London, Friday, December 17, 1852 

I hasten to inform you of the result of last night’s debate,* which 
is the defeat of the Ministry. 

This general defeat of the Ministers was preceded by the 
disgraceful result of the single combat of their most audacious 
champion, Achilles-Beresford, the Secretary of War. The Commit- 
tee on the Derby Elections have made their report. That report 
confirms all the different facts already denounced in the petition 
of the Liberals, and concludes that the evidence proves that a 
wholesale system of bribery was carried on during the elections at 
Derby. The Committee, however, have forborne to follow up the 
evidence, and instead of directly involving Mr. Beresford in a 
charge of attempted bribery, they contented themselves with a 
severe stricture on his “reckless indifference and disregard of 
consequences.”’ It remains to be seen if Parliament will accede to 
the views of this honest Committee and allow Mr. Beresford to 
retain his seat. Should that be the case, it would itself grant its 
ratification to the memorable words of Mr. Secretary Beresford, 
that “the people of England are the vilest rabble he ever saw in 
the world.” Be this as it may be, his seat as a Minister 
Mr. Beresford cannot retain. 

After this short digression I return to my original subject. 

The members of the House of Commons having debated during 
four consecutive nights and the greater part of the fifth, the 
question whether the question should be taken upon the whole 
budget, or on the whole resolution, on principles or on facts, upon 

* The debate in the House of Commons on December 16, 1852.— Ed. 

this or that point, the conclusion at which they arrived at last, was 
that the House had, at present, only to meddle with the increase 
of the house-tax, the extension of the area of direct taxation. 

The House rejected this first proposition of Mr. Disraeli’s 
budget, as follows: f 

PAV CS i eatensnaeneruuerauacesee ruses: 286: INOCS sss orcsssGeiteeeacresineenss 305 

Majority against Ministers, 19. The House then adjourned till 
Monday next. The pressure of time forbids me to speak on the 
debate as extensively as I could wish. I shall, therefore, confine 
myself to discussing merely the most memorable passages of 
Mr. Disraeli’s last speech, by far the most important of all. 

Sir Charles Wood, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir 
James Graham, had directed their chief attacks against his 
proposed appropriation of the Public Works Loan Fund 
(£400,000 per annum) to balance the effects of the reduction in 
the shipping dues. Sir James Graham, especially, had contended 
most strenuously for the beneficial working of that Fund. What 
does Mr. Disraeli answer? ? 

“T will show the Committee what flagrant misappropriation there has been of 
the funds of this country, and how immense an amount of money has been 
squandered away, virtually without the cognizance and control of Parliament, and 
entirely by the machinery of this Public Works Loan Fund.” 

And then follows a detailed description of the scandalous 
financial management of the Whig administration with regard to 
these funds. Disraeli then proceeds to explain the principles of his 
budget: 

“There was a very important question to settle, before we could decide even as 
to the first step we should take, and that was the question how far we should 
prevail upon the country to fix upon that sum of direct taxation which was 
necessary for any Ministry that attempted to enter into a career of financial 
Reform. [Hear!] I have been accused by the member for Halifax (Sir Charles 
Wood) of making a proposition which recklessly increases the direct taxation of the 
country. [Hear! hear!] I have been accused by the member for Carlisle (Sir 
J. Graham) of pushing direct taxation to rash extremes. In the first place, the 
proposition I made on the part of the Government, instead of recklessly increasing 
the amount of direct taxation, would not, if it passed, occasion so great an amount 
of direct taxation as prevailed under the superintendence of the finances by the 
right honorable gentleman, the member for Halifax, when he enjoyed not only the 
income- and property-tax, but the window-tax, which, in the last year of its 
existence, brought him nearly two millions of pounds sterling. [Cheers.] The right 
honorable gentleman who says, you must not recklessly increase the amount of 
direct taxation, reduced the amount which he received in his last year from the 

from The Times, No. 21301, December 17, 1852.— Ea. 

window-tax, and was content with the modest sum of seven hundred thousand 
pounds sterling by way of commutation for the window-tax. I cannot forget that 
the right honorable gentleman who recklessly charges me with increasing the 
amount of direct taxation proposed first a complete commutation which would 
have made his house-tax larger than the one I had proposed. [Loud cheers.] But is this 
all? Is this all that has been done by the right honorable gentleman who charges me 
with increasing recklessly the direct taxation of the country? Why, there is the Minister 
who with a property-tax you have now producing its full amount, with the window-tax 
that brought nearly two millions, came down to the House of Commons one day and 
proposed to a startled assembly to double nearly the property- and income-tax. [Great 
cheering.] I look on this conduct as indicating recklessness of consequences.... We hear 
of the duplication of the house-tax—an innocent amount; but if the right honorable 
gentleman had carried the duplication of the property- and income-tax, I think he 
might fairly have been charged with recklessly increasing the direct taxation of the 
country. [Loud cheers.] Talk of recklessness! Why, what in the history of finances is 
equal to the recklessness with which the right honorable gentleman acted? [Loud 
cheers.] And what was the ground on which he made this monstrous and enormous 
proposition; a proposition which only the safety of the State would have justified 
him in making? When he was beaten, baffled, humiliated, he came forward to say 
that he had sufficient revenue without resorting to that proposition. [Great and 
continued cheering.] The future historian will not be believed to be telling the 
truth when he says that the Minister came down to nearly double the income-tax, - 
and the next day came down to say that the ways and means were ample.” 
[Renewed cheering.] 

