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The 1830 budget and repeal: Parliament and public opinion in Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Martin McElroy
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Extract

During the budget speech of 1830, Henry Goulburn, the chancellor of the exchequer, announced: ‘On the people of that country [Ireland] the same stamp duties will be imposed as are imposed here.’ The government planned ‘to assimilate the laws relating to the stamp duties in different parts of the empire to place the management of the whole of that branch of the revenue under the Stamp-Office in England.’ This proposal was one of several announced by Goulburn to counter the economic slump that the United Kingdom was experiencing after a number of poor harvests. Along with specific measures designed to relieve distress, the Wellington government aimed at ensuring there was no loss of revenue in order to prevent further government borrowing.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 141 , May 2008 , pp. 38 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2008

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References

1 Hansard 2, xxiii, 320.

2 Jupp, P. J., British politics on the eve of reform: the duke of Wellington’s administration, 1828–30 (London, 1998), pp 142-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a general overview of economic discontent, see Gash, Norman, Aristocracy and people: Britain 1815–65 (London, 1991 ed.), pp 188-9Google Scholar. For examples of economic distress and discontent in Ireland at this time, see Southern Reporter, 12 Feb. 1830; Freeman’s Journal (hereafter F.J.), 17 Feb., 1 July 1830; Limerick Evening Post and Clare Sentinel, 1, 25 June 1830.

3 Jenkins, Brian, Henry Goulburn 1784–1856: apolitical biography (Liverpool, 1996), p. 210Google Scholar. For Cabinet divisions and discussions about the financial problems in 1830, see Colchester, Lord (ed.), A political diary 1828–1830 by Edward Law, Lord Ellenborough (2 vols, London, 1881), ii, 209-13Google Scholar; Jenkins, Goulburn, pp 212–15; Jupp, Brit, pol., pp 141–2. The budget proposals also included provision for an increased level of duty on Irish and Scottish spirits.

4 The British and Irish treasuries (1817) and customs and excise departments (1823) had already been amalgamated. In 1827 the commissioners of stamps in Britain were made commissioners for the United Kingdom as a whole. McCavery, Trevor, ‘Politics, public finance and the British-Irish Act of Union of 1801’ in R. Hist. Soc. Trans., 6th ser., x (2000), pp 372-4Google Scholar. McDowell, R. B., The Irish administration, 1801–1914 (London, 1964), pp 88–92.Google Scholar

5 Seventeenth report of the commissioners of inquiry into the collection and management of the revenue arising in Ireland, Scotland &c. Stamp revenue in Ireland, H.C. (1828) xv, 8, 1. See, in particular, pp 37, 42, 207–8. The report showed that the difference in the rates of stamp duties varied enormously between Ireland and England, and it was hoped that assimilation would provide a clearer system.

6 Goulburn, Henry to Fitzgerald, Maurice, 17 July 1830 (P.R.O.N.I., Fitzgerald papers, MIC/639/13/7/68, p. 112)Google Scholar. Inglis believes that the Irish newspaper editors should have realised that assimilation was on the agenda from this time. Inglis, Brian, The freedom of the press in Ireland, 1784–1841 (London, 1953), p. 191.Google Scholar

7 An account of the number of stamps issued to each newspaper in Ireland, during each quarter from 5th January 1830 to 5th January 1832, H.C. 1831–32 (242), xxiv, 123.

8 Westminster Review, Oct., 1829, pp 89–90. Inglis, Freedom of the press, p. 168.

9 The total number of stamps issued to all newspapers in Ireland in the year ending 5 Jan. 1830 was 3,953,550. This figure included 1,691,037 stamps for country papers and 2,262,513 for Dublin newspapers. There were 797,706 stamps issued to newspapers based in Munster (approximately twenty per cent of the total), but of this, there was a wide variation on a county-by-county basis, with the counties with the large urban centres dominating: Clare 16,425; Cork 353,231; Kerry 31,575; Limerick 208,475; Tipperary 83,410; Waterford 104,590. The largest newspapers were the Southern Reporter (167,820 stamps), the Limerick Chronicle (138,750) and the Cork Constitution (132,451). The smallest papers were the Kerry Evening Post (4,075) and the Ennis Chronicle (7,950). See the Irish University Press series on British parliamentary papers: Newspapers (2 vols, Shannon, 1971), ii, 85–7.

