GOLD DUTY BILLS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1279, 3 September 1886, Page 3

GOLD DUTY BILLS.

Speech Delivered by V. Pyke, M. H.K., in the House op Representatives, August 5, 1886, Gold Duty Bills. Mr Larnaoh brought np the report of tho Committee appointed to search the Journals of the Legislative Council in relation to tho Gold Duty Bills. The Committee reported that the Gold Export Duty Abolition Bill had been negatived on the motion for the second reading, and that the Gold Duty Reduction Bill had been laid aside, as being in contravention of Standing Order No 131. Mr LARNaCH_moved—That a Select Committee be appointed to search for pre« cedents, in order to ascertain and report upon the rights and privileges of this House with regard to the imposition and remission of taxation and duties payable to the Crown : the Committee to consist of Major Atkinson, Mr Conolly, Mr Fergus, Colonel Fraser, Mr Montgomery, Mr Seddon, Mr Guinness. Mr Pyke, and the mover. Mr PYKE -No doubt the Government are taking the right coarse in tho motion they have proposed, because they are simply following the precedents kid down by the oldest Legisltture in the world—the Imperial House of Commons; but I think it would be well for me to point ont what I conceive to be a popular misapprehension as to the respective powers and privileges of thia_ House and the other branch of the Legislature. Of coarse it is an accented theory that this House occupies relatively the same position in the colony as the House of Commons does at Home, and fiat the Leg slative Conncil occupies the same position relatively as the House of Lords at Home, the Governor representing the other estate of the realm—namely, the Crown ; and it is supposed, popularly, that the other branch of the Legislature has a right to reject the whole of a money Bill It is quite true that the House of Lords has frequently claimed and exercised that right; but it is also true that the Commons of England never permitted them to do so on any one occasion without denying the right so claimed, and recording strongly tlreii' protest against its exercise. Formerly the Lords even claimed the right to amend money Bills. That they have abandoned, and now it is a question whether they can reject the whole of a money Bill or not. The records of Hatsell show thirty six cases in which the House of Commons refused to pass over in silence the reject on of any of their money measures by the House of Lords, and solemnly entered their protest. So far hack as 1678, a money Bill having been rejected by the upper branch of the Legislature, the House of Commons resolved—

" That all aids and supplies and aids to His Majesty in Parliament are the sole gift of the Commons ; and that it is the undoubted and sole right of the Commons to direct, limit, and appoint in such Bills the ends, purposes, considerations, conditions, limitations, and qualification of such grants, which ought not to be changed or altered by the Lords.” Again, in 1692—1 pass over a large number of cases, because any honourable member who chooses to refer to Hatsell will find the whole of the precedents set out—they resolved, — “ That the right of granting supplies to the Crown is in the Commons alone, as an essential part of their institution ; and the | limitation of ail such grants as to the ! matter, manner, measure, and time is only ! in them, which is so well known to be settled in them that to give reasons for it has been esteemed by our 1 ancestors to be a weakening of that right.” And so far did they carry their insistance upon the privileges of the House in that respect that in 1708 the Commons actually disagree! with the amendments made by the Lords in a Bill for covering the dome of St. Paul’s with cooper, the Lords proposing to cover it with lead, on the ground that “ the money for building the said cathedral was granted by the Commons, and therefore the application thereof doth not belong to them.” Now, this quarrel between the two Houses -or, rather, this stubborn iuristance upon the rights of the Commons—continued in the form which I have mentioned up to 1860. In 1860 the Paper Duties Repeal Bill was sent up to the House of Lords, and by them rejected, whereupon search was made, as it has been made in this instance, and a resolution was passed upon the subject. At that time Lord Palmerston was First Lord of the Treasury, and Mr Gladstone Chancellor of the Excheq >er ; and I have a copy here of the resolutions then adopted by the English House of Comm ns, in which the right of the Commons was so clearly set forth that wo have in them a clear precedent laid down, which alone is sufficient to guide any colonial Legislature to their proper duty in such a matter. These were the resolutions assented to, unanimously, after two days’ debate, in the Commons : “ 1. That the right of granting aids and support to the C own is in the Commons alone, as an essential part of thair constitution and that the limitation of all such grants as to matter, manner, measure, and time is only in them. “2. That, although the Lords have exercised .the power of rejecting Bills of several descriptions relating to taxation by negativing the whole, yet the exercising by them of that power has not been frequent, and is justly regarded by this House with peculiar jealousy, as affecting the rights of the Commons to grant the supplies, and to provide the ways and means for the service of the year. “ 3. That, to guard for the future against an undue exercise of that power by the Lords, and to secure to (he Commons their rightful control over taxation and supply, this House has in its own hands so to impose and remit tax. s and to franc B 11s of Supply that the right of the Commons -as to the matter, manner, measure, an I time may bo maintained inviolate.” The Commons did not slop there. They gave practical effect to their resolution Lord Palmerston and Mr Gladstone were not the men to go down to the House and ask the House to consider the subject without going further. They put this resolution into effect in the following year ; for f what did they do? In 1861 they brought down a Bill <! continuing certain Duties of Customs and Inland Ktvenue for th~ Service of Her Majesty: that is 21 Viet.. chapter 20, providing for the payment of rates and duties of Customs, imposing Excise duties and inconn tax, and repealing the duties o” paper. In that shape it was sent up to the Houso'nf Lords j and, in the wnnls of Mr Spencer Walpole, this is what JEWlowed : “The whole financial arrangements of the year, including the repeal of the paper duty, were included in one Bill, and sent up to the Lords. The Lords, obviously, could not upset the whole financial arrangements of the year, and they were accordingly compelled to pass the Bill, and to submit to the repeal of the paper duties Since that time the same precedent has .been adopted, and the whole of the financial arrangements of the year have been included in one Bill, and the Lords have virtually been rendered powerless in financial matters.” To show that this has been done continuously, I may mention that iu 1832 there