Having thus retaliated upon Sir Charles Wood, he continues: 

“We had to assert that there is a difference between property and income, a 
difference between precarious and certain income. We had next to vindicate a 
principle which we believed, and do believe, is a just one, and which, if not now, 
must ultimately be recognized and adopted—namely, that the basis of direct taxation 
should be enlarged. [Ministerial cheers.]... If it be sought to establish as a permanent 
feature of our social system that there shall be created classes who are to exercise 
political power by means of throwing an undue weight of direct taxation upon the 
wealthier portion of the community, and an undue weight of indirect taxation on 
the working classes, I cannot imagine a circumstance more fatal to this country, or 
one more pregnant with disastrous consequences. [Cheers.] But of this I feel 
convinced, that those who will first experience the disastrous consequences will be the 
privileged class.” 

Turning round upon the free traders Disraeli says: 

“The great opponents of colonial imposts here we find them all arrayed in favor of 
high taxation for the producer, and here we find them, with taunts to us, using all the 
fallacies which we at least have had the courage honorably to give up. [Tremendous 
cheering.] Tell me protection is dead! Tell me, there is no Protectionist party! Why, ’tis 
rampant and ’tis there. [Pointing to the Opposition benches.] They have taken up our 
principles with our benches, and I believe they will be quite as unsuccessful.” [Cheers.] 

In conclusion, Disraeli replies to the benevolent suggestion of 
Sir Charles Wood to withdraw his budget, in the following words: 

“T have been told to withdraw my budget. I was told that Mr. Pitt withdrew his 
budget, and that more recently other persons” (the Whigs and especially Sir Ch. 

Wood) “had done so too. [Laughter.] Now, I do not aspire to the fame of Mr. Pitt, 
but I will not submit to the degradation of others. [Loud cheers.] No, Sir; I have 
seen the consequence of a government not being able to pass their measures—con- 
sequences not honorable to the government, not advantageous to the country, and 
not, In my opinion, conducive to the reputation of this House, which is most dear 
to me. [Loud cheers.] I remember a budget which was withdrawn, and 
re-withdrawn, and withdrawn again [laughter] in 1848. What was the consequence 
of the government existing upon sufferance? What was the consequence to the 
finances of this country? Why, that ignoble transaction respecting the commutation 
of the window and house duty, which now I am obliged to attempt to readjust. 
[Cheers.] The grievance is deeper than mere questions of party consideration.... 
Yes, I know what I have to face. I have to face a coalition. [Cheers.] This 
combination may be successful. A coalition has before this been successful. But 
coalitions, although successful, have always found this, that their triumph has been 
very brief. This I know, that England has not loved coalitions. [Cheers.] 1 appeal 
from the coalition to that public opinion which governs this country; to that public 
opinion whose wise and irresistible influence can control even the decrees of 
parliament, and without whose support the most august and ancient institutions are 
but the baseless fabric of a vision. [The Right Honorable gentleman resumed his 
seat amid deafening and prolonged cheering.]” 

What now is the opinion of the daily press respecting the results 
of this ministerial defeat! 

The Morning Chronicle (Peelite) and The Morning Advertiser 
(Radical) regard the retreat of the Ministry as a certainty. The 
Times is likewise of opinion that Ministers will retreat, doubting, 
however, the possibility of the Opposition of making as easily a 
new Administration as they have unmade the old one. The Daily 
News (Manchester School) assumes the possibility of a reconstitu- 
tion of the fallen Ministry in combination with Lord Palmerston. 
The Morning Post (Palmerston) considers this recomposition as a 
matter of course. Lastly, The Morning Herald (Derby-Disraeli) 
declares that if Ministers tender their resignation to-day, the 
Queen* will be obliged to send for them again on the next 
day. 

One thing is certain: Ministers have been defeated on the 
ground of a Free Trade resolution, the extension of direct taxa- 
tion. At all events, they have this satisfaction, that, if they resisted 
successfully the first Parliamentary attack by denying their own 
principles, the Opposition have beaten them in the second battle 
only by the negation of theirs. 

Thus, what I formerly said with regard to the position of the 
Parliamentary parties,” has been confirmed entirely in this debate. 
The coalesced Opposition possesses, compared with the compact- 

ness of 286 Tories, only a majority of 19 votes. Let them form a 
new Government, and it will fall on the first opportunity. Should 
the Opposition Government dissolve the House of Commons, the 
new elections will return, under the old conditions, the same 
result, viz., another House of Commons, in which the different 
parties will again paralyse themselves, when the old game has to 
be recommenced, and England’s politics are plunged once more in 
a cercle vicieux. 

I, therefore, insist on the old dilemma: either Continuation of the 
Tory Government, or Parliamentary Reform. 

Written on December 17, 1852 Reproduced from the newspaper