10 For more detailed information on this development in Munster, see McElroy, Martin, ‘A study of Munster politics in an era of transition c. 1825–35’ (Ph.D. thesis, Queen’s University Belfast, 2003), pp 17–113Google Scholar. See also Jupp, Peter, ‘Government, Parliament and politics in Ireland’ in Hoppit, Julian (ed.), Parliaments, nations and identities in Britain and Ireland, 1660–1850 (Manchester, 2003), pp 160-1.Google Scholar

11 The duty on paper in Ireland was 2s. and the duty on advertisements was 2s. 6d., meaning that newspapers at this time had to cost 5 or 6d. for the publisher to have any chance of making a profit. The proposals put forward by the government would have resulted in the Irish newspapers having to pay 4d. for the stamp duty on paper and an increased rate for advertisements. See Inglis, Freedom of the press, p. 192. For an overview of the press in Britain and Ireland at this time, see Aspinall, Arthur, Politics and the press, c. 1780–1850 (London, 1949).Google Scholar

12 Inglis, Freedom of the press, pp 190, 192.

13 Commons Jn., lxxxv, 533.

14 Waterford Mail, 21 Apr. 1830 (original emphasis). The Waterford Mail received approximately £143 from the government for printing proclamations between 1829 and 1830.

15 A return of the sums paid to newspapers in Ireland, from the 5th January 1829 to 5th January 1830, for printing proclamations, H.C. 1830 (120), xxv, 371.

16 Inglis, Freedom of the press, pp 192–3.

17 Meeting of the chamber of commerce held on 23 Mar. 1830 (Waterford Chamber of Commerce minute books, book 2/3 (private possession)). I am grateful to the president of the Chamber of Commerce for allowing me access to these minutes.

18 Copy of notice/requisition sent to the Right Worshipful Lord Mayor of Waterford. (N.L.I., Wyse papers, MS 15030 (2)). The petition from Waterford was sent to Thomas Spring Rice via Sir John Newport (Newport to Spring Rice, 11 June 1830 (N.L.I., Monteagle papers, MS 13,370 (5))).

19 Waterford Chronicle, 1 May 1830.

20 Commons Jn., lxxxv, 394–5.

21 Whyte, Nicholas Charles to LordGower, Francis Leveson, 4 June 1830 (N.A.I., C.S.O.R.P./1800/5075).Google Scholar

22 Tipperary Free Press, 5 May 1830.

23 F.J., 13 May 1830.

24 Southern Reporter, 19 May 1830.

25 Commons Jn., lxxxv, 403–5.

26 Ibid., pp 503, 533–4, 628.

27 F.J., 7 May 1830.

28 Ibid., 13 May 1830.

29 Ibid., 1, 13 May 1830; Waterford Chronicle, 8 May 1830.

30 Tralee Mercury, 26 May 1830.

31 F.J., 25 June 1830; Southern Reporter, 12 June 1830.

32 Southern Reporter, 8, 12 June 1830.

33 N.L.I., Monteagle papers, MS 548. Resolution five stated ‘That the increased duty on newspaper and advertisements, so far from adding to the revenue, cannot fail to occasion a very considerable loss. That in its effect it will be fatal to the Irish press and will again deprive many deserving and industrious persons of their mode of livelihood; that it will check the progress of knowledge and diminish the force of activity by which public opinion exercises a salutary and efficient control over public men and public measures, closing an organ through which the feelings and wishes of the Irish people may be expressed and circulated.’

34 F.J., 7 May 1830. The Freeman’s Journal calculated that only eleven Irish MPs would vote with the government (10 May 1830).

35 Waterford Chronicle, 29 May 1830.

36 Barrow, J. H. (ed.), The mirror of parliament, 1st series (1830), ii, 1765.Google Scholar

37 Hansard 2, xxiv, 449. Unless Thomas Spring Rice was quoted inaccurately, this was an incorrect assertion. The amount of duty on advertisements in Irish newspapers never reached £26,000 between 1810 and 1829. The highest amount of advertising duty raised was in 1813 when approximately £21,253 was collected. The usual amount ranged between £15-20,000 per year. Spring Rice perhaps confused the amount of stamp duty on newspapers with those on advertisements. That he did this deliberately to highlight the contrast is a matter of conjecture. An account of the amount of stamp duties on advertisements received each of the last twenty years in Ireland, H.C. 1830 (406), xxv, 363.

38 Hansard 2, xxiv, 762.

39 Duke of Wellington to marquis of Downshire, 1 June 1830 in Wellesley, A. R., second duke of Wellington (ed.), Despatches, correspondence and memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur duke of Wellington (5 vols, London, 1867-80), vii, 72-3.Google Scholar

40 Waterford Chronicle, 3 June 1830.

41 F.J., 10 May 1830 (original emphasis).

42 Maurice FitzGerald to duke of Wellington, 10 June 1830 in Wellesley (ed.), Despatches, vii, pp 80–1.

43 Colchester (ed.), Ellenborough, ii, 275.

44 Meara, George to LordBeresford, George, 30 Apr. 1830 (P.R.O.N.I., Beresford papers, D/664/A/133).Google Scholar

45 For the 1826 election in Waterford, see O’Ferrall, Fergus, Catholic emancipation: Daniel O’Connell and the birth of Irish democracy 1820–30 (Dublin, 1985), pp 121-33.Google Scholar

46 Hansard 2, xxv, 783.

47 Morning Register, 3 July 1830. The Morning Register urged the electorate to try ‘the efficacy of votes’ to convince Peel (original emphasis).