was passed an Act— 46 Viet., chapter 27 which bears this title: "An Act fir amending the Law rela'ing to Customs and Inland Revenue and Postage and other Stamps, and for making Provision with respect to the National Debt and the Charges payable from the Public Revenue to the Commissioner for the Reduction of the Nationol Debt, and for other Purposes.” Amongst the “ other purposes ” the Act absolutely repe-ls payments to be made under the Fortifications Act, and “so much of the Act to fa-ilitate the sale and transfer of land in Ireland as limits certain fees therein mentioned." From that time up to the present the whole of the financial arrangements have been put in one Bill. If that course were followed here we should not have the beer duty in one Bill, the property-tax in another, and the gold duty in another—the Government weald embrace the whole of the arrangements in one measure, and throw on the other Chamber the onus and the danger of throwing out the whole. . I wou’d call attention to this : It is quite' true that the Lords have on several occasions exercised their supposed right, bnt never, as I have said before, without protest on the part of the Commons ; but even Lord.Lyndhurst, with all his legal knowledge, could only find four money Bills in two centuries thrown out by the Honse of Lords which did not embrace some matter of policy altogether independent of the remission of . taxation. Lor I Palmerston mentions thirty-six Bills j in 240 years, but he also pointed out that lin few instances had money Bills net embracing question? of policy been thrown I out. The Crown has a right to veto Bills I passed in both Ffonses, but it does not do it. Since tho present Royal fam'ly have been on the Throne not one Bill of the Imperial Parliament has been vetoed. Charles I. was very fond of (hit sort of thing,, and paid the penalty. William 111. attempted it once, but never again: the Cmillions taught him a lesson, and ho dared not attempt it again ; and from that day to this the crown has never vetoed a Bill passed by both houses of the Imperial Legislature. In the colonies, it is true, the Governor may reserve Bills for the assent of Her Majesty, who can withhold that assent. Tnere are a' least two instances in which 'that was done and we know the result. One was the convicts Prevention Act, of Victoria—an Act providing that any one coming to Victoria from Tasmania should produce a certificate of good character. That Bill was rejected twice but the third time it was allowed. In this colony, 1 am sure, Sir, you will remember, we passed a Colonial Reciprocity Act, to which Her Majesty’s assent was withheld on two o-oasions, but, on being repeated the third time, it was granted, the theory being that, although once a Bill may be rejected, yet, if it is persistently demanded by the representatives of the people, then it should he passed by tho other branches of the Legislature as a whole Now, in connection with this particular case which is now before the Honse, I would ask honourable members not to regard it as aqnes'ion of gold duty at all; if it were the beer duty or any olher duty that were in question the principle would be the same —we should be dealing with the same thing. Do not, therefore, run away with the idea that it is merely a question of taking off the gold duty. I shall not say a word on the question of the gold duty, either good or bad, but shall treat this as a question of principle only. Now, what happened ? I find, in looking over the records of this House, that in ISSI, 1883, ISS4, and 1886 —that is, four times, to my knowledge, and I believe it has been more often than that Bills have been sent np to the other Chamber for the repeal, reduct on, or abolition of the gold dntv, and they have all been iguominioiisly rejected. Then, we find the Miners’ Rich's Foes Bdl—first in troducert by myself in 1370, and again in 1881—passed this bouse. It was proposed by the Minister of Mines in 188-j ; and these Bills and proposals have all bee > rejected by the Legisla’ive Council Why, tho Honse of Lords, in its wildest mood, never dreamt of resisting the will of the Commons to that extent—our “ Lor is” have taken upon themselves more than the Lords would venture to do at homo. It must be remembered that on former occasions when Gold Duty Bills passed this Honse they were brought in by private members. 1 admit that there is so-retiring anomalous in that; but on the present occasion the Go ▼eminent have come down with the Bill anil proposed the reduction, and we have a right to assume that they have counted the covs queircos—that it has been taken into account in their financial arran’ ements, and that they are prepared to meet the consequences of the reduction of the duty. Therefore there is a stronger case than there has ever been before, inasmuch as the will of the Government is as the will of the House, anil that never was the case before. I trust that members of this House will not fail to maintain the righls and privileges of the Commons of New Zealand, as their ancestors maintained them before for the Commons of England. I cannot help quoting from the speech of Lord Pa'merston. In introducing the Bill he uttered words which we should carry home to our hearts. He said, —

