upon which this bold measure was advanced was thus stated by Mr. Gladstone in his speech on the 19th April:

"The consideration of the question of succession duty on corporations brought to the mind of the Government this further remarkable fact, that in this country we have levied during the financial year which has just closed about fifteen millions of hard money in direct taxation, but that every shilling of that money is taken out of the pockets of individuals, and that whatever is held strictly in mortmain, in the hands of corporate bodies, or professes to promote charity, does not contribute one shilling, as I shall contend, to those 15,000,000. I venture to say that is an unjust state of things. It is not fair that the tax-payers of this country, the fathers of families, men labouring to support their wives and children, should pay taxes augmented in order to encourage gentlemen on their death-beds, when they can no longer enjoy the money themselves, to devise ingenious methods of disposing of their wealth, which shall cause their names to be written up in enormous capital letters, and create governors of trusts, who shall meet together at sumptuous dinners from year to year, in order to glorify the pious and immortal memory of the man who has devised this ingenious method of disposing of his property. I am not going to say one word in disparagement of these institutions, except up to the point that they ought not to enjoy that very large amount of positive pecuniary preference at the cost of the general community which is awarded to them by the present state of the law. I refer now to what is the principal part of the whole matter, that when the exemption was first granted the state of the case was very different. At that time the State undertook no direct expenditure for education-one of the main objects of endowed charities. The State undertook no

direct expenditure for the poor-another main purpose of these endowed charities. Far less did the State undertake any expenditure on account of charities themselves. How stands the case now? The votes which are submitted to this House for the present year for those purposes include - for education, 1,111,000.; for the Poor-Law Board, 227,000l.; for Universities, 35,0007.; and for these charities themselves a little item of 18,000l. a year. So that the public are now called upon, not only to have the property of these charities maintained and improved at the cost of the general taxes, without contributing a farthing, but are called upon to provide the expenses of a board, secretaries, clerks, and a considerable establishment, in order to manage charities of this description. There are other points upon which I do not intend to dwell. One is, that it being hardly possible to construe the law, it is obliged to be administered roughly and hand-overhead, as it can best be done. The opinions of law officers come to throw great doubt upon any exemption. If a person leave property for the benefit of the poor of his parish, one would suppose that that is charity. But, no; that is not charity, because it goes in aid of the poor-rate. An infinity of questions of the most perplexed kind arise, and the difficulty in the execution of the law is beyond any thing that can be conceived. I have spoken of the 18,000l. a year for the maintenance of the Charity Commission. It is a very useful and beneficial expenditure. But, over and above that, the Revenue Department is at a great expense for the purpose of endeavouring to administer this law. The complexity and minuteness of the claims are indescribable. A single institution has property in forty or fifty, and sometimes in one hundred different parishes, and on each of those properties are charged little bequests and little payments, into the investigation of which it is impossible to enter with the view of ascertaining whether they are for the purposes of charity or not. Therefore, upon the sound general ground that all property ought to contribute to those taxes, which, if they are justly paid, are not a penalty on property, but are the means of keeping property available for the enjoyment of the owner; upon the ground of the altered practice of the State, and upon the ground of the difficulty and confusion in administering the law as it at present stands, we propose that that exemption shall cease to exist. At the same time there are certain provisions which it is necessary to keep alive. Part of the exemption refers to buildings belonging to hospitals, colleges, and charities of various descriptions. We do not propose to take away that part of the exemption, on the practical ground that, having in view the simplification of the law, we should not assist our object, as it would be extremely difficult to arrive at a principle upon which the buildings and their sites could be valued. We propose, also, to continue the exemption for the repairs of places of Divine worship. With regard to what are termed voluntary subscrip

tions, they stand on a totally different footing. No person will be assessed in respect of them. The property of endowed charities will be taxed by being taxed at its source, but all income from voluntary subscriptions comes from persons who have paid the tax already, and it will remain as now unaffected by this change in the law."

The principles thus asserted by Mr. Gladstone were not challenged at the time, but after a very short interval it became apparent that the proposition of the Government in regard to the taxation of charities would not escape a strenuous opposition. Intimations of hostility to this measure were made from time to time in Parliament, and out of doors a combination of powerful corporate interests arrayed themselves against it with an unanimity and vigour which threatened serious consequences to the Government if they should persist in their design. The Chancellor of the Exchequer declined the discussion of the objections alleged against his measure until he should submit the entire case in proper form to the Committee of the House of Commons on the 4th of May. On the morning of that day the right hon. gentleman was attended at his official residence in Downing-street by one of the most numerous and influential deputations that has ever attended upon a Minister. It was headed by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, and numbered among its members the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishops of London, Rochester, and Bath and Wells, several archdeacons, and other clergy, many members of both Houses of Parliament, and a perfect crowd of gentlemen, who attended on this occasion as treasurers or secretaries of the principal charities in the metropolis.

