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would put the Bill itself. Moft Noble Lords approved the principle of the Bill, and yet that would be fet at hazard if any alteration were made in the claufes. The Bill was avowedly a money Bill; and though he would not impeach, in the fmallest degree, the right of the House to make any amendment or alteration whatsoever in every Bill that came before them, be it of what nature or defcription it might; yet they all knew the practice of the other House, in regard to money Bills, in which their Lordships made any alteration. Would it, therefore, on confiderations of difcretion or prudence, be wife to run the risk of lofing the Bill? Even fuppofing that the other House were to bring in a new Bill, adopting the alteration; that would be open to new difcuffion and new objections, if started. Much time would, therefore, be loft by rejecting the claufe; and a new Bill might not pass. Befides, the Noble Duke, if he understood him rightly, had propofed no modification of the claufe, but a total rejection of it. For these reasons, his Lordship faid, he fhould vote for the claufe as it stood.

The Duke of Norfolk confeffed, that he had no modification. to propofe; he really faw not how the claufe could be altered, fo as to cure and remove his objection. He could by no means agree that all mafters of families would pay the tax for their fervants; but, on the contrary, muft contend, that they would be unwilling either to pay the tax for their domeftics, or to fuffer them all to wear powder; and the hardship would lie in their acting upon that feeling, and yet be rendered liable to incur the penalty, under certain circumstances. He was a firm friend to the principle of the tax; but he was perfuaded, fo far from its being an improper thing for their Lordships to interfere with the regulations of a tax Bill, they were in this instance bound to protect the matters of families from unneceffary hardship and oppreffion-and fuch, he contended, the operation and effect of the claufe in question, if paffed into a law, would prove. He denied that the claufe could, properly fpeaking, be deemed a money claufe; and he reminded their Lordships of their frequent practice in refpect to Enclosure Bills, where they without fcruple altered clauses, and without any danger to the Bills. There were, he obferved, generally two parties to an Enclosure Bill; one party, who were interested in the paffing of the Bill, and gave it their supportthe other, adverse to it, and who oppofed it in every stage; and yet when they altered or rejected claufes in an Enclosure Bill at their difcretion, the other Houfe did not complain of it, but adopted their Lordships amendments, and paffed the Bill fo amended. His Grace faid, he did not by any means

wish to discommend the jealousy of the other House, in respect to the great conftitutional queftion of money Bills; he believed great good to the Public had arifen from it. Having put this ftrongly, the Duke faid he had heard nothing that in his mind was a fufficient answer to his former argument-he fhould, therefore, perfift in his objection to the claufe: And he accordingly moved that the claufe be rejected, declaring his intention to take the fenfe of the House upon it.

The Earl of Guildford rofe again to fupport the motion; he declared he could not agree with the Noble and Learned Lord's position, that masters of families would pay for their fervants; he thought the reverfe was much more likely to be the cafe; and on that idea he founded his argument against the claufe in question-it was on that ground that he rested his objection, as he faw clearly that a mafter who disapproved of the practice among fervants of wearing hair-powder, and who was far from withing all his fervants to wear it, might in fome cafes either be obliged to pay for a fervant's wearing it, or incur the penalty. The Earl admitted that the Noble and Learned Lord's arguments were good, if it were the principle of the Bill, or the tax itfelf, that they were oppofing; but that was not the cafe. He for one highly approved the tax itself, and therefore he wished to render it as palatable as poffible to those who were to pay for it. Suppofing even that the Commons were to throw out the Bill on account of the alteration, the Commons would do as they had done in various other inftances; they would bring in another Bill, nearly the fame, nay, the very fame, as that they threw out, and pafs it in a few days, fo that scarcely any time would be loft. But there was another confideration, and that a material one, viz. that the claufe would be perfectly nugatory for one year at least, and for that period would have no effective operation at all. The claufe required every master of a family to give in a lift of fuch of his fervants as wore powder between the 5th of April in one year and the 5th of April following; the prefent Bill was not to commence before the 6th of May, confequently no mafter of a family could comply with the claufe, as far as related to the period of time between the 10th of April 1795 and the 5th of April 1796. His Lordflip concluded with declaring, that if the Noble Duke did take the fenfe of the Houfe, he should certainly vote with his Grace.

Lord Auckland faid, that undoubtedly the Bill would be rejected by the other Houfe, if the claufe under difcuffion fhould either be omitted or modified: But without meaning to difparage a pretenfion of the Houfe of Commons, which was founded on great conftitutional principles, he fhould fill