“It would not have been becoming or even decent, upon an ocoaaion in which there was no appearance,at all events, of an intention to invade our functions—it would not have been right or decent for this House to have remained absolutely silent. Such a silence might have been construed into a yielding of lights and functions which we mean steadily io maintain in our tin 's,” But let us take the evidence of the Lords themselves. When this question of the repeal ot the paper duty was before the House of Lords, Earl G'-anville, in moving the second reading of the Bill, said,—an'd he put the whole question in a nutshell,

“If the Lords rejected it they would, to all intents and puqinses, impose a burden on the people. The legal technical right of rejecting”—ho continued—“ Ido not deny. Legally and technically, the Crown may reject a Bill pissed by the other two brunches of the Legislature. That, to a certain degree, is guarded by the responsibility of .he Ministers. The Crown, undoubtedly, has the technical right and prerogative to create a hundred peers to coerce this House ; but for the Crown to exercise that right would he a gross aud flagrant violation of the Constitution, The House of Commons has, 1 should also say, by the power of stopping the supplies, a right to coerce both" this House and the Crown ; but in all these instances the power is tempered by constitutional u c u;'.7e : it is tempered by prudence.” And I ask the House to bear in mind that, if the other branch of the Legislature reject a Bill remitting taxation, it is a far mo-e serious matter than the rejection of a Bill imposing taxation. Lord Hufferin also said this :

“ The very fact of yonr assent being required is a sufficient proof of your power of rejection, and I can quite conceive that the occasion may arise when it would be your duty to exercise that power. 1 cannot, however, but think that we should be acting contrary to usage and to the spirit of the Constitution in resorting to the extreme exercise of our power, except upon the most urgent and solemn occasions

1 doubt very much wheiher there has been a single instance in which a financial scheme initiated in the House of Commons has been interfered with in this House except on

political or economic considerations." As for Mr Gladstone, be denounced the thing in unmeasured terms, and designated the action of the Lords cs " a gigantic innovation—the most gigantic and most dangerous attempted in our tim?.” 1 will not take up the time of the -House any longer ; bnt, before sitting down, I have a few words to read from the truest Englishman among them all Mr John Bright said this : “Our taxes are drawn from the capital of the country, from the skill of its population, from the toil of all those who work ; and I say that we shall have reason for ever to be ashamed of ourselves, —that onr children will have to be ashamed that they come from us, - if we do not now resist every attempt to take from the Honse of Commons that Which tho Constitution haa given to them ; and which we find to be essential to our security and our freedom—namely, the absolute, the irreversible, and uncontrolled management of the taxation and finances of this kingdom." These noble words, addressed by John Bright to the people "f England, I repeat to the Common? of N'nw Zanlanrl