Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria.
THE INCOME TAX BILL
South Street, 19th June 1842.
Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and offers many thanks for the letter, which he received yesterday evening. Lord Melbourne is very glad to hear that your Majesty has enjoyed in the society of your near and dear relations so much happiness, which, like all other things, must have its portion of alloy in their departure. Lord Melbourne was much pleased with the short conversation which he had with Count Mensdorff at Stafford House, and it is highly interesting to see at this distance of time a man who has been engaged in affairs so important and of so awful and melancholy a character. Your Majesty is surely right in terming your cousins young men; if the health and constitution be good, thirty-six is a young man, twenty-nine and thirty-two very young men, and twenty-five quite a boy. The weather has been very hot but very fine. The rain was so much required that Lord Melbourne cannot lament its coming, but he also regrets the hot suns which it has banished.
The course which had been taken upon the Income Tax in the House of Commons,40 contrary to Lord Melbourne's wish and opinion, rendered it impossible for Lord Melbourne directly to support the Bill in the House of Lords without offending and separating himself from the whole body of those who supported the last Government.
He therefore acquiesced in the resolution, which was moved by Lord Lansdowne, and which did not oppose the measure, but declared that it might have been avoided if the course which we had proposed had been taken. In the debate Lord Melbourne argued as strongly as he could in favour of the tax, and ended by declaring that if it was imposed, he could not pledge himself for the future against maintaining and even extending it. Lord Melbourne is anxious to make this explanation of his conduct to your Majesty, and hopes therefore that your Majesty will forgive his writing thus much upon this subject. Lord Melbourne very much lamented that the business did not terminate as amiably as it began, and that a contest should have been got into respecting the third reading of the Bill; but considering that the measure had passed by accident through its first stages without any debate, and that there were Lords who were still desirous of speaking upon it, it was imprudent of the Ministers not at once to give another day for that purpose, especially as they were sure to be compelled to do so by repeated motions of adjournment.
The feelings which your Majesty expresses upon the conviction of this man41 are natural, and such as must arise in your Majesty's bosom; but Lord Melbourne knows very well that your Majesty will at once see the necessity of not yielding to your own feelings, and of leaving the issue entirely in the hands of your advisers.
Without any reference to personal or particular circumstances, without adverting to your Majesty's age, sex, qualities mental or personal, without attending to any sentiments of attachment or affection which may be felt for your Majesty's person, it must be remembered that your Majesty's life is, from the position which you occupy and the office which you fill, the most important life in these realms; it is also too clear that it is the most exposed life in the country, the life the most obnoxious42 to danger; and therefore it is a duty to throw around it every protection which the law and the execution of the law can afford.
Lord Melbourne was sure that your Majesty, being fond of speed, would be delighted with the railway. Lord Melbourne hopes that your Majesty was not much affected by the heat, which he feared that you would be.