48 F.J., 26 July 1830.

49 See, for example, Tralee Mercury, 31 July 1830; Waterford Chronicle, 31 July 1830.

50 Proceedings of the election for the city of Cork, which commenced on Wednesday the 4th August 1830 (Cork, 1830), pp 10–15.

51 Waterford Chronicle, 14 Aug. 1830.

52 Tralee Mercury, 14 Aug. 1830.

53 This type of analysis has been supported by some historians. Bayly suggests that the fiscal-military state was reconfigured in England and the Scottish Lowlands, and the costs then exported to the Celtic fringe (especially Ireland and the Scottish Highlands) and India. Taxpayers in these areas therefore paid a higher proportion to the British state (cited in Daunton, Martin, Trusting Leviathan: the politics of taxation in Britain, 1799–1914 (Cambridge, 2001), p. 125Google Scholar). In contrast, others have shown that British economic policy towards the Celtic fringe was more positive. Anna Gambles argues that the state used ‘what amounted to regional fiscal subsidies’ to develop the fishing industries of Ireland and Scotland. This would help these ‘economically backward regions to cohere within a politically united nation’; Gambles, Anna, ‘Free trade and state formation: the political economy of fisheries policy in Britain and the United Kingdom circa 1780–1850’ in Journal of British Studies, xxxix (2000), p. 292.Google Scholar

54 F.J., 12 Apr. 1830.

55 Tralee Mercury, 5 June 1830.

56 Cusack, M. F., The speeches and public letters of the Liberator; with preface and historical notes (2 vols, Dublin, 1875), i, 79.Google Scholar

57 MacDonagh, Oliver, O’Connell: the life of Daniel O’Connell 1775–1847 (London, 1991), pp 316-17.Google Scholar

58 F.J., 27 Apr. 1830.

59 For details on the freemen, see Hill, Jacqueline, From patriots to unionists: Dublin civic politics and Irish Protestant patriotism (Oxford, 1997), pp 331, 349–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For O’Connell’s attempts to win Protestant support in Dublin, see MacDonagh, O’Connell, pp 351–3; O’Ferrall, Fergus, Daniel O’Connell (Dublin, 1998), pp 84-6.Google Scholar

60 Abercromby, James to LordCarlisle, , 30 Dec. 1830 (transcripts from Carlisle papers by Prof. Arthur Aspinall, formerly in possession of the late Prof. Peter Jupp and made available to the author).Google Scholar

61 Musgrave, John to FitzGerald, Maurice, 22 Nov. 1830(P.R.O.N.I., MIC/639/13/7/95, p. 156).Google Scholar

62 O’Connell, Daniel to Staunton, Michael, 11 Oct. 1830Google Scholar in O’Connell, M. R. (ed.), The correspondence of Daniel O’Connell (7 vols, Dublin and Shannon, 1972-80), iv, 213-14.Google Scholar

63 Wyse submitted a detailed plan for a non-denominational education system to Edward Stanley, the Irish chief secretary, in December 1830. Stanley took up the issue in September 1831, and introduced a bill that formed the basis of the national education system. See Auchmuty, James Johnston, Sir Thomas Wyse 1791–1862: the life and times of an educator and diplomat (London, 1939), pp 152-8.Google Scholar

64 O’Brien, William Smith to Wyse, Thomas, 16 Jan. 1832 (N.L.I., MS 15025 (1)).Google Scholar

65 O’Ferrall, Catholic emancipation, p. 280.

66 The frantic reaction to the 1830 taxation proposals also shows the increasingly important position that the Irish press was attaining in the late Georgian era. Inglis, focusing mainly on the Dublin press, argues that the idea that newspapers were a ‘fourth estate’ had taken root by the 1820s (Freedom of the press, p. 16).

67 See MacDonagh, O’Connell, pp 319–20; O’Ferrall, Daniel O’Connell, p. 79; Tuathaigh, Gearóid Ó, Ireland before the Famine 1798–1848 (Dublin, 1990), pp 167-8Google Scholar. In a more recent general survey of Ireland in the past two centuries, Alvin Jackson suggests that O’Connell, began his repeal agitation ‘but only apparently as an experiment and as a means of increasing his political capital’ (Ireland 1798–1998: politics and war (Oxford, 1999), p. 38)Google Scholar. The evidence presented in this article would suggest that there was much more to the campaign.