think it his duty, as a Peer of Parliament, to make in money Bills any alteration that he might think fubftantial, or of fufficient importance to compenfate the delay of a few days. But having faid this, he must add, that the claufe objected to by the Noble Duke, did not appear to him to be affected by any of the reasons that had been brought against it. The general principle of the tax was not difputed. The emergency of the times, the effential interests of the country, had induced a neceffity to impofe new taxes: A tax on the wearers of hairpowder, though liable, as all taxes are, to fome objections, was admitted to be one of the leaft objectionable that could be brought forward. If then it were a right tax to be impofed, it seemed to be a neceffary confequence, that their Lordships muft concur in rendering it fully and juftly productive: The claufe in queftion was for that purpofe. It had been faid of that claufe, that it converted mafters of families into common informers. But was there not more fenfibility than good sense in this objection? was it not a mere play upon words? Of what were masters of families to be informers? Of the number of perfons within their household, who to their knowledge and belief ought to pay the tax. They were accordingly to give in an annual lift of the names of fuch perfons. If those perfons had paid, the lift would ferve to fhew the exactitude of the family: If there fhould be any in the lift who had not paid, it would fubject them to be called upon to do what in ftrict integrity they ought to have done voluntarily. And furely it was to be wifhed, both in a moral and political fenfe, that one part of a family fhould not be permitted to avoid its fhare of the public burdens, whilst the other part was honeftly bearing its full proportion of them. His Lordship confeffed, that when he first heard the objection of his Noble Friend (the Earl of Guildford), that for the current year's operation of the Bill the claufe would be nugatory, on account of its directing that a lift was to be made out in each year, between the roth and 19th of April in the prefent year 1795, up to the 5th of April 1796; whereas it would not commence its operation prior to the 6th of May; it had ftruck him as an objection of fome weight against the claufe, infomuch that for a moment he had imagined it would be wise either to amend or reject the clause, even if it should affect the Bill in another place; hoping in that cafe that a new Bill might be brought in, and paffed in time, to lose not a single day's effect of the produce of the tax. Upon maturer confideration, however, it occurred to him, that even come to the worst, the inconvenience would not be very great; as the mafter of the family, when called upon to pay for fuch of his fervants named

in his lift as wore powder, in cafe the fact were fo, might eafily clear himself, by faying, " It is true, fuch of my fervants as are stated in my lift to have worn powder, did wear it in April laft; but on or before the 6th day of May, when the operation of the Act commenced, they left off wearing powder, and have not worn it fince."

Lord Hay rofe again, and commended the tax as an admirable one, but wifhed it to be made lefs objectionable in respect to the claufe in queftion: His Lordship was proceeding to explain the grounds of his opinion, when he was reminded by feveral Noble Lords near him, that he had either read the clause inattentively, or mifapprehended its effect. His Lordhip, therefore, proceeded no farther.

The Duke of Norfolk faid, it was because he was a friend to the tax, and wifhed it to be efficacious, that he was so earnest to rescue masters of families from the operation of a clause, which, he muft ftill infift, did not at all tend to further the object of the Bill. His Grace faid, he wifhed to render the tax at once productive and palatable to those who were to pay it, and therefore he fhould perfift in his motion,

The Earl of Moira concurred in the fame fentiment, and affigned his reafons for it.

At length, the question being put, the Lords divided:
Contents (that the clause stand)

Not Contents

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The report of the Committee was then agreed to, when Lord Mulgrave rofe, and expreffed his regret that he had not been earlier in the House, as he meant to recommend to their Lordships confideration and relief a moft meritorious. clafs of men, on whom the tax would operate in a manner not burdenfome in point of fact, for they could not poffibly afford to pay it, but in a manner extremely mortifying to their pride, and deeply wounding to their feelings: He meant the officers in the army on half-pay, who did not receive 100l. a year, or any thing like half that amount. His Lordfhip faid, he had obferved with fatisfaction that a claufe ftood in the Bill, by which clergymen, whofe income did not amount to 100l. a year, were exempted from payment of the duty. In like manner he wifhed to fee the half-pay officers of the army exempted, than whom, he well knew from long acquaintance with their merit, a fet of men better entitled to confideration did not exift. His Lordship defcribed the fituation of half-pay officers with great force and feeling-full of honourable scars, difabled by wounds, and worn down in the service of their country, they were compelled to retire to fome obfcure village or hamlet, there to eke out their scanty pittance of pay, and poorly provide for their fubfiftence. How

cruel

cruel was it then to hurt the honeft pride and wound the fine feelings of fuch worthy beings, and the more especially when it might be fo eafily avoided, as he would take upon him to affert, that not a fhilling more would be produced by the tax, if an exemption in the favour of those whofe caufe he was pleading were not admitted. The extending the tax to half-pay officers would fink them in their own confideration and degrade them in that of the Public; they would feel themfelves forced out of their rank in the community, and deprived of the means of appearing in that line of refpectability, to which their honourable fervices and established merit gave them fo ample a claim. Having urged their just pretenfions to protection and even partial favour in terms of great energy and impreffive eloquence, his Lordship begged to be informed, what was the earlieft day on which he could regularly move a clause of exemption in behalf of the half-pay officers of the

army.

The Earl of Moira faid, he concurred with the Noble Lord in every part of his argument. The Noble Lord had treated the matter of it in fo powerful a manner that he had left but little indeed for him to add. That defcription of men, the half-pay officers, certainly deferved every poffible confideration and favour; many of them had been reduced to half-pay much against their own inclinations; having been fo reduced, let it be recollected that they could not accept of any office or employ, without forfeiting their half-pay. Scanty therefore as their pittance was, they were by law difabled from increafing it, uniefs they chofe to forfeit their rank, forget that they had bled in the fervice of their country, and mingle again with the common mals of mankind, forgetful of what they held the deareft pride of their hearts, the military merit that had diftinguifhed them among their brother officers. How muft fuch men, the Earl faid, find their feelings hurt, when they faw the curate of the village, or the fubalterns on full pay, of the fame rank with themselves, powdered out, and by the comparison could not but be confcious that they ftood in the eyes of all around them degraded, by being incapacitated from making the fame figure and appearance as gentlemen in fociety, which they had from their firft entrance into the army been accustomed to make? Would not they be forced to confider themselves as men marked out for difgrace, and fit to be ftigmatised on account of their poverty? Let their cafe be put on the strongest poffible grounds, let an exemption from the tax in their favour be even deemed an act of charity, it would be a charity that would carry a peculiar grace with it, and their Lordthips would have the fatisfaction to find that the beneficence of the Legiflature had done honour to the nation. In every way that the

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