The amount of the tax—five millions and a-half—large as it was, did not afford, he said, an adequate idea of the mag nitude of the question ; and he described at some length the powerful effect which this tax, had it been resorted to at an early period of our fiscal difficulties, would have had in keep ing down the accumulation of debt. From the calculations he made he deduced a proof that, if the efficacy of this great engine were not destroyed, it would afford us the means, should hostilities unhappily break out, of at once raising an army of 300,000 troops and a^ fleet of 100,000 seamen, with other auxiliary aids, that would put this country in a condition to defy the world. Forty years ago, at a period of violent struggles, it enabled this country to raise an income above the expenses of the civil Government, and in 1542, in a time of peace, its giant aid produced as remar kable results, and it might now assist us in completing the reform of our commercial system and with ours that of other nations. Assuming, then, that in the view of the House and of the Government, it was not consistent with a due regard to the public interests to dispense with this tax, he acknowledged that, in his opinion it was not well adapted to be a permanent part of our fiscal system, unless its inequalities could be removed, the attempt-to effect which would open social questions of some import ance, and the evils of the inherent principle of self-assessment could never be satisfactorily corrected. Although called a tax, it was more nearly a code or complicated system of taxa- OnA ft If he took the total receipts of the tax at t°,^n'^ 0 ' one-'wenty-eighth-part would be £,200 000. ISow, lands and houses under schedule A paid no less than £2,400,000 or twelve twenty-eighths of the whole tax • and trades paid £1,800,000, or nine-twenty-ekrhths: so that these two together paid three-fourths ot the whole tax, while professions paid about one-twenty-second part. 