"His Royal Highness the Duke of CAMBRIDGE introduced the deputation. He said it was composed of noblemen and gentlemen who represented the vast number of metropolitan and other charities affected by the proposed tax, and some of its members would have the honour of explaining how injuriously it would operate upon their various spheres of usefulness. Those members would speak on behalf of the respective charities, the cause of which they came to advocate; but he would confine his remarks to the charity with which he had the honour of being connected as President of the Corporation of Christ's Hospital, which he was sorry to say would have to pay a heavy income tax, like other similar institutions, if the Bill became law. The tax which that charity would have to pay would amount to nearly 20007. a year, or, in other words, would virtually be tantamount to their being obliged to reduce by no less than forty the number of boys educated and maintained by the charity. This would be a great grievance, but it was unfortunately not their only hardship, as they had a number of affiliated institutions, such as the Hetherington Charity for the blind, the inmates of which received pensions of some 207. per annum. With such affiliated societies as

these they had only two courses to pursue, either at once to reduce the number of their pensioners, or to diminish their small pittances to an extent which would enable the parent society to meet the demands of the new tax. The latter course was one which the Governors of Christ's Hospital would never think of adopting, and the other was almost equally repugnant to their feelings. As the income tax now stood, all incomes under 100%. a year were not charged, and a further distinction was made in incomes ranging from 1007. to 2007., which only paid in a reduced proportion. But by the proposed change incomes of even 201. would become chargeable to the tax. It was the introduction of an entirely new principle in the history of the tax-one which was not sanctioned by such statesmen as Mr. Pitt or Mr. Peel, and one which they ventured to think was not justified by any pressure of necessity on the part of the Government. Under all these circumstances the deputation thought that they were justified in using the very strongest remonstrances against the proposed measure. With these few words he would leave the other members of the deputation to explain, their views to the right hon. gentleman for themselves."

The memorial which the deputation had come to present having been read,

His Grace the Archbishop of CANTERBURY, as President of the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy and the Clergy Orphan Corporation, said he came there to plead the cause of the widows and the orphans of their poorer brethren. After what had been urged by His Royal Highness, it was not necessary for him to dwell on the question of the principle of the tax on the revenue of charities, but simply to show how it would, if carried into effect, tell upon the importance of those institutions with which he had the honour of being connected. As regarded that of the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy, its aid was distributed by three branches, one of which was for giving relief to aged and infirm clergymen and their widows, another branch gave assistance to those who from the extreme smallness of their pay as curates or from other circumstances beyond their control become embarrassed, and another branch granted small pensions to the widows and daughters of clergymen. The charity had altogether no less than 1250 persons who were thus all more or less dependent on it for support, and not one of whose incomes came to the limit of the 1001. a year which exempted other persons from taxation, but which, under the proposed Bill, would bring the little aid extended to these unfortunate persons within the operation of the tax. There was only one way by which the charity could meet the tax, and that was either by taking off their list the little pension given to 70 poor widows and applying the money thus saved to pay the tax for the rest, or else by diminishing still further to all their annuitants and pensioners, without exception, the miserable dole which was all the charity could now afford to give them in their distress. As

regarded the Clergy Orphan Corporation, there was no alternative with that charity, and they must simply reduce the numbers of those who were now dependent on its care.

The Bishop of London, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and other members of the deputation having stated their views as to the injurious consequences of the proposed measure, by compelling the hospitals and other charities to reduce the number of their patients or dependents, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said he was not quite sure that he entirely understood the purpose of the public meeting, rather than deputation, with the attendance of which he had that day been honoured beyond all precedent in the history of the office which he filled. As far as it was a meeting for reasoning, he thought they would quite agree with him that it was essentially a meeting for reasoning only on one side, and the circumstances of the case made it almost impossible for him to state to them the reasons which had induced Her Majesty's Government to frame the proposal which it would be his duty that night to submit to the House of Commons as strongly as he could. In the first place, that meeting did not require to be reminded by him that they were in no danger whatever of having the proposal of the Government carried by means of influence as opposed to reason, as he thought it would be only moderately stating the case to say that, as far as it was lawful and consistent to distinguish between influence and reason, the balance of influence would not be on the whole unfavourable to the present deputation. The whole case, in fact, was one which the Government must necessarily submit on its own merits. It had been stated that this proposal had not been made in a time of great public pressure, and so far it was made at a time when the proposers of the measure and not its adversaries were likely to suffer from a want of that reason. But he might also frankly state that Her Majesty's Government were persuaded that the whole case had not been brought before the public mind; nor, judging from the address he had heard that day, and the memorial which had been read to him, had it been fairly brought before the minds of those present. His conviction was, in fact, increased that the question had not been fully understood. It would be his duty to state to the House of Commons the reasons upon which the motion of Her Majesty's Government was founded. If, he said, the reasons and considerations urged in that room were new either to his mind or those of his colleagues in the Government, it would merely convict them and himself of the utmost levity. They would leave it to the opinion of the House of Commons that their proposal should receive its free sanction, and if it did not receive that, the mischief of the measure would be greater than the good. There was one question which he wished much to ask. Under the name of charities were gathered together an infinite diversity of bequests of different kinds, and he did wish to know from any who might be authorized to express the sentiments of the deputation, whether he was to understand that what the

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