Morgan, jun., was sent to Derby by the said John
Frail, and, acting on the instructions therein contained,
was subsequently detected and apprehended in Derby,
while engaged in carrying out the plan of the organised
system of bribery proved before your committee to have
existed. Your committee do not think there is sufficient
evidence to satisfy their minds that the arrangement,
scheme, and object referred to in the petition were
known to and concurred in by the Right Hon. W.
Beresford; but your committee are of opinon that the
equivocal expressions of that letter ought at least to
have suggested to him an idea of the improper use to
which that letter might have been, and in fact was,
applied. And they think it exhibited a reckless
indifference and disregard of consequences which they
cannot too highly censure."

On the motion of Mr. Goulburn, the evidence taken
before the committee was ordered to be printed.

The adjourned debate on the Budget was then
resumed and concluded.—Sir A. COCKBURN was opposed
to all parts of the budget, except the reduction of the
tea duties and the graduation of the income-tax, which
he warmly commended.—Mr. Whiteside, Lord
Drumlanrig, Mr. G. H. Moore, Mr. Peacock, and Sir F.
Baring spoke in opposition to the government.—The
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER replied at great
length. He first addressed himself to the subject of the
Exchequer Loan Fund, of which he had taken £400,000
as ways and means of the year. He explained the
origin of this establishment (which he proposed to
abolish), and observed that, when his attention was drawn
to this fund, he found in this department a balance of
upwards of £380,000 lying idle, a law being in existence
peremptorily requiring that this unproductive balance
should be increased every quarter; and he stated cases
in which, he said, the minister of the day had availed
himself of this public fund, virtually without the
cognisance of parliament, and sums had been squandered
which had escaped the vigilance of even Mr. Hume.
£250,000 had been lent to the Thames Tunnel, of
which not a shilling had been repaid. Battersea Park,
one of the most woful of speculations, had had an
advance of £150,000. He had a catalogue of parallel
instances, from 1824 to 1850, in which a sum very little
short of £700,000 had been advanced—not, as Sir J.
Graham alleged, to country gentlemen—every shilling of
which had been lost to the country. He had been asked
why he had touched this fund. He replied, to relieve the
Consolidated Fund from this annual charge, and to
put a stop to a machinery which wasted the public
money. The manner in which he had made the
£400,000 act upon the reduction of the public debt, Mr.
Disraeli expounded to the committee, contending that
the course he had pursued was in conformity with the
obligations of the law, as well as with the recommendations
of parliamentary committees. He then noticed
the second arraignment of his financial statement by
Sir C. Wood, namely, the mistake he had been
supposed to make in the estimate of deficiency in 1854-55,
through the semi-repeal of the malt-duty, which he
showed he had properly assumed at £1,700,000.
Respecting the Caffre war, the statements he had made,
he said, had been entirely substantiated, the last despatch
of General Cathcart stating that "the war of rebellion
may now be considered at an end." He replied to Mr.
Goulburn's objection that no allowance had been made
for the loss of revenue by refining sugar in bond, that
he did not believe there would be the slightest loss.
Approaching the subject of the house-tax, he ranged
rapidly over those parts of our colossal system of
taxation which had to be accommodated to the policy of
unrestricted competition, observing that the government
had to fix upon some direct tax to enable them to carry
out financial reform, and he retorted with great keenness
the charge of endeavouring recklessly to increase
the direct taxation of the country, upon Sir C. Wood,
who had proposed one day to double the income and
property-tax, and next day told the house he had
sufficient ways and means without it. In providing an
amount of direct taxation for their purpose, the government
were guided by two principles—first, as regarded
the income-tax, to establish a distinction between
realised and precarious incomes; and, secondly, to
enlarge the basis of direct taxation. Believing that the
house-tax was a reasonable, just, and beneficial measure,
and that it would supply the necessary amount of direct
taxation, they had to decide upon which group of
indirect taxes they should operate, and they came to the
conclusion that they should act upon those articles
which entered into the consumption of the people, and
which were subject to the largest impost. His selection
of the malt duty he defended against the varied attacks
made upon it. The coalition by which the present government
was opposed might, he observed, in conclusion,
be successful; but it had been always found that the
triumphs of coalitions were very brief; and he appealed
from that coalition to the public opinion of the country.—
Mr. GLADSTONE considered that the speech of Mr.
D'Israeli ought to meet with an immediate reply;
and he animadverted with strong emphasis on the
licence of language which Mr D'Israeli had used, and
the phrases he had applied to the characters of public
men. After condemning the course of proceeding
adopted by the government with reference to the
resolutions, he objected, he said, to the resolution
before the committee, whether it was a vote for a
house-tax, or a vote for the budget. He enumerated
specific objections to the house-tax, for which he
would not legislate until all these questions had been
fully considered. He showed how severely the
additional direct taxes would affect persons with small incomes,
some of whom, including the clergy, would come for
the first time within the sweep of the income-tax.
He objected to the additional house-tax because it
was connected with the repeal of half the malt-tax.
—a measure which was professedly for the immediate
benefit of the consumer, whereas it was a sacrifice of
£2,500,000 for a reduction in the price of beer, that
would be scarcely appreciable, and the principle of
reproduction would consequently be dormant. The
imposing a tax of one kind to repeal a tax of another
kind, was a most delicate operation, and which would
attract the most jealous scrutiny. The question,
however, which lay at the root of the whole discussion was
that of the income-tax and its modifications. Nothing
could satisfy the country upon this head but a plan,
not an abstraction—not something seductive which they
who proposed it knew could not be carried into effect.
There was, however, no plan, and the House of
Commons would forfeit its duty if it consented to
deal in the abstract with a matter respecting which the
theories were endless. Passing to the budget generally,
he asserted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had
introduced a new principle, subversive of all rules of
prudence, by presenting a budget without a surplus,
for the £400,000 he insisted, in opposition to Mr.
D'Israeli, was borrowed money, and no real surplus.
That right hon. gentleman, he said, complained of
being opposed by a coalition. He (Mr. Gladstone)
wanted to know whether a minister of the Crown
was entitled to make a charge against an independent
member of parliament, and without any evidence.
He voted against the budget not only because he
disapproved on general grounds of its principles, but
emphatically because it was his firm conviction that
this was the most perverted budget in its tendency and
ultimate effects that he had ever seen, and if the house
should sanction its delusive scheme, the day would
come when it would look back with bitter, and late
though ineffectual repentance.

The committee then divided:—

The House then adjourned till Monday following.

On Monday the 20th, the CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER gave a similar explanation of the Resignation
of Ministers to that given by Lord Derby, in the House
of Lords, and moved that the house should adjourn to
Thursday, which was agreed to.

On Monday, the 27th, New Writs were ordered to
issue for supplying fourteen vacancies caused by the
acceptance of offices under the new administration.